1619: Jamestown and the Forging of American Democracy

by James Horn Narrated by Dan Woren

Overview

The essential history of the extraordinary year in which American democracy and American slavery emerged hand in hand in colonial Virginia.

Along the banks of the James River, Virginia, during an oppressively hot spell in the middle of summer 1619, two events occurred within a few weeks of each other that would profoundly shape the course of history. In the newly built church at Jamestown, the General Assembly -- the first gathering of a representative governing body in America -- came together. A few weeks later, a battered privateer entered the Chesapeake Bay carrying the first African slaves to land on mainland English America.

In 1619, historian James Horn sheds new light on the year that gave birth to the great paradox of our nation: slavery in the midst of freedom. This portentous year marked both the origin of the most important political development in American history, the rise of democracy, and the emergence of what would in time become one of the nation's greatest challenges: the corrosive legacy of racial inequality that has afflicted America since its beginning.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

08/27/2018
In this compact primer on the founding of the first permanent English colony in the U.S., Horn, president of the Jamestown Rediscovery Foundation, aims to spotlight a pivotal point in American history. In one year, two contradictory events occurred: the seating of the colony’s general assembly, the first representative body in the Americas, and the arrival of enslaved Africans from Angola seized by English pirates from Portuguese slavers. While there are reams of archival material about how the English settlers established self-government by a planter class, resources on the fate of the human beings who survived the Middle Passage are largely nonexistent, forcing Horn into broad conjecture based on sparse colonial records. He offers predictable accounts of the hardships, Indian wars, and English justifications for brutal attempts to conquer the Powhatan tribes of Virginia. Despite the work to include the histories of enslaved Africans and the natives of the area, this well-told account is strongest in its exploration of the conflicts among various English factions: in the 17th century, the utopian ideals of the earliest colonists clashed with and succumbed to mercantilist designs of private property, government by an elite planter class, conquest, and slavery. Horn recognizes that the seeds of representative democracy were spread, in a chilling paradox, by the subjugation and enslavement of peoples considered inferior but who were essential to the colonists’ continent-taming task. (Oct.)

From the Publisher

James Horn’s 1619: Jamestown and the Forging of American Democracy tells the story of this momentous year, when colonial founders tried to put into place the kind of rational, civil society Americans today might see as our own goal as we live through yet another fractious era in American history. If anyone today knows colonial Virginia, it is James Horn.”
 —Wall Street Journal

"Horn's elegant story-telling and plain prose, supported by a wealth of scholarship and knowledge of the founding of Virginia, provide an easily read journey in time as we are introduced to the details of Virginia's early decades."—Roanoke Times

"Readers may question whether the 1619 election deeply influenced our institutions, but it was the first, and Horn has expertly illuminated a little-known era following Jamestown's settlement."—Kirkus

"Horn's observations allow for a better understanding of the colonists' conflicting views toward Native peoples in this well-documented work for readers of history, especially the precolonial era."—Library Journal

"Horn's detailed analysis of events reveals how these twin events foreshadowed what would culminate in America's birth as a nation."—Booklist

"This well-told account is strongest in its exploration of the conflicts among various English factions: in the 17th century, the utopian ideals of the earliest colonists clashed with and succumbed to mercantilist designs of private property, government by an elite planter class, conquest, and slavery."—Publishers Weekly

"Freedom and slavery in America were born at the same time and the same place, two hundred years ago in Virginia. Master historian James Horn tells these two inextricably linked stories in his powerful new book, 1619: Jamestown and the Forging of American Democracy. Inspired by a vision of establishing a just commonwealth, the Virginia Company authorized the first meeting of an elected legislature in English America in late July or early August; a few weeks later an English privateer sold approximately 20 enslaved Africans to Virginia planters. If at the first the coincidence seemed unremarkable to colonists, its consequences soon proved fateful for Virginia-and ultimately for America. If the tragic legacies of racial slavery are still with us, so too is the possibility of progress in an enlightened, self-governing commonwealth."—Peter S. Onuf, University of Virginia

"No one today knows more about early Virginia than James Horn. In evocative and clear-headed prose, he dissects the core events of its turbulent founding to reveal how the rule of law and self-government took hold the same year that the arrival of Africans in Jamestown announced English Americans' horrific original sin. 1619, built from Horn's unparalleled mastery of a vast body of evidence, is the most thoughtful book we have on this formative moment in our nation's history."—Peter C. Mancall, author of Fatal Journey: The Final Expedition of Henry Hudsons

"Mix English political theory, several hundred settlers trying to better themselves, and a shipload of slaves; add four centuries, and you have America. James Horn explains why Jamestown is our national starting point."—Richard Brookhiser, author of John Marshall: The Man Who Made the Supreme Court

Kirkus Reviews

2018-06-27
The president of the Jamestown Rediscovery Foundation weighs in on a significant year in American history.Two events in Virginia in 1619 laid the foundations of our democracy, writes Horn (A Kingdom Strange: The Brief and Tragic History of the Lost Colony of Roanoke, 2010, etc.) in a well-researched, insightful history that will persuade some readers that he is on to something. Jamestown was a business venture of London's Virginia Company, which sent men in 1607 to find riches as the Spanish had in Mexico and Peru. None turned up, and, unprepared to work, most of the explorers died of starvation and disease. Giving up the search, the company sent those willing to settle in the region. Farms and towns spread, but local officials handled this with much favoritism and corruption, and company shareholders saw no profits. After years of frustration, the company issued reforms aimed at "nothing less than the founding of a new type of society…built on good government, just laws, Protestant morality, and rewards for everyone who invested or settled in the colony….In Virginia, commonwealth theory guided the leadership's approach to every facet of the emerging colony." This included a General Assembly consisting of two members elected from each borough. The assembly met in 1619, transacted business for a few weeks, and then dissolved. Almost simultaneously, two privateers docked with a load of Africans who were set to work as slaves, the first to arrive. These events were soon obscured by the chaos of an Indian war; the Virginia Company was abolished in 1624, and Virginia itself was governed by a small (but elected) oligarchy until the 20th century.Readers may question whether the 1619 election deeply influenced our institutions, but it was the first, and Horn has expertly illuminated a little-known era following Jamestown's settlement.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170207022
Publisher:	Hachette Audio
Publication date:	10/16/2018
Edition description:	Unabridged

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