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This is a complicated question. If you take into account Black participation in the Revolution, both enslaved and free, then the war was absolutely about slavery. And many Black people thought their chances of freedom were better with the British. /1 https://twitter.com/sewellchan/status/1351303218291097600
OTOH, many Black people understood the implications of the rhetoric around liberty. Look at the freedom suits in Massachusetts in the 1770s, for ex. Or Lemuel Haynes’ preaching. 2/
Yet most white Americans were not willing to accept a Revolution that freed enslaved people. Abolition proceeded by fits and starts in northern states. In southern states, legislatures expanded slavery and cut off already meager routes to freedom. 3/
I teach Virginia’s proslavery petitions from the 1780s to my students to show them how white Americans reacted to Black use of the Revolutionary language of liberty and freedom. 4/
The fact remains that the white founding generation rejected abolition as an aspect of Revolution, and they did do decidedly. The Black founding generation saw abolition as essential. It was a fundamental divide. 5/
I use Erica Dunbar’s book in my survey classes to get students thinking about that most famous of founders, George Washington, and slavery. He went to great lengths to reverse Ona Judge’s own self declaration of freedom and independence. 6/
So tl;dr, the Revolution’s relationship to slavery and enslaved people was extremely complicated; the #1776report is facile in its portrayal of the Rev as an abolitionist moment; and people should read actual historians on this question rather than the work of fascist hacks. /fin
