The American Revolution was not revolutionary.
Hear me out. Revolutions are about replacing oppressive and broken systems with just and equitable systems. Revolutions, by definition, must ensure complete structural change for the benefit of everyone, particularly those most in need.
A revolution can use force or violence to achieve its goals, but what makes a movement revolutionary is not the tactics or strategy, it is the intended outcome. A revolution is only a revolution if it pursues and achieves a better society for all. A revolution at its heart is about forfeiture. It’s the redistribution of power, wealth, and land that begins the work of overhauling oppressive systems. Only after redistribution and dismantling of these systems can a revolution go about obtaining and sustaining the promises of democracy.
Without these tenets, it’s just another war.
During the Age of Revolutions, the United States, France, and Haiti all pushed ideas of enlightenment based on liberty, equality, and inalienable rights. In many ways, this was a mirage. The newly formed United States and French Republic never intended to abolish slavery or free their colonies, even though slavery was in direct opposition to any republic attempting to claim revolution as its goal. Only Haiti succeeds in overthrowing the institution of slavery. Only Haiti becomes the first independent, Black, and free nation in the Western Hemisphere.
When we consider the aftermath of the American Revolution, nothing changes to improve the lives of indigenous Americans. Displacement and violence against them not only persisted — it proliferated. Nothing changes for Black Americans. The institution of slavery persists for nearly another hundred years. Nothing changes in the lives of women socially and politically. They had to wait another hundred and fifty years to obtain the right to vote, and are still waiting today for social and economic equality. The American Revolution did not replace an exploitative system with an equitable one, and it neither forfeited nor radically redistributed power and wealth to any marginalized groups.
In 1776, when America claimed independence from the British Empire, the Founding Fathers maintained their allegiance to slavery. In the Founders’ minds, the revolution was never intended to benefit the general public or to extend rights to all people. While not all of the Founders thought similarly about slavery, they all shared a belief in Black inferiority. Fourteen out of the twenty-one prominent Founders enslaved Black people. By the end of his life, George Washington held over three hundred people in bondage. Thomas Jefferson used forced labor of over six hundred men, women, and children in his many farms and factories.
It should surprise no one that four out of the first five U.S. presidents — Washington, Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe — kept Black people enslaved. And yet, the Founding Fathers and the Enlightenment thinkers they quoted are credited with creating the most comprehensive and noteworthy ideas about liberty and equal humanity.
This hypocrisy was not a hidden agenda. For Black Americans, the American Revolution replaced a distant, white supremacist tyrant supportive of Black enslavement, with local and electable white supremacists empowered to preserve the existing social, political, and economic order. For them, the Revolution was not merely imperfect; it was non-existent.
Black leaders were calling out the duplicity of American ideals during and after the American War of Independence from Great Britain. The son of slaves, James Theodore Holly was an abolitionist who later left America to live on the island of Haiti. In the 1850s, Holly described the difference between the American and Haitian Revolutions. “The revolution of this country [America] was only the revolt of a people already comparatively free, independent, and highly enlightened,” he posited.
Conversely, Holly argued, “the Haitian Revolution was a revolt of an uneducated and menial class of slaves, against their tyrannical oppressors who not only imposed an absolute tax on their unrequited labor but also usurped their very bodies.”
Holly did not believe that American colonists could rightly call themselves oppressed. For him, revolutions required a sense of legitimacy greater than the 1773 Tea Act. In other words, “a three pence per pound tax on tea” was not a sufficient grievance. With an equal level of seriousness and humor, he wrote, “The obstacles to surmount, and the difficulties to contend against, in the American revolution, when compared to those of the Haitian, were, but a tempest in a teapot.”
What is also remarkable about Haiti is that its leaders understood that revolution and the abolition of slavery needed to extend to everyone. When Simón Bolívar, the first president of Colombia, befriended Alexandre Pétion — then the president of Haiti — he asked him to help support his efforts to defeat the Spanish for his revolution in South America. Pétion agreed to help, but on one condition: abolish slavery in all the territories Bolívar controlled. Haiti wanted an end to slavery everywhere. It shared resources with any country that shared its revolutionary goals. They helped defeat Spain in Latin America and equally important, abolish slavery there. This was a revolution.
Revolution does come to America, just not in 1776. America might have been conceived in 1776, but it was born in 1865 when the Civil War ended and slavery was abolished. Following the war, the work of Reconstruction created revolutionary protections such as the 13th (abolition of slavery) 14th (establishing citizenship), and 15th Amendments (voting rights for Black men). During Reconstruction, the first universal public education was created. Education was not only for the elite, but all children could have access to school.
During the Civil War, more people died of disease than from combat. Typhoid, dysentery, pneumonia, and malaria felled troops and civilians on both sides of the battlefield. Accordingly, during Reconstruction, the first health departments were established. By 1870, the government was also moved to establish the Department of Justice to protect the legal rights of Americans. Major roads, railways, and streetcars were constructed to signify that freedom was mobility. The Civil Rights Act of 1875 ensured that Black people, or all people could ride public transportation, visit hotels, and be served in restaurants free from discrimination. It allowed Black people to serve on juries and protected their legal and civil rights. This Revolution was real for Black Americans because of its inclusivity.
Finally, in the 1860s and ‘70s, the work of revolution was beginning to take shape. However, Reconstruction was not permanent, and it was not protected. The hardest part of a revolution is not winning; it is protecting and sustaining what was won.
This Independence Day holiday, even a very distant past is useful for understanding both who we are and where we might go. It also requires us to be honest. The past shapes our creative potential to think of a new, and better nation into being.
This article first appeared on The Emancipator and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.