OBSTINATE DAUGHTERS

A chronicle of the American Revolution spotlighting the “marginalized yet invaluable voices” usually left out of the history books.

Among those journalist and popular historian Kiernan strives to give their proper place in the struggle for American Independence are the Indigenous and the enslaved. Nanye’hi—a Cherokee woman whose efforts to keep peace with the invading whites eventually led her to warn settlers of impending attacks—is one of her featured players. So, too, is Mary Perth, an enslaved woman in Virginia prompted by the Great Awakening to become a Methodist lay preacher, who later was one of the many Black people fleeing to the British in hopes of freedom. (Kiernan frequently, and rightly, points out the contradiction between patriot cries for liberty and their support of slavery.) Among the white actors is Mary Katharine Goddard, who published a newspaper and served as postmaster in Baltimore, printed broadsides for the Continental Congress, and affixed her name as printer to the “authenticated” copy of the Declaration of Independence sent to the states in 1777. Loyalists as well as patriots are included; Kiernan appears to be emulating Ken Burns’ inclusive approach in his documentaries, which blend the experiences of ordinary people with the more famous to convey the texture of daily life in a period of upheaval. While Kiernan does occasionally give a good sense of that texture, she lacks Burns’ skill in weaving individual stories into a coherent narrative. Instead, we are introduced far too quickly to each of the people she has selected as representatives of the unsung masses, and their ongoing activities are dropped into a traditional chronology of the war that hopscotches wildly—for example, from a smallpox epidemic in British-controlled Charles Town to Benedict Arnold’s assignment to take command of West Point. Interspersed chapters about her travels to various historic sites, which read like tourist guidebooks, add to the confusion.

Some valuable material swamped in a poorly organized text.