September 10, 1999

'Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves, and the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia'

By NINA C. AYOUB

The gentleman revolutionaries of Colonial Virginia have long been something of a paradox. Why did Jefferson, Washington, and others in the colony's de facto aristocracy choose total separation from the British Empire? One reason, answers Woody Holton, is that they were pushed.

In his new book, Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves, and the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia (Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture/University of