Description
Book SynopsisThe untold story of the “Black Boys,” a rebellion on the American frontier in 1765 that sparked the American Revolution.
Trade Review"Using lively and persuasive prose, [Spero] resets the common account of the American Revolution, moving it from New England to the perilous Western frontier and reveals that the West played a crucial role in the fight for American independence.
Frontier Rebels is an important contribution to the ongoing reassessment of the founding of the U.S." -- Bill Schwab - The Missourian
"Spero presents convincing support for his thesis that hatred of Indians and desire for their lands played a pivotal role in fomenting the revolution…[Spero delves] deeply into previously underutilized sources…Spero’s thoughtful work is an important contribution to ongoing reassessments of the nature and meaning of the American founding." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"A welcome contribution to frontier history." -- Kirkus Reviews
"Patrick Spero uses a little-known rebellion that erupted in western Pennsylvania a decade before Lexington and Concord to expose prerevolutionary America in all its ambiguity. The result is history in a grain of sand." -- Woody Holton, author of Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution
"Patrick Spero broadens the horizons on the meaning of American independence, expanding the map from the Sons of Liberty in Boston to the Black Boys on the western frontier. Both groups chose to defy British authority for Jeffersonian reasons, but harbored quite different definitions of ‘pursuit of happiness.’ Thus a long lost story that Spero tells with understated elegance." -- Joseph J. Ellis, author of American Dialogue
"Patrick Spero shines a bright light on a forgotten stream of the American Revolution, one that flowed from the Indian-hating frontiers of the west rather than from the liberty-loving cities of the east. That stream has been forgotten not just because elite easterners have written so many of our histories but because it reveals so many unsettling truths about the origins of cherished democratic values. This book is must-reading." -- Daniel K. Richter, author of Before the Revolution
"In lively and compelling prose, Patrick Spero tells the little-known story of a group of vigilantes who helped to change the course of American history." -- Michael A. McDonnell, author of The Politics of War and Masters of Empire
"Shifting his vision away from eastern ports like Boston and Philadelphia to the ‘dark and bloody ground’ of the Pennsylvania frontier, Patrick Spero offers a compelling and important new interpretation of the roots of the American Revolution, one that reveals that the independence of the new United States would come at a terrible cost to North America’s Indian peoples." -- Karl Jacoby, author of The Strange Career of William Ellis
"Based on wide reading and archival research, and written in an engaging style,
Frontier Rebels provides important and unsettling answers to the questions about the Revolution’s origins that it raises." -- Brendan McConville, Boston University, author of The King’s Three Faces
"When British general Thomas Gage received news of the Black Boys incident in 1765, he instantly smelled a larger rebellion brewing against British rule. We, too, should pay attention. In this dramatic story, Patrick Spero recaptures the significance and gravity of this struggle for independence on the early American frontier." -- David Preston, author of Braddock’s Defeat
"Riveting… Written in crystalline prose and populated by a host of colorful characters, this book is ideal for general audiences, undergraduate students, and specialists alike." -- David J. Silverman, author of Thundersticks
