Who is responsible for American independence? The most common answer invokes a short list of familiar names: Washington, Jefferson, Adams. Despite their mistakes and biases, these men deserve the credit they’re typically given. But by focusing so much on the Founders, the conventional telling of America’s origin story leaves out perhaps its greatest heroes.
American independence wouldn’t have been possible without the thousands of people who spurred the mass political movement that came before it. Recalling their role is essential today, as many of us—their successors—lose faith in our collective ability to address problems. They have left an unsurpassed example of how to resolve common grievances, cultivate empathy, and perfect the democracy they gave us. Indeed, the Founders would have been hopeless without them.
To begin to piece together a fuller history of the Revolution, start with the work of Peter Force. Born in 1790, Force grew up hearing stories from soldiers who had battled the British, which instilled in him a lifelong interest in the fight for independence. In the 1820s, as he built a successful career as a printer, Force realized that a combination of storms, insects, fire, and plain indifference had placed Revolution-era documents at risk in all 13 original states. After lobbying the government for funds, Force marshaled scribes across the new country to scour local archives and send back copies of material dating from 1774 to 1776. Force’s plan came to fruition in 1837, when the government published nine volumes—most of them considerably more than 1,000 pages—under the magisterial title American Archives.
In the introduction to the first volume, Force explained why he had taken on such an ambitious challenge. “A complete collection of the materials for a history of this country would not only be a proud monument to the memory of our ancestors,” he wrote, “but would serve as an invaluable guide to us and our posterity, by exhibiting the vital spirit which has pervaded the past, the true foundations upon which our institutions rest, and the essential principles upon which their existence and perpetuity depend.”
Force’s collection didn’t just preserve the memory of the Revolution; it showed the indispensable role that everyday Americans played. In addition to letters from Washington and other leaders, Force included a large number of reports from communities across the country. He organized the documents chronologically, allowing historians such as myself to trace how the rebellion against Great Britain was progressing on any given date in communities separated by hundreds of miles. His work tells the Revolutionary story through thousands of Americans debating the merits of political change, weighing the risks of armed resistance, and reassuring friends and neighbors that they were engaged in a worthy cause.