I'm John Batchel speaking with Professor Daniel Rood.

The book is in the shadow of the great house.

This is the plantation system. Starting in the 17th century, at least, we begin with

the exploitation of the land, followed by the exploitation of workers that are regarded as enslaved.

Now we go to Yorktown, a battle scene you all have heard about again and again. The end of the

revolution, the victory of Washington over again and again, the end of the revolution,

the victory of Washington over Cornwallis, the final retreat of the British, the Royal Navy,

and its army from America, the ringing of the Liberty Bell, well, not really, it was cracked,

but in any event the celebration of victory and the founding of the republic.

Except at Yorktown, the professor introduces us to a fact that's useful to consider

what will follow the revolution, which is the Civil War, 70 years later.

Professor, I did not know.

Cornwallis was sheltering how many African Americans, how many who were believed to have escaped a slave and were going to have freedom with the English?

Oh, well, I mean, there were tens of thousands who fought with the British against the Americans

because the British forces had offered them the promise of freedom

if they would fight on the British side.

But even beyond that,

so the campaigns leading up to the siege of Yorktown have to do with Benedict Arnold leading

British troops on these raids up the James and Rappahannock rivers, mostly to hobble

Virginia by hobbling the center of its economy, which was the tobacco plantations.

Because they're doing that, thousands of enslaved people who have been told that when the British come, they may set you free,

are willing to take their last chance and escape from their owners and follow British forces as they go back down the James and Rappahannock towards Yorktown.

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