Today we journey back to November 7, 1775, and a dramatic, startling document known as Dunmore’s Proclamation. We'll explore the life of its issuer, John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore, the events that led him to issue it, and the astonishing—and tragic—fate of the men and women who answered its call.

The proclamation had immediate and longer-term impacts. In Virginia, the slave-owning class was galvanized into deeper resistance; the idea of armed Black men fighting for the Crown radicalized the social order. Across the wider war, it set a precedent for British policy—most notably the 1779 Philipsburg Proclamation which extended freedom to slaves of rebels more broadly.

The story of Dunmore’s Proclamation is both bold and heartbreaking. A Scottish nobleman sent to govern a fractious colony makes a sweeping offer of freedom to those he once ruled—yet the promise tangles swiftly with war, disease, betrayal, and death.

Research: Elena, the Roots of Today archivist

Music by: Andrii Poradovskyi (lNPLUSMUSIC - Pixabay)

Show Notes: www.rootsoftoday.blog

Next year marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, when the Continental Congress of the United British colonies in North America had the audacity to do the unthinkable – declare their independence from the British Crown and announce to the world the birth of a new nation.

To properly celebrate that world-changing event, the Roots of Today podcast is going to feature a continuing special series of episodes that mark some of the events from that era, until we reach the Semiquincentennial celebration. So what was going on in October, 1775 you might ask?

This is Alan, your host, reminding you to grab your coffee, tea, or whatever beverage you prefer, and sit back as we jump back 250 years in time.

Research: Elena, the Roots of Today archivist

Music by: Andrii Poradovskyi (lNPLUSMUSIC - Pixabay)

Show Notes: www.rootsoftoday.blog

When it comes to the events surrounding the American revolution and the birth of the nation, there are signposts that most of us learned as children. There is the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, the midnight ride of Paul Revere, Lexington and Concord, Bunker Hill, “Give me liberty, or give me death,” The Declaration of Independence, and “I have not yet begun to fight.”

If you study this time with a little more depth, things like the Stamp Act and Townsend Act and the Intolerable Acts, designed by the British Parliament to raise revenue and reign in the increasingly rebellious American colonies, help explain the increased tension between both sides of the conflict. But there is one event which fails to garner the importance it deserves, and while written on and understood by historians, has failed to rise to the level of the other signpost moments in pop culture, and that is the burning of the HMS Gaspee in 1772.

Music by: Andrii Poradovskyi (lNPLUSMUSIC - Pixabay)

Show Notes: www.rootsoftoday.blog