As soldiers fighting for both the British and America, slaves hold a vital chapter in American history. As the American Colonies were rebelling and demanding their freedom, it is understandable that slaves related to the same unquenchable desire for freedom. Kathleen M. Cresto explained that the driving motivation for slaves was personal freedom versus political freedom. “The Negro was motivated to enlist by his quest for personal freedom. This can be witnessed in the readiness of Negroes to either volunteer in the colonial forces or in the forces of His Majesty for their freedom.”[1] This war indeed added an extra element and motivational influence for slaves as they recognized their opportunity to gain their personal freedom. Significant controversy swirls around the status, service, and overall role of slaves leading up to, during, and after the Revolutionary War. The Revolutionary War exposed the true hypocrisy of freedom versus slavery during this point in American history. Just as the country struggled to get out from under Britain’s thumb, slaves in Colonial America struggled for freedom from the master’s controlling thumb. Slaves in Colonial America, therefore, found themselves in a unique yet complex position at the time of the Revolutionary War, seizing opportunities to fight for both the British as well as the American effort in desperate attempts to ultimately obtain their personal freedom.
As tensions festered and mounted between the Thirteen Colonies and Britain, the practice of slavery within the American Colonies had been in place for over 150 years. While this paper does not seek to excuse or condemn the presence of slavery, the use of slavery and indentured servitude in the settling and building of this new empire was paramount. Through plantation-style agriculture, Colonial America thrived, and Britain’s Empire also enjoyed substantial wealth that flowed from the successful and expanding network of plantations in the Colonies. This growth, in turn, sparked the Revolution. Despite the flourishing influence of the Enlightenment in both Colonial America and across Europe, the cruel nature of slavery and slave trade continued uninterrupted. In 1757, Reverend Peter Fontaine gave a scathing sermon wherein he defended slavery and shifted the blame away from the colonists. “The negroes are enslaved by the Negroes themselves before they are purchased by the masters of the ships who bring them here.” Fontaine went so far as to state, “But to live in Virginia without slaves is morally impossible.”[2]
Still, more and more people, on both sides of the ocean, questioned the morality of slavery; and opinions splintered as war drew closer. The thought process encompassed a multitude of questions on the subject. For example, how exactly could truly enlightened people continue justifying and excusing slavery? Phillis Wheatley, an African American slave, author, and poet, wrote a letter to Mohegan Indian Presbyterian minister and missionary, Samson Occum in February 1774, where she spoke to the concept of “the glorious dispensation of civil and religious Liberty,” for all and tied it to the Israelites and their struggle for freedom from Egyptian slavery. Wheatley wrote, “This I desire not for their Hurt, but to convince them of the strange Absurdity of their Conduct whose Words and Actions are so diametrically opposite.”[3] So, why not life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all – whites and blacks, Colonists and slaves — in Colonial America?
As colonists shouted for a life free of tyranny and freedom from British rule, the irony and hypocrisy weaved within their rallying cries was not lost on the British. In 1775, Dr. Samuel Johnson wrote,
“We are told, that the subjection of Americans may tend to the diminution of our own liberties; an event, which none but very perspicacious politicians are able to foresee. If slavery be thus fatally contagious, how is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?”[4]
As the war commenced in April 1775, the uniqueness of the situation for slaves became illuminated. The American army would not permit the enlistment of black slaves. The sad reality was black slaves were willing to fight for America, for freedom. Their intense desire for their own freedom should have come to no surprise as slaves understood the concepts of freedom and slavery better than any white colonist. As Benjamin Quarles explained in his book, The Negro in the American Revolution, the black soldiers and sailors and their roles “can best be understood by realizing that his major loyalty was not to a place nor a people, but to a principle.”[5]
Arming slaves, however, rattled many, especially plantation masters who feared the infliction of revenge, violence, and death by riotous slaves in of heat of feverish uprisings. Slave owners did not see soldiers in the making; they saw fear of reprisal from angry slaves. Christopher L. Brown noted, “The very conditions that made the arming of slaves necessary, in particular acute shortages of white manpower, also made it a dangerous expedient in the perception of slaveowners.”[6] Plantation owners feared that the news of slave uprisings in the Caribbean might also inspire their own slaves to revolt. Slaves were in the fight of their lives as they strived to assist in their own battle for freedom.
Through the American Army’s hesitation to enlist black slaves and the fear from the plantation owners, the British Army seized a tremendous opportunity. Benjamin Quarels wrote, “In American patriotic tradition, the first full-fledged villain to step from the wings as the Revolutionary War unfolded was John Murray, Earl of Dunmore.”[7] In April 1775, Lord Dunmore, Virginia’s Royal Governor, created an incredible stir when he threatened to free slaves in the hopes they would join British forces. This threat caused buzzing controversy, much to Dunmore’s delight. However, Dunmore’s threats and sentiments were absent of a true spirit of abolition, but slanted towards upsetting colonists so that potential unrest between slaves and their masters would swell into an all-frenzy. Perhaps then, the British would swoop in and save the day, reminding the Colonists that they needed British rule to maintain order and peace. White colonists, especially wealthy white plantation owners, feared the worst. Not only were they at risk of losing their labor force, but the horror of potential insurrections and violence from their slaves gripped them.
However, several months would pass before Lord Dunmore executed his threat into the form of an official proclamation. In November 1775, Lord Dunmore issued a proclamation promising freedom to slaves so long as they willingly joined the British army and agreed to fight against the Americans. Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation states, in part,
“And I do hereby declare all indented Servants, Negroes, or others, (appertaining to Rebels,) free that are able and willing to bear Arms, they joining his Majesty’s Troops as soon as may be, for the more speedily reducing this Colony to a proper Sense of their Duty, to His Majesty’s Crown and Dignity.”[8]
Lord’s Dunmore’s tantalizing offer proved brilliant. The British would gain troops through slaves seeking manumission while unity within the colonists and plantation owners eroded. Lord Dunmore’s Ethiopian Regiment was born. “Enlisted in his Ethiopian Regiment and wearing uniforms that pointed up the hypocrisy of liberty-seeking patriots by proclaiming ‘Liberty to Slaves,’ former slaves soon made up the major part of the loyalist troops.”[9]
However, even before enlisting into service, slaves first put their lives on the line by escaping from their masters. Fighting alongside the British against the Americans for the promised reward of true freedom was worth the risk. An estimated one thousand slaves bravely and successfully escaped their masters and joined Dunmore’s Ethiopian Regiment. Again, for slaves, personal freedom trumped political. At this point, slaves seized an opportunity. Not only did Dunmore recruit numbers of willing slaves to join British forces, but Dunmore’s clever offer also incited chaos within the Colonies – both inside the military and among the people, especially the wealthy plantation owners. Fear of insurrection from their slaves could force the plantation owners to hide in their homes rather than enlist and fight on behalf of the American military, resulting in lower numbers on the American side. Newspapers consistently published accounts of runaway slaves on behalf of the masters in the hopes of capturing their property. Outraged, the Virginia Assembly issued a declaration in response to Dunmore on December 14, 1775, wherein any slaves who deserted their masters and took up arms would receive severe punishment for their perceived crimes. Dunmore’s Ethiopian Regiment performed bravely, valiantly under British military officers and sergeants. Despite their efforts, a large portion of the regiment perished due to a smallpox epidemic. Several black soldiers who survived ultimately relocated to Nova Scotia and then to Sierra Leone to live as free men.
As the war raged on, George Washington pondered what to do about allowing blacks to enlist the Continental Army. It was true that the Continental Army, by late 1777, was in desperate need of men, especially after disease decimated the troops encamped at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. As Congress implemented a draft, Rhode Island, could not fully recruit enough white men to meet the mandated quotas. Black men were willing to enlist and fight in the Continental Army. W.B. Hartgrove wrote in 1916,
“To a person who has lived in the nineteenth or twentieth century it would seem incredible that Negroes, the majority of whom were then slaves, should have been allowed to fight in the Continental Army. The layman here may forget that during the eighteenth-century slavery was a patriarchal institution rather than the economic plantation system.”[10]
Whether the Continental Army liked it or not, they needed those numbers. On January 2, 1778, Brigadier General James Mitchell Varnum penned a letter to George Washington requesting permission for blacks from Rhode Island to enlist and serve in the Continental Army. Varnum wrote, “It is imagined that a Battalion of Negroes can be easily raised there. Should that Measure be adopted, or recruits obtained upon any other Principle, the Service will be advanced.”[11] On February 14, 1778, at the meeting of the General Assembly, Rhode Island made it official. Rhode Island created The Black Regiment, officially known as the 1st Rhode Island Regiment. The Slave Enlistment Act of 1778 stipulated,
“It is further Voted and Resolved, that every Slave, so enlisting, shall, upon his passing Muster before Col. Christopher Greene, be immediately discharged from the Service of his Master or Mistress; and be absolutely FREE, as though he had never been encumbered with any Kind of Servitude or Slavery.”[12]
On both sides of the war, Black soldiers fought valiantly and often received praise for their service from their superior officers. One escaped slave, Colonel Tye, (Titus Corlis) from Monmouth County, New Jersey, eagerly served the British with the hopes of manumission upon completion of his service. He bravely executed various raids and employed guerilla warfare-like tactics, much to the enjoyment of his British commanders. On June 21, 1780, the Pennsylvania Gazette had published an article detailing one of Colonel Tye’s raids, adding, “The above-mentioned Ty is a Negroe, who bears the title of Colonel, and commands a motly crew at Sandy Hook.”[13]
“And whereas History affords us frequent Precedents of the wisest, the freest, and bravest Nations have liberated their Slaves, and enlisted them as Soldiers to fight in the Defense of their Country.”[14] Still, there was no happily ever after for many slaves. Once the war had ended with Britain’s defeat, uncertainty swirled around the former slaves who enlisted with the British Forces. “Tens of thousands of African-Americans clung to the sentimental notion of a British freedom even when they knew that the English were far from being saints in respect to slavery.”[15] Promises often went unkept and spiraled into a tangled web of controversy and grossly lengthy delays.
However, certificates of freedom were issued to a few thousand Black Loyalists, allowing them to relocate to Nova Scotia. Many within that group also decided to relocate back to Africa and established a home in Sierra Leone. Other slaves were sadly recaptured and returned to a life of slavery. For too many black soldiers, especially former slaves, continuous delays in the payment of pensions for service were routine. In his pension petition application, Jehu Grant explained that it was out of fear of capture and/or the potential of being sold to the British, he was prompted to escape his master and fight for America. He had heard rumors of cruelty executed by the British and feared that he could end up a captive of this cruelty. Grant, an escaped slave who served in a Connecticut unit for the Continental Army wrote, “But when I saw the liberty poles and the people all engaged for the support of freedom, I could not but like and be pleased with such thing (God forgive me if I sinned in so feeling).”[16]
Perhaps one of the cruelest ironies in the story of black slaves who served in the Revolutionary War, especially those who fought for Britain, embeds in the fact that despite the loss, Britain did not abolish slavery until 1807, nearly a quarter of a century after the War. Of course, it took the United States much longer. The roles of slaves serving in the Revolutionary War were vital. Both sides received much-needed troops in a war that was not ending quickly. For some slaves, the battle was worth the fight, for they won their freedom. For too many others, freedom was a hollow promise. Their fight had only begun.
Furthermore, studying and understanding this chapter in American history provides a future appreciation for the struggle of slaves and the role of slaves as it related to war efforts moving forward towards the Civil War. In the words of Simon Schama, “Histories never conclude; they just pause their prose.”[17] Black slaves turned soldiers in the American Revolution proved they were capable of more than working fields. Their unique position as defined and redefined by both Britain and the Colonies gave slaves a choice in their fight for manumission. No matter what side they fought, no matter their rank, nor their assigned tasks, slaves showed up prepared to fight, prepared to die in the name of freedom.
Bibliography
Secondary Sources – Books:
Geake, Robert. From Slaves to Soldiers: The 1st Rhode Island Regiment in the American Revolution. Yardley: Westholme Publishing, 2020.
Gilbert, Alan. Black Patriots and Loyalists: Fighting for Emancipation in the War for Independence. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012.
Schama, Simon. Rough Crossings: The Slaves, the British, and the American Revolution. New York: Perennial, 2007.
Taylor, Alan. The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832 First edition. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013.
Secondary Sources – Journals:
Brown, Christopher L. “Empire without Slaves: British Concepts of Emancipation in the Age of the American Revolution.” The William and Mary Quarterly 56, no. 2 (1999): 273-306.
Hartgrove, W. B. “The Negro Soldier in the American Revolution.” The Journal of Negro History 1, no. 2 (1916): 110-31.
Holton, Woody. “Rebel Against Rebel: Enslaved Virginians and the Coming of the American Revolution.” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 105, no. 2 (Spring, 1997): 157-92.
Jackson, L. P. “Virginia Negro Soldiers and Seamen in the American Revolution.” The Journal of Negro History 27, no. 3 (1942): 247-87.
Pybus, Cassandra. “Jefferson’s Faulty Math: The Question of Slave Defections in the American Revolution.” The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, 62, no. 2 (2005): 243-64.
Quarles, Benjamin. “The Colonial Militia and Negro Manpower.” The Mississippi Valley Historical Review 45, no. 4 (1959): 643-52.
Primary Sources:
Fontaine, Peter. “Defense of Slavery in Virginia.” Africans in America / Part 2. Public Broadcasting Service. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2h6t.html. PBS also lists the following citation information: Education in the United States – A Documentary History, Volume I, edited by Sol Cohen, Random House, Inc., 1974
Johnson, Samuel. Taxation No Tyranny: An Answer to the Resolutions and Address of the American Congress, 3rd ed. London: Printed for T. Cadell, 1775. Sabin Americana: History of the Americas, 1500-1926. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CY0103129077/SABN?u=vic_liberty&sid=SABN&xid=27721a74&pg=1.
Murray, John. “Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation (1775).” Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation. Encyclopedia Virginia, December 7, 2020. https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/lord-dunmores-proclamation-1775/.
Otis, James. The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved. (Boston: Edes & Gill, 1764), 29-30.
Pendelton, Edmund. “Virginia Assembly’s Response.” Digital History. https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/active_learning/explorations/revolution/virginia_assembly.cfm.
“Slave Enlistment Act of 1778 / Creating the 1st Rhode Island Regiment, Also Known as the ‘Black Regiment,’ 1778.” Rhode Island State Archives. Rhode Island Secretary of State. https://www.sos.ri.gov/assets/downloads/documents/Black-Regiment.pdf. *Rhode Island State Archives, C#0210 – Acts & Resolves of the General Assembly, Vol. 17 #14.
Letter to George Washington from Brigadier General James Mitchell Varnum, 2 January 1778,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-13-02-0104. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 13, 26 December 1777 – 28 February 1778, ed. Edward G. Lengel. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2003, p. 125.]
Letter from Phillis Wheatley to Reverend Samson Occom. 11 February 1774 [electronic edition] “Africans in America/Part 2/Letter to Rev. Samson Occum.” PBS – Africans in America / Part 2. Public Broadcasting Service. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2h19.html.
The following books contain collections of primary source information related to slaves who served as soldiers in the Revolutionary War:
Holton, Woody. Black Americans in the Revolutionary Era: A Brief History with Documents Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2009.
Kaplan, Sidney, and Emma Nogrady Kaplan. The Black Presence in the Era of the American Revolution. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1989.
[1] Cresto, Kathleen M. “The Negro: Symbol and Participant of the American Revolution.” Negro History Bulletin 39, no. 7 (1976): 631.
[2] Peter Fontaine. “Defense of Slavery in Virginia.” Africans in America / Part 2. Public Broadcasting Service. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2h6t.html. PBS also lists the following citation information: Education in the United States – A Documentary History, Volume I, edited by Sol Cohen, Random House, Inc., 1974.
[3] Letter from Phillis Wheatley to Reverend Samson Occom. PBS – Africans in America / Part 2. Public Broadcasting Service. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2h19.html.
[4] Samuel Johnson. Taxation Not Tyranny: An Answer to the Resolutions and Address of the American Congress, 3rd ed. London: Printed for T. Cadell, 1775. (Sabin Americana: History of the Americas, 1500-1926), 89.
[5] Benjamin Quarels. The Negro in the American Revolution. (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2012), xx.
[6] Christopher Leslie Brown and Philip D. Morgan, eds. Arming Slaves: From Classical Times to the Modern Age. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), 181.
[7] Benjamin Quarels. The Negro in the American Revolution. (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2012), 19.
[8] John Murray. “Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation (1775).” Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Humanities (07 December 2020). https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/lord-dunmores-proclamation-1775/
[9] Woody Holton. Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves, and the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999), 156.
[10] W.B. Hartgrove. “The Negro Soldier in the American Revolution.” The Journal of Negro History 1, no. 2 (1916): 110.
[11] Letter to George Washington from Brigadier General James Mitchell Varnum, 2 January 1778,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-13-02-0104. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 13, 26 December 1777 – 28 February 1778, ed. Edward G. Lengel. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2003, p. 125.]
[12] “Slave Enlistment Act of 1778 / Creating the 1st Rhode Island Regiment, Also Known as the ‘Black Regiment,’ 1778.” Rhode Island State Archives. Rhode Island Secretary of State. https://www.sos.ri.gov/assets/downloads/documents/Black-Regiment.pdf. *Rhode Island State Archives, C#0210 – Acts & Resolves of the General Assembly, Vol. 17 #14.
[13] Woody Holton. Black Americans in the Revolutionary Era: A Brief History with Documents (Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2009) 58. *Pennsylvania Gazette, June 21, 1780.
[14] “Slave Enlistment Act of 1778 / Creating the 1st Rhode Island Regiment, Also Known as the ‘Black Regiment,’ 1778.” Rhode Island State Archives. Rhode Island Secretary of State. https://www.sos.ri.gov/assets/downloads/documents/Black-Regiment.pdf. *Rhode Island State Archives, C#0210 – Acts & Resolves of the General Assembly, Vol. 17 #14.
[15] Simon Schama. Rough Crossings: The Slaves, the British, and the American Revolution. (New York: Perennial, 2007) 6.
[16] Woody Holton. Black Americans in the Revolutionary Era: A Brief History with Documents (Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2009), 69. Holton provides the following citation: John C. Dann, ed., The Revolution Remembered: Eyewitness Accounts of the War for Independence (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), 27-28.
[17] Simon Schama. Rough Crossings: The Slaves, the British, and the American Revolution. (New York: Perennial, 2007), 398.
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