History Forum Online: Thirteen Clocks: How Race United the Colonies, Saturday, March 30, 2024 10:00AM

Item details

Date

Saturday, March 30, 2024 10:00AM

Name

History Forum Online: Thirteen Clocks: How Race United the Colonies

Description

In his celebrated account of the origins of American unity, John Adams described July 1776 as the moment when thirteen clocks managed to strike at the same time. So how did these American colonies overcome long odds to create a durable union capable of declaring independence from Britain? In this powerful history of the fifteen tense months that culminated in the Declaration of Independence, Robert G. Parkinson provides a troubling answer: racial fear. Tracing the circulation of information in the colonial news systems that linked patriot leaders and average colonists, Parkinson reveals how the system’s participants constructed a compelling drama featuring virtuous men who suddenly found themselves threatened by ruthless Indians and defiant slaves acting on behalf of the king.

 

Biography:

Robert Parkinson is associate professor of history at Binghamton University, and the author of the award-winning The Common Cause: Creating Race and Nation in the American Revolution and Thirteen Clocks: How Race United the Colonies and Made the Declaration of Independence. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Virginia, and has held fellowships at the Omohundro Institute for Early American History & Culture and the C.V. Starr Center. His forthcoming book —The Heart of American Darkness: Empire, Revolution, and Horror in Eighteenth Century Ohio—is a study of the causes and consequences of the gruesome Yellow Creek Massacre: the murder of nine Natives on the banks of the Ohio River in 1774. It will be published in May 2024.