A Very Mutinous People

“McIlvenna . . . weave[s] together a vivid and coherent narrative of the political struggles that transformed the colony. . . . Introduces an insubordinate and defiant world previously overlooked by colonial historians.” — North Carolina Historical Review

“This well-written volume is highly recommended. McIlvenna successfully integrates this little-known society into a wider Atlantic world and explains the meaningful ways that early North Carolina was truly different from its hierarchical neighbors.” — Journal of American History

“An intriguing interpretation of Albemarle’s tumultuous early years. . . . An important addition to the historiography of North Carolina and that surrounding the rise of the planter class.” — Virginia Magazine of History and Biography

“Creatively utilizing an array of period accounts, McIlvenna reexamines this often-overlooked part of the Carolinas and convincingly argues a bold new interpretation of the Albemarle.” — The Georgia Historical Quarterly

“McIlvenna demonstrates that North Carolina settlers marched to the beat of their own drums, making the state’s early history profoundly different from that of any other early North American colony. A Very Mutinous People puts forth an important argument, fleshes out an ill-understood part of North Carolina’s early history, and unearths a forgotten episode of early modern resistance to political and economic dependence.” — Marjoleine Kars, author of Breaking Loose Together: The Regulator Rebellion in Pre-Revolutionary North Carolina

“McIlvenna’s analysis is judicious in its assessments, is careful in the weighing of evidence, and most important, helps us understand North Carolina’s development in the broader context of English colonization.” — Alan Gallay, The Ohio State University