The Common Cause: Creating Race and Nation in the American Revolution

"Common cause" was a phrase often utilized in Europe during the 18th century to justify imperial alliances against a shared enemy. In this engrossing monograph, Parkinson (history, Binghamton Univ.) recounts how colonial leaders, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin, co-opted the phrase through colonial newspapers to bind the 13 colonies to fight the American Revolution. Their aims were achieved through the constant publication of inflammatory articles alleging that Great Britain was arming Native Americans and Africans to wage war on the respective colonies. While kernels of truth existed in a fraction of the stories, they were at best gross exaggerations, if not outright fabrications. The consequence of the tactic was that when the war was over, it ensured that there was no place in the new country for Native peoples or Africans and their descendants. This included those people of color who were devoted patriots who had fought and died alongside the colonists for the common cause.