American history

Revolution (1750-1805)

The story of the American Revolution as traditionally recounted is the saga of the thirteen colonies fighting their colonial ruler, Britain, for independence. But an equally compelling part of the story is the personal, religious, and legal challenges of African Americans of this period and their allies to slavery. The spirit of liberty and the disruptions of the Revolutionary era encouraged African American men and women to choose sides -- both Patriot and Loyalist -- and fight to define what this nation would become.

1. The Revolutionary Era

Around 1750, the British mainland American colonies had a population of approximately 1.5 million. In addition to settlers from Great Britain, a steady stream of German immigrants began to arrive in the late 1600s and reached its peak between 1749 and 1754, when more than 5,000 Germans arrived annually. Each year 3,500 black captives arrived from Africa or the Caribbean. Nearly 1 in 5 Americans, or 300,000 people, were enslaved. Poverty in Northern Ireland forced a massive flight of Scotch Irish to the colonies.

The majority of white colonists resided in the North, but the majority of black people lived in the South, driving agricultural economies based on tobacco in Virginia and Maryland and on rice along the coasts of South Carolina and Georgia.

Over the next few decades, some colonists began to agitate for their independence from English rule. This led to the American Revolution, with its ethos of freedom and equality. The spirit of the age was not lost on African Americans, who became involved in a parallel struggle for their own freedom.

2. Freedom and Bondage in the Colonial Era

"Like Adam, we are all apt to shift off the blame from ourselves and lay it upon others, how justly in our case you may judge. The Negroes are enslaved by the Negroes themselves before they are purchased by the masters of the ships who bring them here. It is, to be sure, at our choice whether we buy them or not, so this then is our crime, folly, or whatever you will please to call it."
- Reverend Peter Fontaine, Defense of Slavery in Virginia

George Washington was a wealthy Virginia planter whose life story speaks of the paradoxical attitude of whites of his time toward slavery. He acquired his own slaves at the age of eleven when his father died. After his marriage to Martha Custis, he also took over management of her slaves as well. But later in life, after his exposure to the ideals of the American Revolution, he developed strong reservations about slavery. He never issued public statements explaining his changed views, but in his will, he set his own bondpeople free after Martha's death.

Though only 25% of the colonial population owned slaves, slavery factored heavily in the economy of all the British North American colonies, and not just in the plantation economy of the South. While many southerners found slavery morally repugnant, there was a clear business rationale: in the long run, it was cheaper to acquire Africans than to hire laborers.

The North also profited immensely from the international trade in Africans. Its booming industries -- shipbuilding, sail making, iron foundries, sawmills, and rum distilleries -- were an integral part of the trading triangle between Europe, Africa, and North America.

Slavery flourished in pockets of the North, especially in the farming regions of New York and New Jersey. Rhode Island -- the summer residence for many southern planters -- had several large slave estates. Most northern whites ran family farms and did not own slaves, but those who did typically possessed 3 to 4 Africans.

Sixty-one percent of all American slaves -- nearly 145,000 -- lived in Virginia and Maryland, working the tobacco fields in small to medium-sized gangs. Planters who owned hundreds of slaves often divided them among several plantations. In the North and the Upper South, masters and bondpeople lived close to each other.

The South Carolina and Georgia coastal rice belt had a slave population of 40,000. Because rice requires precise irrigation and a large, coordinated labor force, enslaved people lived and worked in larger groups. Plantation owners lived in towns like Charleston or Savannah and employed white overseers to manage their far-flung estates. Overseers assigned a task in the morning, and slaves tended to their own needs when the assigned work was completed. The region was atypical because of its more flexible work schedules and more isolated and independent slave culture.

African Americans performed a wide range of jobs in both the North and the South. The diverse occupations ranged from farm hands to general laborers, servants and skilled craftsmen. While slavery did vary significantly by region, slave codes in every colony deprived African Americans of basic human rights and gave masters the potential for ruthless control.

By 1750, both free and enslaved black people, despite the hardships of their lives, manifested a deepening attachment to America. The majority of blacks by now had been born in America, rather than in Africa. While a collective cultural memory of Africa was maintained, personal and direct memories had waned.

Slave parents began to give their children biblical rather than African names. Even the pattern of slave flight became more Americanized. Newly enslaved Africans often fled in groups and established African-style "maroon" communities on the frontier, but American-born slaves usually escaped alone or in pairs to better avoid detection.

For the African-born like Venture Smith, the possibility of a return home quickly faded. Venture Smith's narrative provides a first-hand account of Northern slavery and freedom. Like Olaudah Equiano, Venture took readers inside the slave experience and described his long struggle to free himself and his family. Kidnapped at age eight from Guinea, West Africa, Venture arrived in Rhode Island in 1737.

His narrative recounted his bondage, a failed escape, ill treatment and false promises by numerous masters, and decades of work to earn freedom for himself and his loved ones. Published in 1798, Venture's autobiography was part of a growing body of African American writing which accompanied the anti-slavery movement.

After 1750 increasing numbers of African Americans found their way to freedom -- either by buying themselves, running away, or being emancipated by their masters. These free blacks emerged as leaders and recognized spokespersons for their race.

Among the writers of this period was Phillis Wheatley, whose life was exceptional in many ways. She received an outstanding education, a rarity for any woman of her times, black or white, slave or free. And prominent white citizens vouched for her talent at a time when most blacks, slave or free, were denied any such recognition. Although not considered a crusader, Wheatley wrote tellingly about injustice.

3. Religion and Slavery

The religious revivals known as the Great Awakening and the Second Great Awakening swept through both the North and South periodically from the 1740s through the 1780s. As a result of the revival movements, many Americans abandoned the hierarchical religion of their ancestors for a more egalitarian God who offered more immediate salvation. This ethos helped prepared people for the egalitarianism of the American Revolution.

The revivalists generally did not challenge slavery, but they preached to everyone, regardless of race. The Methodists and the Baptists, in particular, welcomed converts from the black and white working population. Fearing the Christian message of spiritual equality, slave owners initially resisted evangelicals preaching to their bondpeople, but as the revival movement spread, a few even came to consider it their Christian duty to teach their slaves about the Bible.

African Americans played a major role in their own conversion, and for their own reasons. Africans brought to America initially resisted giving up the religions of their forefathers, but over the years, and with the birth of new generations on American soil, accepting Christianity became part of accepting America as home. Over time, large numbers of slaves found the biblical message of spiritual equality before God appealing and found comfort in the biblical theme of deliverance.

The first generation of African American leaders -- ministers -- arose from the revival movement. George Liele and his proteges, Andrew Bryan and David George, built the first black Baptist churches in Georgia and South Carolina during the height of the Revolution. The black Baptist movement thrived in British-occupied Savannah and Charleston. After the war, the geographical reach of their combined ministries was remarkable. By 1790 George Liele had emigrated to Jamaica with the Loyalists, and he preached regularly to 350 converts. David George established seven churches in Nova Scotia before leaving for Sierra Leone, West Africa, where he founded another Baptist church. By 1800 Andrew Bryan's First Baptist Church of Savannah had grown to a congregation of 700.

Lemuel Haynes was an unusual black minister for his times, because in his fifty year career he preached to predominantly white congregations in Connecticut, Vermont, and upstate New York.

Although these early leaders were black men, women were the majority of the membership of early black congregations, and they frequently took the lead in conversion. Many of these women claimed, and actually exercised, the right to preach, and a large number of them were exhorters (informal preachers).

4. Declarations of Independence, 1770-1783

[King George] has waged cruel war on human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither.
- removed from the final version of the Declaration of Independence

By the 1760s, the American colonists began to wage a war of words and resistance against the British colonial government. The language of the dissenting colonists soon became the language of African Americans as well in their fight for personal freedom. Their poems, letters, and petitions used the rhetoric of the age to appeal for slavery's abolition in the rhetoric of the age.

A few white colonists, publicly noted the paradox between the patriots' demands for liberty and the widespread acceptance of slavery. James Otis called the slave trade "the most shocking violation of the law of nature" and posed a series of rhetorical questions which challenged the logic of enslaving blacks because of their physical characteristics. In The Watchman's Alarm John Allen questioned the values of his fellow colonists, chiding them for "enslaving [their] fellow creatures. . . . What is a trifling three-penny duty on tea compared to inestimable blessings of liberty to one captive?"

During the escalating conflicts with the British army, some African Americans, like Crispus Attucks, displayed their devotion to the patriot cause. In 1770 Crispus Attucks became the first man to fall in the struggle with the British. His life was representative of the free blacks of his era -- a runaway, he worked for 20 years at various trades, including rope-making and sailing.

In April 1776, representatives of the thirteen rebellious colonies meeting in the Continental Congress voted to halt the slave trade. Their resolve to shut down British trade, not revolutionary idealism, prompted their action.

Three months later, in July, the Continental Congress grappled with slavery again. In his first version of the Declaration of Independence Thomas Jefferson wrote a scathing indictment of King George for promoting slavery in the New World. The other delegates eventually removed this language, but the final version still accused the king of stirring up domestic insurrections -- namely the acts of slave rebellion instigated by Lord Dunmore's Proclamation . The Declaration of Independence immediately became the world's foremost manifesto celebrating human rights and personal freedom, yet when he wrote it, Thomas Jefferson owned over 200 slaves.

Massachusetts, where the first skirmishes of the Revolution had occurred in 1775, also became a battleground over the status of African Americans. Free blacks frequently submitted petitions seeking an end to slavery, but the legislature tabled each one. Noting how each previous petition had been ignored, the 1777 petition signed by Prince Hall was the most impatient in tone.

5. The Revolutionary War

While the Patriots were ultimately victorious in the American Revolution, choosing sides and deciding whether to fight in the war was far from an easy choice for American colonists. The great majority were neutral or Loyalist.

For black people, what mattered most was freedom. As the Revolutionary War spread through every region, those in bondage sided with whichever army promised them personal liberty. The British actively recruited slaves belonging to Patriot masters and, consequently, more blacks fought for the Crown. An estimated 100,000 African Americans escaped, died or were killed during the American Revolution.

Many African Americans, like Agrippa Hull and Prince Hall, did side with the Patriot cause. 5,000 black men served in the Continental Army, and hundreds more served on the sea.

Had George Washington been less ambivalent, more blacks might have participated on the Patriot side than with the Loyalists. When he took command of the Continental Army in 1775, Washington barred the further recruitment of black soldiers, despite the fact that they had fought side by side with their white counterparts at the battles of Lexington, Concord and Bunker Hill.

The Governor of Virginia, whose royal title was Lord Dunmore, on the other hand, sought to disrupt the American cause by promising freedom to any slaves owned by Patriot masters who would join the Loyalist forces. (Runaway slaves belonging to Loyalists were returned to their masters.) Dunmore officially issued his proclamation in November, 1775, and within a month 300 black men had joined his Ethiopian regiment. Probably no more than 800 eventually succeeded in joining Dunmore's regiment, but his proclamation inspired thousands of runaways to follow behind the British throughout the war.

By the winter of 1777-78, the Continental Army had dwindled to 18,000 from disease and desertion. This, together with the active recruitment of enslaved blacks by the British, finally convinced Washington to approve plans for Rhode Island to raise a regiment of free blacks and slaves.

Colonel Tye was perhaps the best-known of the Loyalist black soldiers. An escaped bondman born in Monmouth County, New Jersey, he wreaked havoc for several years with his guerrilla Black Brigade in New York and New Jersey. At one time he commanded 800 men. For most of 1779 and 1780, Tye and his men terrorized his home county -- stealing cattle, freeing slaves, and capturing Patriots at will. On September 1, 1780, during the capture of a Patriot captain, Tye was shot through the wrist, and he later died from a fatal infection.

Boston King was an escaped slave who joined up with the Loyalists and later documented his experience. When he reached the black Loyalist encampment, it was a rife with smallpox. King became ill himself, and discovered that the British removed sick runaways from camp to die or heal on their own. King survived, and rejoined General Cornwallis' troops at Camden, South Carolina, where he served as a military messenger and an orderly. But while fighting for the Crown, King was kidnapped by a band of southern Loyalists who tried to sell him back into slavery. He escaped and again rejoined the army.

In October 1781, as Patriot and French ground forces and the French fleet surrounded Cornwallis' men at Yorktown, Virginia, the British sent their black allies to face death between the battle lines. After Cornwallis' surrender, the Americans rounded up the surviving blacks for re-enslavement. For the next year, as Loyalists withdrew from southern ports, scores of black refugees sought passage to New York -- the last British stronghold.

Many thousands of African Americans who aided the British lost their freedom anyway. Many of them ended up in slavery in the Caribbean. Others, when they attempted to leave with the British, in places like Charleston and Savannah, were prevented. And there are incredible letters written by southerners of Africans after the siege of Charleston, swimming out to boats, and the British hacking away at their arms with cutlasses to keep them from following them. So it was a very tragic situation. And of the many thousands of Africans who left the plantations, not many of them actually got their freedom.
- Margaret Washington, historian, on the evacuation of Charleston

In November 1782, Britain and America signed a provisional treaty granting the former colonies their independence. As the British prepared for their final evacuation, the Americans demanded the return of American property, including runaway slaves, under the terms of the peace treaty.

Sir Guy Carleton, the acting commander of British forces, refused to abandon black Loyalists to their fate as slaves. With thousands of apprehensive blacks seeking to document their service to the Crown, Brigadier General Samuel Birch, British commandant of the city of New York, created a list of claimants known as The Book of Negroes. Boston King and his wife, Violet, were among 3,000 to 4,000 African Americans Loyalists who boarded ships in New York bound for Nova Scotia, Jamaica, and Britain.

6. The Constitution and the New Nation

No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.
- Article IV, Section 2 of the Constitution

After the American Revolution, the movement to abolish slavery gained momentum in the North. In the South, though, where the black majority lived, slave owners re-asserted their rights. At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, southerners forced several compromises that laid the foundation for a new nation: a nation which espoused liberty, but practiced bondage.

Although the word "slavery" does not appear in the Constitution, Georgia and South Carolina delegates insisted that a proportion of their slave population be factored in to determine representation in Congress. The Fugitive Slave Clause affirmed the rights of slaveholders to reclaim runaways. And southerners won a constitutional guarantee that the slave trade, which had resumed after the war, could continue unabated for the next 20 years.

In 1780, Massachusetts approved a new constitution, which borrowed from the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia Bill of Rights, stating that "all men are born free and equal." Relying upon this language, Elizabeth Freeman and Quock Walker successfully sued for emancipation.

That same year, Paul Cuffe, a free black businessman in Boston, pushed for voting rights by requesting that he and his brother be excused from paying taxes, because they had "no voice or influence in the election of those who tax us."

By 1790, more than 59,000 African Americans lived free. Venture Smith and his family had settled into modest prosperity in Haddam, Connecticut, where he helped build the church where he was later buried. Benjamin Banneker distinguished himself as a scientist, almanac writer, and surveyor of the nation's new capital.

Free blacks' status and social standing varied by region. Most everywhere, though, they were from excluded from public schools, denied the right to vote, and faced racism and legal discrimination. Their hold on freedom was so vulnerable that some considered emigrating to Africa.

In spite of inequality and hardship, free African Americans were in most cases far better off than their 800,000 brethren who lived in bondage. By 1810 the free black population had swelled to 186.446, but slavery too, continued to flourish and spread westward with the growing new nation.