How African Americans got into the American Revolution

The American Revolution

General Overview

Other African American Soldiers:

• Factor Pompey- Won the congretional medal of honor because of his bravery at the battle of jersey when he shot his master major Peison
• Crispus Attucks- He was the first American Casualty of the Revolutionary War (Died in Boston Massacre March 5, 1770)
• Prince Esterbrooks- He was the first to get into the fight during the opening of the American Revolution( the battle of lexington and concorde April 1775)

• In 1775, many African Americans were enslaved and living in the 13 colonies.
• Many slaves thought that they were going to get offered freedom if they fought in the revolutionary war.
• The continental Congress excluded slaves from signing up in the army.
• Because people weren't signing up to fight in the war, George Washington finally allowed black slaves to fight. (20 percent of African Americans)
• Most Blacks worked as side roles such as cooks and waiters.
• On the other hand, some of them chose to work with the british because of Dunmore's Proclamation.

1st Rhode Island Regiment, 1777

Lord Dunmore's Ethiopan Regiment, 1775

https://web.archive.org/web/20070703111823/http://ancientgreece-earlyamerica.com/html/the_first_rhode_island.htm

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2h42.html

Hand-colored engraving described as “The shooting of Major Pitcairn (who had shed the first blood at Lexington) by the colored soldier Salem.”

Source: Journal of the American Revolution

https://allthingsliberty.com/2013/10/killed-major-pitcairn/

This picture celebrates the British defence of Jersey against French invasion in 1781 and also pays tribute to a young Major, Francis Peirson, who lost his life in the process.

The Death of Major Peirson, 1783 by John Singleton Copley

Source: Tate http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/copley-the-death-of-major-peirson-6-january-1781-n00733/text-summary

To grasp the true extent of the black contribution to the cause of freedom during the Revolution, we must think not only of free black man like Attucks and Salem but also of those who faced the same dangers while still laboring under the bonds of servitude.

Peter Salem

LT. THOMAS GROSVENOR AND HIS BLACK SERVANT KEY, BY JOHN TRUMBULL, 1797 OR AFTER. YALE UNIVERSITY ART GALLERY, NEW HAVEN, CONN.

http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2013/09/american_revolution_art_a_black_mans_role_in_the_fight_for_freedom.html

How African Americans got into

the American Revolution

Professor Paul

• African American soldier in the American Revolution.
• He was owned by the New England army captain Jeremiah Belknap, who is believed to have named him for his own earlier residence in Salem, Massachusetts.
• Salem had been sold to Major Lawson Buckminster, who freed him
• Salem fought in the Battle of Concord and Lexington, Massachusetts, the first confrontation of the American Revolutionary War, on April 19, 1775.
• He enlisted in Colonel John Nixon's Fifth Massachusetts Regiment and was assigned in the first major battle.
• It was long believed that Salem fired the shot that killed the British commander John Pitcairn who was a British Marine officer who was stationed in Boston, Massachusetts at the start of the American War of Independence.
• He served in several major engagements during the ensuing years, including such turning points in the war as the Battles of Saratoga, fought nine miles south of Saratoga, New York, on 19 September and 7 October 1777, and the Battle of Stony Point, a midnight assault on a British garrison about ten miles south of West Point on the Hudson River in New York, on 15-16 July 1779

Lydia Darragh

CONTRIBUTION OF SLAVES, FREE BLACKS AND WOMEN IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION!

Professor Lyn

Soldiers

How African Americans got into the American Revolution

• *Patriots=Americans *Loyalists=British
• Britain colonies rebelled for their independence
• Not enough troops on Patriots nor British side
• Patriots recruited pretend free blacks, Loyalists recruited black men known to be slaves
• 3 main reasons blacks weren't used YET
• British led by Dunmore turned to salves, issued proclamation
• 11/7/1775 Dunmore released proclamation from Norfolk that requested the slaves of Patriot masters join the British cause. The proclamation declared that "indentured servants, Negroes and frees that are able & willing to bear arms can join"
• Blacks recruited to fight as soldiers were still treated poorly. (bad guns, horrible clothing and disgusting sleeping arrangements)

Professor Blanco

Professor Coke

Prof. Grandpierre

Professor Jackson

Professor Lyn

Professor Mendoza

Professor Ortiz

Professor Paul

Actionable Items (Lydia Darragh)

• Dunmore proclamation weakened the Patriots
• Slave replacements
• NY law, slave owners who sent slave, receive 500 acres of land
• Southern governments offered money
• G.Washington opposed using blacks at first, then Continental Army began to struggle because of the white slave owners going home to ensure their land was protected, he issued a new proclamation
• "The free Negroes who have served faithfully in the army...may be re-enlisted, but no others.
• This in turn effected slave jobs, spies, black women and white women

• Listened at the keyhole
• Received a pass General Howe to leave the city
• Walked to American lines
• Reveals her knowledge of the British attack to an officer of the American army
• Stayed calm while questioned
• Nursed sick

Effect of Actions

Personal Consequences of Actions

American soldiers at the siege of Yorktown,

by Jean-Baptiste-Antoine DeVerger, watercolor, 1781

• American army expected the British attack and the British were defeated
• Questioned by British officers

• Good reputation during the war
• Later in her life, she was sued from the monthly meeting of the Friends for ignoring their warnings about participating in the war

Source: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

http://www.history.org/History/teaching/enewsletter/volume12/dec13/images/SpiesLessonMaterials.pdf

Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (file no. LC-USZ62-53578)

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2005689385/

Elizabeth Thompson

Dicey Langston

Actionable Items

• Listened carefully to the conversations of her Loyalist relatives
• Reported the information to her brothers who were with the Continental Army
• Went out at night to report news of Bloody Scouts to brothers
• Cared for brothers in forest
• Jumped between father and attacker
• Stood up to the bands of loyalists

Effects of Actions

Personal consequences of Actions

Actionable Items

• British spies received full messages
• Inferred information about American works reported to British commander
• Imprisoned British soldiers were helped

• Threatened by patriots
• Slaves confiscated
• Had soldiers living in her house
• After the war ended, she joined her husband in England d attempted to claim a British pension

• Ran a business while husband was in Britain
• Allowed officers of captured British soldiers to be held at her house
• Helped soldiers in prison
• Traveled through American camp to carry letters to the British
• Disguised one of the British soldiers and took him out for a ride in her carriage so that he could view the American's work and report to the British

Source: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

http://www.history.org/History/teaching/enewsletter/volume12/dec13/images/SpiesLessonMaterials.pdf

Slave Jobs

Jobs of Female Slaves

A women slave working on a plantation

Source: http://www.dejaelaine.com/miscplantations8.html

• They served on both sides of the war: the Loyalists as well as the Patriots
• Mainly worked as nurses, laundresses, and cooks
• They were camp followers and could be found in army camps
• They could also be found working in the shops, homes, fields, and plantations of every American colony, as well as building roads, constructing forifications, and laundering uniforms
• However, according to historian Carol Berkin, “they remained slaves rather than refugees. Masters usually hired these women out to the military, sometimes hiring out their children."

(“African American Women and the American Revolution", 2005)

Effects of Actions

Personal consequences of Actions

• Served the village of Little Eden
• Saved her father's life

• Loyalist terrorized her family
• Loyalists relatives threatened her and her father
• Got swept away in river
• Proteted her father from an attachk by members of the Bloody Scouts

Professors

Mendoza & Ortiz

Slaves had a variety of jobs.They were important out of combat, in support roles. They were the core of the hard labor support. They acted as spies, carried messages, build pathways, & worked as servants for officers.

Slave

Jobs

Source: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

http://www.history.org/History/teaching/enewsletter/volume12/dec13/images/SpiesLessonMaterials.pdf

Elizabeth Thompson of

“Revolutionary Women”

by Beth Howard

Credit: American Lives

http://americanlives.net/historical-programs/

Miss Langston shielding her father, c. 1840-1890

engraving by Alfred Jones

Source: Library of Congress

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/94509800/

Portrait of a black Revolutionary War sailor, 1780 artist unknown

Source: PBS http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2h81.html

Samuel Fraunces

"A Barber's Shop at Richmond, Virginia,"

from The Illustrated London News, March 9, 1861

James Armistead

Key Facts

• Volunteered spy for the Continental army commander General Lafayette
• Servant to British general Lord Cornwallis (double agent)
• Delivered important information to Lord Cornwallis
• Remained enslaved after the war
• In 1784, wrote the Virginia Genera Assembly

screenshot from the "Book of Negroes" series. Source: CBC

Sources: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation http://www.americanrevolution.org/blk.php

http://www.history.org/history/teaching/enewsletter/volume5/images/reference_sheet.pdf

"Sam Fraunces. From original drawing. Owned by Mrs. A. Livingstone Mason, Newport, R.I." Source: "Stagecoach and Tavern Days," by Alice Morse Earle, 1900.

Key Facts

Oil on Canvas,

portrait attributed to Samuel Fraunces, 1770-1785 from the collection of Fraunces Tavern Museum

http://frauncestavernmuseum.org/history-and-education/sam-fraunces/

• One of his countries first spies
• Much of the Revolutionary history of New York revolved around Fraunces and his tavern
• Chief steward in charge of Geo Washington's household at the President's house
• Free black man
• When New York called troops for the revolution, Fraunces was one of the first to enlist
• British cook general
• Used his position to aid American prisoners and spied for the British in Washington
• Birth certificate (Frenchman&American)
• Little recognition
• No grave marker in Philadelphia where he was burned

Lafayette's Testimonial

Sources: Independence Hall Association

http://www.ushistory.org/presidentshouse/history/fraunces.htm

http://www.ushistory.org/presidentshouse/news/pt070410a.htm

This is to certify that the bearer by the name of James has done essential services to me while I had the honour to command in this state. His intelligences from the enemy’s camp were industriously collected and faithfully delivered. He perfectly acquitted himself with some important commissions I gave him and appears to me entitled to every reward his situation can admit of.

Done under my hand, Richmond,

November 21st, 1784.

Lafayette

Source: Mount Vernon

http://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/the-revolutionary-war/spying-and-espionage/american-spies-of-the-revolution/lafayettes-testimonial-to-james-armistead-lafayette/

cont.

Lafayette at Yorktown painted by Jean-Baptiste Le Paon about 1783

Source: Skillman Library at Lafayette College

http://academicmuseum.lafayette.edu/special/specialexhibits/slaveryexhibit/onlineexhibit/james.htm

Spies

Professor Blanco & Professor Coke

Black

Women

Nurses

Professor Jackson

• Although the nurses didn’t become important until 1777, many of them were camp followers which included wives, daughters, and mothers of male soldiers. They followed the army looking for food and protection because they couldn’t support themselves after the men left for war.

• It was Washington who asked the Commanding officers to assist the surgeons in recruiting as many Women of the Army as they could to serve as Nurses. They would be paid .24 cents a day and one full food rotation, but if they were a matron which is a more supervisory position they got paid .50 cents a day plus a full rotation. Nurses would really do custodial work feeding and bathing patients, emptying chamber pots, cleaning hospital ward and cooking.

• The nurses invented a few things to make their patients more comfortable, like the stone hot-water bottle, and Wheelchairs which they called go-chairs and wheelchairs with fans.

• To some women even with the option of pay and food some still were reluctant to the position because of the morality rate was exceptionally high.

Phillis Wheatley (1753-Dec. 5, 1784)

Phillis Wheatley was kidnapped from Africa and taken to America as a young girl. She was an educated girl who wrote poetry, including one poem for Gen. George Washington. When Washington, leader of the Patriot army, heard about the poem Wheatley wrote about him, he invited her to his camp, where she read for the future president of the United States. Wheatley was the first Black woman to have a book published. She was later granted her freedom.

• Support roles, provided militia
• Moved into the "big house" to support the slave owners wife when he went away to serve the militia
• Took care of wounds, building forts
• (from British and Indians)
• Spies
• (Kept Colonial Authorities informed)
• Found innovative ways to assist, in search of freedom
• Distinguished themselves as men to fight
• Writing ability

Elizabeth Freeman, known as Mum Bett, was an enslaved African who sued for her freedom and won. Two years later, Freeman’s case was presented in another court case and was instrumental in Massachusetts declaring slavery unconstitutional in that state. She was a Revolutionary hero.

Elizabeth Freeman (1742 – Dec. 28, 1829)

Seamstresses, Cooks and Maids

Mammy Kate (1740-1815)

Mammy Kate was an enslaved African who worked on Georgia Gov. Stephen Heard’s plantation. When Heard was captured and held prisoner during the American Revolution, Mammy Kate managed to infiltrate and smuggle Heard out. Mammy Kate was the first Black woman to be honored as a patriot of the American Revolution in the state of Georgia.

Black Women

These were the most common roles for women during the revolutionary war, since many were poor wives, mothers and daughters, they where use to doing housework which made them suitable for the position, but before then men were responsible for doing that in the army.

Spies

Professor Grandpierre

Many women served as spies although it unknown on how many were there. The spies worked as cooks and maids for the British and American military camps where they eavesdropped on conversations about troop movements, military plans, supply shortages and deliveries.

White Women

Molly Pitcher loading cannon at Battle of Monmouth, 1859 engraving by J.C. Armytage after Chappel

Source: Library of Congress

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2004672798/

Post American Revolution

• British kept their deal to free slaves at end of war
• Americans didn't agree, pushed for slaves who fought with British to return back to their Patriot owners
• Controversy on settling a final treaty agreement
• British evacuated American ports, former slaves left too (relocation to Jamaica, East Florida, Bahamas, Canada, Nova Scotia, and England) [as many as 20,000]
• Others enslaved again
• Some whites looked at Negroes differently after war