Rethinking the American Revolution as a Global Conflict

Professor of History Richard Bell’s new book reframes America’s founding conflict as a war fought across empires, oceans and everyday lives.

By Jessica Weiss ’05

In the most common retelling, the American Revolution ended in 1781 at Yorktown, where combined American and French forces, led by George Washington, trapped and forced the surrender of British General Cornwallis’ army. 

But in fact, the war’s final battle was fought thousands of miles away—in southern India, in 1783. Due to slow communication, French forces and their Indian allies were unaware that the preliminary peace treaty had already been signed in Paris.

It’s a detail that upends the familiar rebels-versus-redcoats story.

And for Richard Bell, professor of history, it’s a doorway into a significant argument: America’s founding fight was a world war in all but name, entangling empires, reshaping trade routes and displacing people across the Atlantic world and beyond. 

That’s the topic of his new book, “The American Revolution and the Fate of the World,” published in November by Penguin Random House. Bell also teaches the course “Globalizing the American Revolution” at Maryland. 

We recently spoke to him. 

Tell us about your research for this book. 

It came from me pulling together lots of diverse scholarship—work being done in a dozen different subfields—and trying to say something original and useful. It became my COVID project: I went to McKeldin [Library] and raided the shelves for books and articles on various obscure topics. For instance, scholars working on Spain’s role in the Revolution don’t always get to “talk” to scholars working on Irish involvement. I wanted to break down those silos and see what happens to that scholarly conversation when it becomes a truly global one.

What were the “lightbulb” moments in terms of making your argument? 

When places like India and Australia start showing up in your research with some regularity, you can’t continue to pretend that the American Revolution was only a regional war. Two details really did it for me. One: the settlement of Australia as a British penal colony in 1788 is a direct result of American independence, because Britain lost access to the colonies as a potential dumping ground for British prisoners. And two: the last battle of the American Revolution was fought in Cuddalore, India, in June 1783. After that, it became pretty easy to see that this was actually a global war. 

You made a deliberate choice to write this for a broad audience—and even narrate the audiobook yourself. Why?

I wanted the largest possible megaphone. I think these ideas—that the American Revolution is a significant event in global history—are still unfamiliar to many folks, and I wanted as many readers as possible to engage with them. So as a writing challenge, I set myself the task of trying to make complicated ideas and major flows of people and goods and ideas as easy to digest as possible. I settled on storytelling and on selecting several key characters to carry the weight of major parts of the story. And because I teach and lecture constantly, I write with the ear in mind. Narrating the audiobook felt like a fun extension of that.

Let’s talk about one of those characters: William Russell. His story is so gripping. 

Russell was a Boston schoolteacher who went to war as a privateer—basically a government-licensed pirate. The Patriots didn’t actually have a Navy, so privateering became a kind of shadow navy. They raided British merchant shipping, captured cargo and really sent a message that there would be an economic cost of Britain continuing to wage war. Yet, Russell’s luck is spectacularly bad. After his ship is captured, he’s confined as a prisoner of war on Britain's south coast. When he's released, he is sent back to America and immediately reenlists as a privateer again and is immediately captured—again! This second time he’s incarcerated in a British merchant vessel that's been demasted and zombified, a floating hulk in Brooklyn Bay in New York Harbor called the Jersey. 

And then there’s Harry Washington—one of those stories you finish and think, “How have I never heard this?”

Harry Washington should be famous. He was enslaved by George Washington at Mount Vernon, he escaped and joined British forces in Virginia after they promised lifelong freedom to enslaved people owned by Patriot masters. He fought and served with the British Army until the end of the war. Then, when Britain lost the war, he became part of a massive refugee movement—first to Nova Scotia in British Canada, and then to Sierra Leone in West Africa. It was promoted as a post-racist paradise where Black refugees of the Revolution would have genuine civil and political rights. Yet, it was a mirage and, by around 1800, Harry and other Black refugees of the Revolution were leading their own independence movement against British rule in West Africa. 

I think these key characters really carry the weight of major parts of the story.

Readers who love “Hamilton” may catch some familiar lines in the book. Was that intentional—or is the soundtrack just always playing in your head?

Yes. I’m a “Hamilton” superfan and the soundtrack is indeed always in my head, and every now and then I’ll drop in a phrase or a line from the musical into the book to express what I’m getting at. Lin-Manuel Miranda did such an extraordinary job popularizing this period of American history for general audiences. Sometimes the music just captures something perfectly, like describing Lafayette as “America’s favorite fighting Frenchman.” 

With America250 approaching, what do you most want readers to take from this book?

That America’s founding fight, the War for American Independence, pulled in actors from very diverse backgrounds—many, many of them non-citizens choosing to fight for the Patriot cause.

And second, that in the American Revolution, it was never America first or America alone. It was always America among the powers of the earth, building coalitions, trying to do something big by reaching out and forming alliances.

Bell will speak at McKeldin Library as part of the Speaking of Books series on Tuesday, February 17th at 3 p.m.

Top image: Naval battle between a French and a British squadron in August 1779. Auguste-Louis de Rossel de Cercy, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons