The American Revolution Went Way Outside of America, Pulling in Caribbean Colonies, African Forts, and Chinese Trading Houses

About this episode

The episode explores the global implications of the American Revolution, highlighting its connections to Caribbean colonies, African forts, and Chinese trading houses.

The thirteen colonies that became the United States were just  half  of the British colonies that existed in the 18th century. The empire stretched from New England, south to Georgia and Florida and the islands of the West Indies, east to India, Scotland, and Ireland, and south again to British forts on the West coast of Africa. Because of this, the revolution of 1776 wasn’t isolated to the North American eastern seaboard. It was a world-historical crisis that swept up American Indian nations, Caribbean islands, West African forts, Indian cities, Scottish drawing rooms, German principalities, Cuban harbors, Chinese trading houses, and a fledgling colony in Sierra Leone. The result is a Revolution that was on the one hand a political struggle for the 13 colonies, but it was also a genuinely global catastrophe in which Indigenous nations, enslaved Africans, German soldiers, French philosophes, Caribbean planters, Indian merchants, and Spanish generals all fought for their own competing visions of what "freedom" actually meant. Today’s guest is Sarah Pearsall, author of Freedom Round the Globe. We see how the fight for liberty went far outside the borders of…

People in this episode

Host: History Unplugged

Guest: Sarah Pearsall

Topics covered

• American Revolution
• global history
• colonialism
• freedom
• Caribbean history
• African history
• Indigenous nations

Keywords

• American Revolution
• Caribbean colonies
• African forts
• Chinese trading houses
• freedom
• Stamp Act
• global catastrophe
• Indigenous nations
• enslaved Africans
• political struggle

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: British Parliament

Places: St. Kitts, Nevis, Antigua, Sierra Leone, West Indies, North America, Caribbean, Africa, India, Scotland

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