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African
Americans In The Revolutionary Period
"How is it that we hear the loudest yelps
for liberty among the drivers of Negroes?" Samuel Johnson,
the great English writer and dictionary maker, posed this question
in 1775. He was among the first, but certainly not the last, to
contrast the noble aims of the American Revolution with the presence
of 450,000 enslaved African Americans in the 13 colonies. Slavery
was practiced in every colony in 1775, but it was crucial to the
economy and social structure from the Chesapeake region south to
Georgia. Slave labor produced the great export crops of the South-tobacco,
rice, indigo, and naval stores. Bringing slaves from Africa and
the West Indies
had made settlement of the New World possible and highly profitable.
Who could predict what breaking away from the British Empire might
mean for black people in America?
The British governor of Virginia, Lord Dunmore,
quickly saw the vulnerability of the South's slaveholders. In November
1775, he issued a proclamation promising freedom to any slave of
a rebel who could make it to the British lines. Dunmore organized
an "Ethiopian" brigade of about 300 African Americans,
who saw action at the Battle of Great Bridge (December 9, 1775).
Dunmore and the British were soon expelled from Virginia, but the
prospect of armed former slaves fighting alongside the British must
have struck fear into plantation masters across the South.
African Americans in New England rallied to
the patriot cause and were part of the militia forces that were
organized into the new Continental Army. Approximately 5 percent
of the American soldiers at the Battle of Bunker Hill (June 17,
1775) were black. New England blacks mostly served in integrated
units and received the same pay as whites, although no African American
is known to have held a rank higher than corporal.
It has been estimated that at least 5,000 black
soldiers fought on the patriot side during the Revolutionary War.
The exact number will never be known because eighteenth century
muster rolls usually did not indicate race. Careful comparisons
between muster rolls and church, census, and other records have
recently helped identify many black soldiers. Additionally, various
eyewitness accounts provide some indication of the level of African
Americans' participation during the war. Baron von Closen, a member
of Rochambeau's French army at Yorktown, wrote in July 1781, "A
quarter of them [the American army] are Negroes, merry, confident
and sturdy."
The use of African Americans as soldiers, whether
freemen or slaves, was avoided by Congress and General Washington
early in the war. The prospect of armed slave revolts proved more
threatening to white society than British redcoats. General Washington
allowed the enlistment of free blacks with "prior military
experience" in January 1776, and extended the enlistment terms
to all free blacks in January 1777 in order to help fill the depleted
ranks of the Continental Army. Because the states constantly failed
to meet their quotas of manpower for the army, Congress authorized
the enlistment of all blacks, free and slave, in 1777. Of the southern
states, only Maryland permitted African Americans to enlist. In
1779, Congress offered slave masters in South Carolina and Georgia
$1,000 for each slave they provided to the army, but the legislatures
of both states refused the offer. Thus, the greatest number of African
American soldiers in the American army came from the North.
Although most Continental regiments were integrated,
a notable exception was the elite First Rhode Island. Mustered into
service in July 1778, the First Rhode Island numbered 197 black
enlisted men commanded by white officers. Baron von Closen described
the regiment as "the most neatly dressed, the best under arms,
and the most precise in its maneuvers." The regiment received
its baptism of fire at the battle of Rhode Island (Newport) on August
29, 1778, successfully defeating three assaults by veteran Hessian
troops. At the siege of Yorktown, on the night of October 14, 1781,
the regiment's light company participated in the assault and capture
of Redoubt 10. On June 13, 1783, the regiment was disbanded, receiving
high praise for its service. Another notable black unit, recruited
in the French colony of St. Domingue (present-day Haiti), fought
with the French and patriots at the Battle of Savannah (October
9, 1779).
When the British launched their southern campaign
in 1780, one of their aims was to scare Americans back to the crown
by raising the fear of massive slave revolts. The British encouraged
slaves to flee to their strongholds, promising ultimate freedom.
The strategy backfired, as slave owners rallied to the patriot cause
as the best way to maintain order and the plantation system. Tens
of thousands of African Americans sought refuge with the British,
but fewer than 1,000 served as soldiers. The British made heavy
use of the escapees as teamsters, cooks, nurses, and laborers. At
the war's conclusion, some 20,000 blacks left with the British,
preferring an uncertain future elsewhere to a return to their old
masters. American blacks ended up in Canada, Britain, the West Indies,
and Europe. Some were sold back into slavery. In 1792, 1,200 black
loyalists who had settled in Nova Scotia left for Sierra Leone,
a colony on the west coast of Africa established by Britain specifically
for former slaves.
The Revolution brought change for some American
blacks, although nothing approaching full equality. The courageous
military service of African Americans and the revolutionary spirit
ended slavery in New England almost immediately. The middle states
of New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey adopted policies of gradual
emancipation from 1780 to 1804. Many of the founders opposed slavery
in principle (including some whose wealth was largely in human property).
Individual manumissions increased following the Revolution. Still,
free blacks in both the North and South faced persistent discrimination
in virtually every aspect of life, notably employment, housing,
and education. Many of the founders hoped that slavery would eventually
disappear in the American South. When cotton became king in the
South after 1800, this hope died. There was just too much profit
to be made working slaves on cotton plantations. The statement of
human equality in the Declaration of Independence was never entirely
forgotten, however. It remained as an ideal that could be appealed
to by civil rights activists through the following decades.
>Salem
Poor: "A Brave and Gallant Soldier"
In the Massachusetts State Archives is a petition to the General
Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, stating that in the "late
Battle at Charlestown," a man from Colonel Frye's Regiment
"behaved like an experienced officer" and that in this
man "centers a brave and gallant soldier." This document,
dated December of 1775, just six months after the Battle of Bunker
Hill, is signed by fourteen officers who were present at the battle,
including Colonel William Prescott. Of the 2,400 to 4,000 colonists
who participated in the battle, no other man is singled out in this
manner.
This hero of the Battle of Bunker Hill is Salem
Poor of Andover, Massachusetts. Although documents show that Poor,
along with his regiment and two others, were sent to Bunker Hill
to build a fort and other fortifications on the night of June 16,
1775, we have no details about just what Poor did to earn the praise
of these officers. The petition simply states "to set forth
the particulars of his conduct would be tedious." Perhaps his
heroic deeds were too many to mention.
Few details of this hero's life are available
to us. Born a slave in the late 1740s, Poor managed to buy his freedom
in 1769 for 27 pounds, which represented a year's salary for the
typical working man. He married Nancy, a free African-American woman,
and they had a son. Salem Poor left his wife and child behind in
May 1775 and fought for the patriot cause at Bunker Hill, Saratoga,
and Monmouth. We can only speculate about the motives for Poor's
sacrifice: was it patriotism, a search for new experience, or the
prospect of a new and better life? The Battle of Bunker Hill was
a daring and provocative act against established authority; all
who participated could well have been hanged for treason. Shut out
from many opportunities in colonial society, Salem Poor chose to
fight for an independent nation. In the words of Harriet Beecher
Stowe, the bravery of Poor and other African-American soldiers "has
a peculiar beauty and merit."
To learn more:
Sylvia R. Frey, Water from the Rock: Black
Resistance in a Revolutionary Age (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1999).
Benjamin Quarles, The Negro in the American
Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,
1961).
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