together and unite and in many people's lives that's a done deal. it's also a done deal, they didn't know how the story would turn out, they had no idea in 1865 that blacks would be given the right to vote, they had no idea of what the outcome was. this seems to me that looking back we have to remember that. >> is their nonfiction author book you'd like to see featured on book tv, send us an e-mail at book tv at c-span.org. posted on our wall at facebook.com/book tv. >> next up, kathleen duval.

>> society of cincinnati. >> what it am i going to talk about the american revolution and that they don't 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 don't care so much about that. and it. [inaudible] i have to admit that they have

their half hour before the talk so it's 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, i'll 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 don't 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 american's, 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. it's 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 doesn't know yet about the french louis louisiana's. [inaudible]

the sun had not yet risen i was just south of the river in louisiana, the 10-foot 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, alabama's 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 new-line's of french and spanish government. they had managed to play with louisiana's 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. i'm sure it when the gilroy's 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 empire's 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. i'll 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 didn't 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 doesn't 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 pensacola's other officials and other women and children they rushed to the town's 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 jefferson thomas 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 confederacy's of nation and overlapping systems dealt with anglo-american 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 alexander's 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 hadn't 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 don't 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 don't remember being taught anything about there being anything on the gulf coast. >> i don't think it's a conspiracy or a terrible history that has to be hidden, i think it's people that it had been forgotten. >> the letter in the pocket i mean surely you get to the man's

cleaning i made saying you don't get a break from the drycleaners then you left something in your pocket at that time. >> when we find somebody that intrigues us it's 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, it's 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 didn't 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. >> i'm sure there's things that are out there you would've 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 it's 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 couldn't 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 they're 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 couldn't 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 it's 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 don't appear in the record as being european or be in white american because they're 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 could've happened and things would've 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 it's a big deal, it's an actually moneymaking colony but there's 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 it's 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 they're selling their house, she was allowed to live there with her five children at the time but she wasn't treated very well by the man about the house. it's just kind of an elite northern woman she doesn't 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 wasn't 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 would've talk to me the way you are describing it i

would've been more interested. >> thank you one of the good news is i tell my students the first day of classes i'm not going to make you memorize date and i want you to know certain things but it's about stories, it's 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, it's louisiana and west florida and virginia if you look a little closer once but smaller's 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 areas. sometimes the french get the idea that they'll eventually intermarry and will all be part of it. the trouble comes when your allies supposed to be fighting for you and and now we have our own form policies and we rented out to that spot and you can just go home if you don't like the way we run things here and it turns things around. often eight that's the way things work, europeans are having to put a lot of this into the indians to say yes or this is how it is.

there's a big effort and also some other indian tribes in spanish to work together after the american revolution and georgia and they were moving west, they are sorta halfhearted about it, they weren't really sure. >> they only asked not the only asked the governor once? >> they also passed a law that said west florida and canada could go in if they wanted to but that's not going to be covered on the news right.

they sent a couple of other letters but it things that took forever and it's kind of amazing , may be if they were listening closely lead to the list of colonies they would've talked about georgia. [inaudible] >> so they did they sent adversaries but ben franklin, john j, they volunteered to go to europe. the volunteers that got to west florida were. [laughter] word diplomats there's one guy who's willing to comes in and instead of being this negotiator he supposed to be he starts racing plantations and his must be there to talk to the spanish.

he arrives in in new orleans after many british talk to him about to come to new orleans and started to complain about this. [laughter] [inaudible] how much could gone differently?

>> so what you have on your side and asking is the numbers on there, they're just the american population, the united states population was going to double every generation beginning before the revolution and going through i don't know when it ends. those numbers may be the single answer to why, but i would say the second reason is that napoleon. napoleon really takes europe's high off of america. if napoleon hadn't come to power i think that's a be quite different as far as power and who is in america, and the louisiana purchase and it was a

strange thing because it leapfrogged, and as new orleans and the crazy west. but at the end of the revolution the map of what bain thought it one in the american revolution and it not only everything west of the mississippi but everything between the mississippi river and the from plan handle florida up to the great lakes. now that, and some of these lands were lands the british and the french fought over the pontiac war and it sparked the american revolution and keeping settlers off that land so it is unlikely that what is said the spanish empire. but the spanish and particularly

indians were not foolish and thinking that they would continue to be powered on that. >> anything else? >> did you see any parallels about what happened later than the war area? >> i and the book with the word of 1812 and another attack which this time with andrew jackson of course. by 1812 there's two sides of that, gets back back to the previous question, on the one hand there the british and spanish there very much there and fighting against each other and the efforts to build a

stronger nation and alliance failed. >> i will be around a while longer and thank you all for coming [applause]. tvs on facebook get publishing news, behind the scenes pictures

and videos, author information and to talk to directly during our live program. facebook.com/book tv. >> here's a look at the books that pres. obama's route in the summer. the list includes three nonfiction titles. president obama is also reading novels this summer. that's a look at what's on president obama's reading list this summer. >> now on your screen a book tv is best-selling author join in a

separate infests from las vegas before we get into your latest book updaters on the legal situation. >> well happily my legal situation has been resolved and i completed an eight month overnight for xp need the campaign-finance limit by $20000, i'm still doing some community service and counseling but the bulk of my penance is completed. >> you write about that or your experience in a must book it recent book of america. wasn't justified, do you feel your punishment. >> i think when you look at justice you have to not only look at whether someone dead it also have to look at whether the penalty was proportion to the defense, you have to look