Williamsburg: The Story of a Patriot

This introductory film for the Colonial Williamsburg Visitor Center relates the spirit of the American Revolution through a fictional character. John Fry, a planter-politician, abandons his loyalty to the British crown through his relationships with notable Virginians such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Its focus on elites, though, obscures the revolutionary spirit of the enslaved, landless white men, and the small white working class that ran rampant through Virginia's frontier and port cities as well as the rest of the colonies and prompted elites to action or retain their loyalist support.