In this episode of Ben Franklin’s World, Cynthia A. Kierner, a professor of history at George Mason University and the author of The Tory’s Wife: A Woman and Her Family in Revolutionary America (University of Virginia Press, 2023), leads us through the story of Jane and William Spurgin, an everyday couple who lived in the North Carolina Backcountry during the American Revolution and who found themselves supporting different sides of the Revolution.
The American Revolution was a movement that divided British Americans. Americans did not universally agree on the Revolution’s ideas about governance and independence. And the movement’s War for Independence was a bloody civil war that not only pitted brother against brother and fathers against sons; it also pitted wives against husbands.
During our conversation about the Spurgins, Cindy reveals what we know about Jane and William Spurgin, their marriage, and their migration to the North Carolina backcountry; Details about life in the Carolina backcountry and the Regulator Movement that took place there between 1766 and 1771; And the petitions Jane Spurgin filed with the North Carolina General Assembly and what these petitions reveal to us about her and William’s politics and actions during the War for Independence.
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Ben Franklin’s World is an award-winning podcast. It’s for people who love history and for those who want to know more about the historical people and events that have impacted and shaped our world. Each episode features an interview with a historian who shares their unique insights into our early American past. It is a production of Colonial Williamsburg Innovation Studios.
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