African Americans in the Revolutionary War

      Historians continue to debate whether more blacks fought on the side of the Americans or on the side of the British. But it is for certain that they were engaged in battle on both sides with both England and America promising freedom if they were victorious. The Bucks of America was an all-black military company that operated against the British in and around Boston. Little is known of their service, but Governor John Handcock of Massachusetts presented them a white silk flag that stated “Bucks of America” for their service. Slaves also began to fill the muster rolls of the militia with their masters being compensated for their service. Between 1777 and 1781, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, and Maryland all passed laws encouraging slaves to serve as soldiers. Lord Dunmore, the governor of Virginia and loyal to the British crown, offered freedom to any slave willing to take up arms against the rebels. Dunmore raised an army of five hundred slaves that were called Dunmore’s Ethiopian Regiment. Slaves served in both the American and the British Navy piloting the vessels and handle ammunition. At the end of the war, African Americans who served with honor and distinction in the continental army found that the postwar military held no rewards for them. Slaves were returned to their masters, and in 1784 and 1785, laws were passed banning all blacks free or slaves from military service. Those blacks who fought on the side of the British were put on a list known as the Book of Negros, and in 1792, many of them sailed with the British back to England or other English colonies, including Jamaica, Nova Scotia, and Serra Leone, all English colonies.

      The Bucks of America medallion is an engraved oval silver disk with the letters MW on the bottom. Thirteen stars for the thirteen original colonies are above a leaping buck and a shield with three fleur-de-lis flowers and the crest of the last French royal family, the Bourbons. This was the symbol of the Franco-American War alliance, made in honor and recognition of the all-black patriot militia company, Bucks of America. One notable member of the militia was Prince Hall, 1735–1807, who was the founder of the Freemason society in America.

      Gabriel Hall, the only known image of a black Nova Scotian, who migrated to the colony during the war of 1812.

      The First Rhode Island Regiment

      On February 14, 1778, the Rhode Island Assembly voted to allow every able-bodied negro, mulatto, Indian, or slave in the state to enlist into either of the Continental battalions that were being formed. The assembly further stipulated that every slave enlisting be immediately discharged from the service of his master or mistress and be freed.

      The 1st Rhode Island Regiment at the Battle of Bloody Run Brook, August 28, 1778, courtesy of David Wagner.

      Crispus Attucks

      (1723–1770)

      The Boston Massacre, known as the Incident on King Street by the British, was a confrontation on March 5, 1770, in which British Army soldiers shot and killed five people. The incident was heavily publicized by patriots Paul Revere and Samuel Adams to encourage rebellion against the British authorities.

      Crispus Attucks was an American dockworker of African and Native American descent. He is widely regarded as the first person killed in the Boston Massacre and thus the first American killed in the American Revolutionary War.

      Peter Salem

      Peter Salem was one of the five thousand black men in the Revolutionary War. This former slave from Framingham, Massachusetts, won fame and glory in the Battle of Bunker Hill. It happened this way: A British officer, Major Pitcairn, showing more bravery than sense, charged the American position, shouting, “Forward men the day is ours.” Peter Salem fired and the major fell mortally wounded. This action helped to change the battle from defeat to a moral victory. Former slaves Salem Poor and Prince Hall also fought in this battle. The bravery of these ex-slaves not only placed them among the heroes of that day but won for them the respect of their white comrades.

      War of 1812

      Free and Enslaved black United States soldiers fighting alongside of Choctaw Indians against British troops at the Battle of New Orleans.

      United States Center of Military History

      Battle of New Orleans

      During the war of 1812, about one quarter of the American naval squadron at the battle of Lake Erie were black. There is a portrait depicting this that hangs in the nation’s capital.

      At the Battle of New Orleans, Andrew Jackson issued a call for black troops early in the fall of 1814, promising free blacks the same wages as white troops and freedom for all slaves. Jackson visited a plantation owned by a Calvin Smith, and when he left, five hundred slaves left with him all with Jackson’s promise of freedom. Among them was a slave by the name of James Robert. After the British had been defeated, Jackson ordered all black troops out of the city at the request of the white residents who were fearful of armed black troops. Jackson also reneged on his promise of freedom for the slaves, returning them to their owners. When Robert confronted Jackson about his promise of freedom for the slaves, the white people of New Orleans said that he should be shot for his audacity. Later in his slave narrative (1858), Robert wrote, “Had my gun been loaded, Jackson would have been a dead man.”

      The British offered freedom to any slave who would join their forces against the colonists. Vice Admiral Warren was ordered to take aboard any of his ships any black who asked for assistance. Warren was to receive these men as free men and not as slaves and send them to any of the English colonies.

      Robert James

      James was born in eastern Maryland in 1753 and was enslaved by Francis De Shields, who was a colonel in the Continental Army of George Washington. At the start of the Revolutionary War, James went with his owner to fight and remained with him for the entire length of the war. When the war ended, James went to Philadelphia with De Shields. While there, De Shields died, and James was sold to a William Ward. Ward then sold him to Calvin Smith, who owned a plantation in New Orleans, Louisiana. At the start of the second British invasions, the war of 1812, the American army had been depleted. British forces numbered 243,885 troops against an American force of 7000 and Gen. Andrew Jackson needed men to defend the city of New Orleans. He enlisted Tennessee militiamen, Kentucky riflemen, a band of pirates commanded by Capt. Jean Lafitte, free black men, Choctaw Indians, and slaves. Jackson enlisted 500 slaves

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