Society of cincinnati. What it am i going to talk about the American Revolution and that they dont know anything about. In the course of the research of my first book i came across battle of the American Revolution and i thought well maybe they dont care so much about that. And it. [inaudible] i have to admit that they have their half hour before the talk so its possible that the enthusiasm about my talk came from that by interpreted it was about excitement about the subject. And were salami set the stage for you, ill do a little reading from the book let me set the stage for you in pensacola in 1774. Pensacola is a british colony. [inaudible] the lower counties and the delaware and carolina. The letters stated that it was blasted the violent and the lake conduct by the british these colonists either resigned itself were just in constitutional liberty these men hoped and the other colonies in north america. There are not just 13 British American colonies, nova scotia to jamaica people all across the british colonies had to respond to protest and later in the local people would decide whether not for themselves and then they would recruit others, the leaders of the republic seldom with imperial role at t. [inaudible] is a spanish and french team watch this and that it would reverse in the seven years war. For now though the people on the gulf coast remain focused on local matters, they shove the letter into his pocket and did not tell others about it. [laughter] so america mostly dont know about because it was fought between the british on the west side but not rebelling colonists on the other. The battles were between the british and the spanish, on they decided not to rebel part because they have reasons to stay on the outside and they saw benefits from prosperity that were not worth risking in a war that they might lose. Those in the war the french being one of five of the americans in the war because not much about the spanish even more than the french the spanish were trying to expand their own colonies in north america, the spanish empire in latin America Today but also the colonies west. So the American Revolution provided the spanish and opportunity to take some british colony. Thousands of spanish soldiers and sailors of fought this battle along the gulf coast but i was interested in the people who live there, before the war came different kind of situations during the war, what they would do when it came to their homelands and what happened to them after the war. Europeans, native americans, many different nations, within a few decades this place, would become part of the United States but that is not something anyone who live there during the American Revolution imagine. Its a complicated story one of the things i decided to do for the book was to follow a different set let me introduce you to a few of them. There is the man his family lived in french canada around the time of the seven years war there expelled by the british and renamed it nova scotia. His family was expelled and the refugees found themselves in places and they were able to get to louisiana and get help from the french, at the end of the war. So i want to take you to he doesnt know yet about the french louis louisianas. [inaudible] the sun had not yet risen i was just south of the river in louisiana, the 10foot wide trunk of cypress trees gross out, the air was muggy that morning of september 7, 1779, the temperature is bearable as you are surrounded by your brothers and cousins governors the general visit more than 1300, over 600 militiamen included french people through louisiana and canadians and also settled earlier decades of louisiana. The british refugees left left florida because of the inability to protect them. At least 80 people were there there about 500 people regular spanish troops. They were joined by 160,s, alabamas and other indians, seven americans including. [inaudible] the governor said the Previous Assembly the news that he recognized the United States as an independent country and of britain might retaliate against spanish louisiana. Still it seemed a strangely large gathering once they began to speak to the troops they started to listen and other interpreters hurried to keep up and english the news was startling, they had not recognize, he declared war on britain and he expected the people in louisiana to do their part. They could remember the imprisoning them where they had built newlines of french and spanish government. They had managed to play with louisianas french men and women in the british and their folks were independent and prosperity. [inaudible] now the war between spain and britain each side would have to work to persuade its imperial hierarchy to both military to the front and of its own colonists and their interest in an own empire. Which side would persuade the people of the Lower Mississippi in the gulf coast to accept with the local independence and the prosperity with local connections. Whoever did that would stand a good chance of winning the war. So there people who needed to be persuaded to fight on one side of or the other, the Biggest Group of potential fighters on either side were american indians. They greatly out number the spanish and the french and slightly out numbered british colonists. One of the other people i followed what his father was a scottish merchant, his mother was creek, they considered him fully creek as well. He grew up in creek country as a boy who went with his father to charleston and learn how to read and write. In 1776 his father fled and his alexander and his sister fled to the other country, they found himself wanting to work in the creek to get involved in the war to be an important person. He was young and was just learning the ropes of the war began. In the spring of 1777 i entered the council cabin, wearing Standard Creek garb of the bright red urban, blue leggings, and deerskin boots he found a seat in the growing crowd. Two older men and ceremonial dress entered slowly the vessels were filled with black drinks and likely to induce nausea and then perhaps vomiting, black drinks symbolize renewal. Im sure it when the gilroys turn to drink came the warm liquid was bitter on his tongue, as the speeches began in his head began to spin, occasionally took a pop from a pipe there is a lot to talk about in Creek Council in 1777. They would hope to british soldiers would put the british colonist back in their place, the rebels should obey their empires proclamation of 1763 which ordered them to order them to stick to the code and out of indian country. They were learning that creek did not necessarily agree fighting for the british was the best path, mcgillivray, would find himself deepened debate over these questions and far beyond boston. After they declare war spanish troops in baton rouge and mobile and defeated the british there let me take you back to pensacola seven years after governor chester put that letter in his pocket. Ill focus on two of my other characters that i follow isabella, they were migrant from scotland and they came to seek their fortune in british west and they like most westerners oppose the stamp act but didnt follow the protest into war and independence the way the 13 colonies did. This is going to come from the introduction so it will circle back to summa. As a skyline did the Early Morning hours of march 9, british sailors spotted the fleet headed straight for them, one scrambled high on the mat straining to see the flags flying. Hoping to see the red, white and blue doesnt look out and recognize the bold red and gold stripe of Spanish Naval flake, the british fired seven shots of and it warned the people of pensacola of danger. Pensacola was the capital british west florida and the last line of the fence against the entire colony, the the sailors had only hope this spanish would not arrive before reinforcements came. Buy them baited west florida spain was were hoping to expand eastward toward the gulf of mexico, britain now defenses raise the stakes of the war. James spruce a member of the National Council of west florida, his wife isabella heard the cannon fire and saw the smoke rising to signal the arrival of the spanish ship. They gather their children and provisions and a few belongings, along with pensacolas other officials and other women and children they rushed to the towns main fort, was laid with the if the spanish prevailed they were likely to caption them and send them into exile. Every july 4 we celebrates the independence that this created, one and such occasion americans bided imagine independence was a uniform goal in the century but in the days. The revolutionary war conclusion did not bring freedom to all of those of the republic, some people fought hard against the new nation, Thomas JeffersonThomas Jefferson called the only monument of human right in the and the sole deposition of the freedom of government. Stories of competing colonial groups and confederacys of nation and overlapping systems dealt with angloamerican that rose from that revolution was not inevitable. In fact those powerful empire in the world and it creates a blast from the republic were highly unlikely outcomes. Scholarships and popular memory have longed for trade the spaniards and indians people at a time, spain as an empire, indians living in waves that were incompatible. If they were incapable of change, destined to be overrun but in fact they had additions that were reasonable and came close to realizing their goals. Despite alexanders best efforts it did not come from large numbers to help the british, the british british lost the battle to pensacola and the results of that battle for quite important for the rest of the war. As soon as the british surrounded, west florida and the spanish they sailed to the west indies and tried to sailed north and block allowing the Continental Army to win at yorktown and persuaded the british to cut their losses to try not to lose anymore colonies and florida hadnt even rebelled. Others assume they would continue their power and pull over the land despite who won the war. The settlers wanted their lands and con plantations to spread west it created a different future from what the people of the gulf coast imagine. I will take questions of people have them. [applause]. I dont have a question i just have a, i was born and raised in mobile i went to schools where they fought taught alabama history and this is what included in your book was not included. So i was looking forward to this book. If you missed it so can i ask when alabama started when did alabama history started in 1860 . They dig cover the precolonial. In a covered series before 1776 for example human mentioned there been a battle. A very big battle. They talked about the french settlers and you mentioned alexander and we talked about it and i think it was 1812 after he was dead. For his nephew was like yeah. I dont remember being taught anything about there being anything on the gulf coast. I dont think its a conspiracy or a terrible history that has to be hidden, i think its people that it had been forgotten. The letter in the pocket i mean surely you get to the mans cleaning i made saying you dont get a break from the drycleaners then you left something in your pocket at that time. When we find somebody that intrigues us its time to jump down that rabbit hole because the secure decade, correct . The particular question was about how do i know that he put that letter in his pocket, you set set it more nicely than that . So the letter was written by congress and so they have it in the congressional record, its very easy to find or in the contemporary copies, somebody there wrote down what it was, so the text i have. Have. I know he put it in his pocket because there is innuendo that he put it in his pocket and he didnt know where it went. The historian draws a fine line but the pocket is a bit of embroidery but he definitely kept it on him. Im sure theres things that are out there you wouldve loved to cover. The question was about they characters, some of them really just one of them i knew from the beginning because finding an 18th century native american who wrote letters is its only possible if there is only one in the southeast. There are many speeches written were conversations written and people writing them down but that was an easy choice. Others came over the course of digging in the archives, one of my characters who was enslaved in mobile he first appeared to me and his only appearance in the archive is in, the fourth one was back and forth between the spanish officers on the gulf coast so i started reading this reference and then one of them referred to him and so i thought okay and going to keep my eye out for him. Up people appear mostly, here in the archives as numbers, maybe names are ages but very little about who they were as human beings. He was was somebody i could get a little bit of information on. One character i really wanted to have and couldnt find was a woman who in pensacola where the bridges are pulled up they talk about being in these and mentor fighting, another talk about women and children but theyre in the ford but i imagine, all i really needed was a name, if i could just find a name of one woman there i can make a story around it not making it up but using things that i know about women at that time. But i couldnt even find the name of a male relative of a man fighting there who i knew had a wife or daughter so i had to give that one up. What happened afterwards. So they were all forced west and in their versions in the 1820s and 30s, some remained but their small tribes and left but most of them moved to oklahoma and their descendents are everywhere. In the United States. When i was deciding where this book stop going i purposely stop before all that happened when chickasaw and chaco ties were the 19 centuries and the but what happens is its a great surprise of almost everyone. The United States survived and thrived and spread west and in a way that is different from from these places their french colonies and british colonies but they are colonized on the ground and what that usually meant was that they were opposed the huge lands that were claimed as colonies and that area. [inaudible] there are many individual examples but the White Americans developed and friends of the spanish were married high arc deal but in her marriage among others so that there were quite a bit of intermarriage between the french and the americans. Most of the children that we might consider half white and have choctaw were fully choctaw and some of those just dont appear in the record as being european or be in White American because theyre completely indian in that part of their tribe. You mention the spanish and french were fighting so given they had their own interest were they working together now and how far up the coast did the fighting continues. Up the Atlantic Coast . Yes they were working very seriously together for a brief time. The invasion of britain itself during the war. They had shipping problems i think but it couldve happened and things wouldve gone differently. So the french were involved all the way up to rhode island and mostly at sea, the spanish almost all of their actions were on the gulf coast right in the west and so the spanish and french a quite a few islands and in fact were on the verge of debating when britain agreed to peace. Living in massachusetts its a big deal, its an actually moneymaking colony but theres battles in india, central america, so the revolution was a global force. Yes i do have two women i wrote about, one was it scottish woman who what i found about her and most of the female characters that followed were european, they make huge deals about war and where they live, and the men in their lives and whatever their daily lives are its a big choice. So isabel and margaret were an irish immigrant in louisiana were talking about the forces and how we came across the how i desperately wanted women but they let huge amounts of money to the american and at one point he had to ggyz his money paid back because the United States had no way of raising money or paying him back. He took off in a ship for philadelphia and left for new orleans and got into this letter writing spat with the governor of new orleans the spanish governor of new orleans, and she had a letter he wrote asking to, because they had lost so much money theyre selling their house, she was allowed to live there with her five children at the time but she wasnt treated very well by the man about the house. Its just kind of an elite northern woman she doesnt like how things were set up and she writes him about this and she writes them again and said something about race and class and his slaves and there be an insolent to me and my slaves. And he writes back to her and says women are not supposed to write to governors than he must not write me anymore. She writes one more time and number back and forth after that. [inaudible] my dad is an english professor so i know that wasnt going to be that. I worked in politics for little right after college and it seems so scary and horrible that i went running back to the archive i guess and i need to come up with a better answer for that. [laughter] i do love it. I hated history most my life if teachers wouldve talk to me the way you are describing it i wouldve been more interested. Thank you one of the good news is i tell my students the first day of classes im not going to make you memorize date and i want you to know certain things but its about stories, its about why peoples do things that they did that lead us to where we are today. I think i can speak loudly enough you tell the stories of these indians who presumably were subject to the spanish empire can you explain the relationship . So one of my favorite, if you look at the biggest letters on the map, its louisiana and west florida and virginia if you look a little closer once but smallers chickasaw, and chick talk, even little tribes and so i call it layered sovereignty. There are actually perfectly fine with the british or spanish empire to be able to claim a place enough that other europeans recognize the colony and if on the ground the indians who lived there they and they are your allies, ideally everything could be fine. Talk to them about the short term plan about the europeans, they they hope to eventually populate these area