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- From the Introduction, Part One, "Colonization and Revolution, 1607-1790,"
page 3:
"Modern America had its beginnings in a crisis-ridden Feudal Europe. In the
fifteenth century, rulers and men of commerce began a frantic worldwide search
for new sources of wealth. They created a vast new Atlantic system of
expropriation and exchange which, over the next three centuries, linked together
and dramatically transformed Africa, America, and even Europe itself. The
violent seizure of New World land from its Indian inhabitants, the settlement
and growth of Europe's New World societies, and the transportation of millions
of enslaved Africans made possible a massive accumulation of wealth in Europe.
In the process, capitalism - a new economic system with accompanying social
values and political ideologies - emerged in Europe and subsequently in North
America."
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- From Chapter Two, "Slavery and the Growth of the Southern Colonies," page
69:
"Slaves' resistance took many forms. In South Carolina, slaves involved in
rice production often burned down the barns where the harvested rice was stored.
This October 14, 1732, letter, printed in the South Carolina Gazette,
reveals how common the slave 'custom' of barn-burning had become in one part of
the colony."I HAVE TAKEN Notice for Several Years past, that there has
not one Winter elapsed, without one or more Barns being burnt, and two Winters
since, there was no less than five. Whether it is owing to Accident,
Carelessness, or Severity, I will not pretend to determine; but am afraid,
chiefly to the [latter two causes]. I desire therefore, as a Friend to the
Planters, that you'll insert the following Account from Pon Pon, which, I hope,
will forewarn the Planters of their Danger, and make them for the future, more
careful and human:
About 3 weeks since, Mr. James Gray worked his Negroes late in his Barn
at Night, and the next Morning before Day, hurried them out again, and when they
came to it, found it burnt down to the Ground, and all that was in
it.
- *From Chapter Four, "The Greatness of this Revolution," page 177:
"In a broader sense, the [American] Revolution also revealed the capacity of
ordinary people to alter the very process of history. As Tom Paine cautioned in
Common Sense, 'Kings are not taken away by miracles, neither are
changes in governments brought about by any other means than such as are common
and human; and such as we are using now.' As the opening act in the cataclysmic
"Age of Revolution" that would quickly spread to France and beyond, the American
Revolution - the first successful colonial war for liberation - demonstrated for
subsequent generations the growing power of popular movements literally to make
history."
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