"Dunmore's New World" tells the stranger-than-fiction story of
Lord Dunmore, the last royal governor of Virginia, whose
long-neglected life boasts a measure of scandal and intrigue rare
in the annals of the colonial world. Dunmore not only issued the
first formal proclamation of emancipation in American history; he
also undertook an unauthorized Indian war in the Ohio Valley, now
known as Dunmore's War, that was instrumental in opening the
Kentucky country to white settlement. In this entertaining
biography, James Corbett David brings together a rich cast of
characters as he follows Dunmore on his perilous path through the
Atlantic world from 1745 to 1809.
Dunmore was a Scots aristocrat who, even with a family history
of treason, managed to obtain a commission in the British army, a
seat in the House of Lords, and three executive appointments in the
American colonies. He was an unusual figure, deeply invested in the
imperial system but quick to break with convention. Despite his
1775 proclamation promising freedom to slaves of Virginia rebels,
Dunmore was himself a slaveholder at a time when the African slave
trade was facing tremendous popular opposition in Great Britain. He
also supported his daughter throughout the scandal that followed
her secret, illegal marriage to the youngest son of George III--a
relationship that produced two illegitimate children, both first
cousins of Queen Victoria.
Within this single narrative, Dunmore interacts with Jacobites,
slaves, land speculators, frontiersmen, Scots merchants, poor white
fishermen, the French, the Spanish, Shawnees, Creeks, patriots,
loyalists, princes, kings, and a host of others. This history
captures the vibrant diversity of the political universe that
Dunmore inhabited alongside the likes of George Washington and
Thomas Jefferson. A transgressive imperialist, Dunmore had an
astounding career that charts the boundaries of what was possible
in the Atlantic world in the Age of Revolution.
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