1676: The End of American Independence » (1st Edition)

The colonial experience of Americans was not one long march toward independence. Sixteen hundred seventy-six was a cataclysmic year of Indian insurrection and civil war in America, when the colonies lost their "autonomy" after King Philip's War and Bacon's Rebellion. Stephen Webb makes clear how the forces unleashed in 1676 revolutionized the relationships between the adolescent colonies, the imperial government in London, and the embattled Algonquin and Iroquois Indians, and shows how the political institutions that evolved in the colonies in the next three hundred years reflected this experience.

Library Journal

Webb argues here that the hardships of nature, the Indian insurrection, and wars reduced the independent Colonies into English provinces. To make his case, "Webb presents events from the perspectives of the colonists, Whitehall, and the American Indians . . . . This detailed provocative account . . . is bound to stir lively discussion" (LJ 5/15/84).