Independence Lost: Lives on the Edge of the American Revolution

On Monday, January 27, 2025, I sat down with Kathleen DuVal to discuss her book Independence Lost: Lives on the Edge of the American Revolution. Dr. DuVal, a North Carolina Chapel Hill professor, highlighted her book about the American Revolution in the Gulf Coast and the Mississippi River Valley, the little-known story that students and adults know little about. It involved Spain and France’s support of the American Patriots. Without their support, we may not have won our independence from Great Britain. She will also share about the 18th-century hurricane season and how it affected those fighting the war.

Dr. DuVal uncovers the story of enslaved Petit Jean. He spied and carried messages for the Spanish around Mobile (in present-day Alabama) and who achieved his freedom in the new United States. 

Oliver Pollock, who designed the dollar sign, drew me to her book and to have this discussion with her. This merchant worked for Robert Morris, a signer of the Articles of Confederation and the United States Constitution. 

Pollock, who arrived in 1760 from Northern Ireland, settled in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. In 1763, he traveled to Philadelphia, where he began his work with Morris as a merchant. Through his work as a supply and enslaved person merchant, he accumulated what would be, by today’s standards, a million dollars. During the Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress made him a war agent, as did Thomas Jefferson, the Virginia governor. With his close relationship with Louisiana’s governor, Bernardo de Gálvez, he used his funds to support the war. 

Afterward, in the 1780s, he moved back to Cumberland County and lived in the houses that remain today behind Best Buy in Silver Spring Township. The tavern he owned sits near the REI store in Hampden Township, where a Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission marker recognizes his essential support for the American Revolution. 

This is an amazing book that details the lesser-known story of the American Revolution that every American should know about.

**Correction - Host Christine Musser misspoke when she said Robert Morris signed the Declaration of Independence. She should have said the "Articles of Confederation."