Dunmore’s emancipation offer drove white Virginians toward destroying Norfolk

Evidence

Dunmore’s proclamation turned ever more white Virginians against the governor and made Norfolk a prime target for patriot troops. “Rather than the Town should be garrisoned by our Enemies,” Virginia legislator and future governor John Page wrote about Norfolk on November 11, “we must be prepared to destroy it.” — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 19

Categorization

• XREF: Demonstrates how a strategic move to emancipate the enslaved provoked rather than pacified the colonial elite — resonates with the course’s treatment of slavery’s entanglement with founding values. — connects to: American patriots burned most of Norfolk but blamed Britain for it — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 29; Dunmore’s emancipation offer converted neutral and loyalist Virginians into revolutionaries — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project: A New American Origin…, 97; Britain’s offer of freedom drew enslaved Virginians to the royalist side in large numbers — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project: A New American Origin…, 411 (+1 more)
• recurring: this claim recurs 2 times within its source

Broader Connections

• Dunmore’s emancipation offer converted neutral and loyalist Virginians into revolutionaries #expands (0.85) — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 97
• Britain’s offer of freedom drew enslaved Virginians to the royalist side in large numbers #complicates (0.80) — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 411
• Enslaved people’s flight to the British provoked Dunmore’s proclamation, which itself incited more rebellion #contradicts (0.75) — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 96