(Library of Congress)
During the Revolutionary War, approximately 500,000 Black people lived in the American colonies. Of this number, about 450,000 were enslaved. Throughout the war, Black Americans participated in the fighting, from the Battle of Lexington in April 1775 through the Yorktown Campaign in the summer of 1781. All Revolutionary War soldiers faced common wartime experiences, yet Black Americans faced other complexities that were unique to their circumstances. Their situations varied from those of other soldiers in three notable ways: (1) differing enlistment policies throughout the war, (2) their status as enslaved or free, and (3) the work they performed. All three elements played out differently in each of the thirteen states and with the British.
The exact number of Black soldiers during the war is unknown, though estimates range between 5,000 to 8,000. They served in mainly racially integrated Continental Army units. However, this number does not include the number of nonmilitary laborers, staff, and servants, both enslaved and free, who aided military officers, as well as those who fought in state forces and state militia as regularly enlisted soldiers or as paid substitutes. Their military service and the ideas of freedom and liberty became linked to ideas of citizenship.
Black people wanted to serve, whether they legally could or not. Both free and enslaved Black Americans embraced the idea of freedom and found it a worthy cause to fight for. In the colonial era, slavery was legal in all thirteen colonies, and it continued to be legal during the war. To some in the patriot movement, however, the continued existence of slavery clashed with revolutionary ideals. In the Continental Congress and local town meetings, in plantation communities and waterfront cities, and in family homes and enslaved quarters, people discussed enslavement and whether it belonged in the new country of America. These revolutionary ideals were not lost on Black people, free or enslaved, because they were active participants in these debates. Although free and enslaved Black Americans in cities found themselves surrounded by the talk of revolution, Black people living in rural areas and on plantations also learned about the ideals through information networks that carried news from England and the Atlantic world to American cities and ports and finally to plantations. John Adams wrote on 24 September 1775 that
“the negroes have a wonderful art of communicating intelligence among themselves; it will run several hundred miles in a week or a fortnight.”
To defeat the British during the Revolutionary War, the Continental Army needed constant enlistments to expand the size of the forces and replace soldiers. This was no easy task because military service required soldiers to leave their families and occupations behind, which threatened their families’ economic base and the ability to survive. Some people in the thirteen states sided with the British (often called loyalists), whereas others remained neutral throughout the war. War is hard on any society—the Revolutionary War was a lengthy and lasted eight years. Soldiering was dangerous, with high casualty rates from battlefield injuries, accidents, and diseases. The Continental Army and the states often had difficulty raising the appropriate number of troops needed to keep the army effective and relied on Black persons and other people of color to fill in the ranks.
In colonial British America, the policies to allow Black military service were always contentious and uneven. Though Black British Americans participated in local militia activities and the Seven Years’ War, their service often had limitations. They could be denied service, serve with limitations, or serve freely; however, with very few exceptions, enslaved people in general could not serve. The Revolutionary War would be no exception to this pattern. Manpower needs, however, often influenced policies. Each state had their own policies regarding Black enlistment, which often flip-flopped throughout the war. Northern states had the highest Black enlistment rates and rates dropped farther south. Many northern states initially banned Black soldiers but changed their minds to meet recruitment quotas. Some northern states offered manumission to enslaved persons in exchange for military service. Maryland and Virginia allowed some Black military participation; by contrast, South Carolina and Georgia refused to enlist Black people altogether (though several did serve). Choices by individuals at the local level also played a part in Black enlistment rates. Recruiters earned $10 per solider they brought into service—a notable sum, considering that a Continental Army private received a salary of around $7 per month—and often cared little about the enlisted soldier’s race. Most states allowed also those who did not want to serve to pay someone to carry out their military obligations as a substitute. Because Black people were cheaper to hire, those looking for substitutes sometimes opted to pay a Black person as a replacement to save money. Some enslavers sent individuals they had enslaved to serve in their place. All these practices increased the enlistment of Black troops regardless of official policies. Military service was lucrative for many Black soldiers, who had few independent economic opportunities outside of the military. Their continued presence increased the number of long-serving Black soldiers in the army, leading two observers, one in 1777 and one in 1781, to state that Black soldiers comprised a third of the Continental forces.
(National Park Service)
In the initial battles in Massachusetts in the spring of 1775, Black soldiers served freely in racially integrated units. At the Battle of Bunker Hill, formerly enslaved soldier Peter Salem often is credited with killing British Maj. John Pitcairn. General George Washington arrived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to head the newly created Continental Army in June 1775. As a Virginian and a slaveholder, he was surprised to see Black troops serving and freely associating with fellow White soldiers. Shortly after a meeting of Continental officers, Adj. Gen. Horatio Gates issued instructions on 10 July 1775 forbidding the enlistment of Black people. He classed them alongside other undesirable potential recruits, such as suspected loyalists, vagrants, and those under age 18. Gates wanted to encourage
“men of courage and principle to take up arms,”
and in his orders he stated that he
“expected that none but such will be accepted by the recruitment officers.”
However, Black soldiers who already had fought, courageously and competently, and currently were serving in the army objected to this policy. Washington heard their complaints and ordered their temporary reenlistment on 30 December 1775 as he awaited a final decision on the matter from the Continental Congress. Congress decided on 21 February 1776 to allow currently serving Black soldiers to reenlist but banned any new Black volunteers and enslaved people. This would remain Congress’s policy throughout the war. However, because of manpower shortages, the Continental Army ended up enlisting Black troops after all. As there was virtually no way to prove whether a soldier was a new enlistee or a veteran, units could recruit anyone who chose to fight regardless of whether they actually had prior service—a convenient loophole for all concerned.
Some Black people, both free and enslaved, were willing to fight with the British army as they felt the British provided better protections to their freedom. Pressured by rebellious Virginians, Royal Governor John Murray, the 4th Earl of Dunmore, abandoned the colonial capital of Williamsburg, Virginia, on 6 June 1775 and took up operations on the sloop Fowey in the Chesapeake Bay. As a political tool, Lord Dunmore planned to offer freedom to enslaved people in America in exchange for their military service in the British ranks. A slaveholder himself, Dunmore believed arming the enslaved would strike such fear into Americans that they would be persuaded to end the rebellion. On 7 November 1775, Dunmore proclaimed martial law and offered freedom to all indentured and enslaved people. This proclamation did frighten Americans, especially enslavers, who took several measures to prevent their enslaved people from fleeing to the British—from using anti-British propaganda to moving enslaved people to remote locations far from British forces. Hundreds of enslaved people, however, flocked to Dunmore’s call. Over 20,000 enslaved people—men, women, and children—would find refuge with the British. Although offering refuge to the enslaved never became an official British policy, throughout the war British officers such as Sir Henry Clinton offered protection to any Black person who joined the British side, or any enslaved person considered “property of [a] Rebel,” by forbidding anyone from selling them or taking them as their own enslaved servant. However, any captured Black American soldier could be sold into slavery, meaning that even free Black Americans could lose their autonomy. The British may have offered freedom and protection to Black Americans, but nevertheless they weaponized Black Americans and threatened their continued liberty. This gamble marked an inherent distinction that Black Americans faced during the Revolutionary War, and was one that other Americans did not encounter.
(New York Public Digital Collections)
In these ways, Black people found themselves in service during the war. In the Continental Army and state militia as well as in the British army, Black people did serve as soldiers but more commonly worked as laborers, drummers and fifers, personal servants, and cooks. They received the same pay and rations as other soldiers but were denied officer commissions. Many Black soldiers in the Continental Army tended to serve in the war longer than White soldiers, which benefited the army by providing more experienced manpower. Black troops were valued for their foraging skills, and also were prized highly as navigators both on land and water. Officers brought their enslaved people on campaigns to work as servants and cooks. George Washington himself brought William “Billy” Lee, his enslaved personal servant, and hired Hannah Till, an enslaved cook. All the states contracted free and enslaved Black people to provide physical labor for the war effort, such as digging ditches; building fortifications; manufacturing war materials; and working in shipyards, military hospitals, and mines. In fact, paid Black laborers on Sullivan’s Island in South Carolina built much of the palmetto log fortifications that withstood ten hours of British cannon fire at the Battle of Charleston. These examples indicate only some of the ways in which the soldiering and labor of Black Americans were vital to the American cause.
During their service, Black soldiers faced both acceptance and discrimination. Brig. Gen. William Heath wrote a letter to Boston patriot leader Samuel Adams on 27 August 1777 about his experience at Fort Ticonderoga, New York, stating,
“Negroes . . . were generally able-bodied but for my own part I must confess I am never pleased to see them mixed with white men.”
Yet Thomas Kench wrote to the Massachusetts legislature on 1 April 1778 asking to raise an all-Black unit, as he believed
“their ambition would entirely be to out do the white men”
and he could depend on them in battle or in any post. He recommended having them serve for the duration of the war and offer their freedom at its completion. The Massachusetts legislature agreed but also allowed Native Americans and mixed-race soldiers to join the unit. Also in Massachusetts, several officers who fought at the Battle of Bunker Hill asked the General Court of Massachusetts Bay on 1 December 1775 to reward Black soldier Salem Poor, as he
“behaved like an Experienced officer, as well as an Excellent soldier . . . Brave and gallant”
as they faced the British regulars in Charlestown. Rhode Island raised the 1st Rhode Island Regiment, an integrated unit, with the majority of its soldiers being people of color. As the war went on, many of the enslaved soldiers in the regiment gained their freedom through military service. This unit served for the duration of the war in various forms, including at the siege of Yorktown.
The appreciation Americans had for Black people who served in the war took two main forms. First, Black soldiers could apply for and receive federal pensions for their military service. The very act of applying for pensions shows that Black soldiers expected the same rights as all other soldiers and were active participants in the new democracy. Second, official documents show that states granted some enslaved soldiers manumission. Even in states where slavery was embraced wholly and embedded in the local economy, lawmakers found military service as a reason to grant freedom to enslaved people, though only if the soldier had served in the war with the permission of their enslaver.
The ideals of liberty, freedom, and soldiering were intimately linked during the revolutionary period. Evidence exists that individual enslavers and states, particularly in the north, freed their enslaved so they could fight in the war. Other enslaved people fled to the British to seek freedom in service to the Crown. Black Americans who had been free before the war saw an opportunity to be citizens of a new country built on freedom and liberty. This precedent of military service and freedom would be an important theme in the history of the Black American experience, even in the face of continued barriers to their participation. After the war, the U.S. Army denied Black people the right to enlist in the Regular Army. This ban persisted until after the Civil War, though some Black Americans did serve in combat during both the War of 1812 and the Civil War. Even as Black Americans faced prohibitions and limitations on military service that continued into the twentieth century, their example of Revolutionary War service highlights the deep connections between soldiering and citizenship.