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American Revolution

Get the story of how a fledgling, largely disconnected nation won its freedom from the greatest military force of its time.

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Get the story of how a fledgling, largely disconnected nation won its freedom from the greatest military force of its time. How can we improve this experience? © 2021, A&E Television Networks, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

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Learn about spies during the American Revolution including secret messages, invisible ink, famous agents, the Culper Spy Ring, disguises, and interesting facts.

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The American Revolution Map" by Katy Gonzalez

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also called:

United States War of Independence or American Revolutionary War

What was the American Revolution?

How did the American Revolution begin?

What were the major causes of the American Revolution?

Which countries fought on the side of the colonies during the American Revolution?

How was the American Revolution a civil war?

American Revolution, (1775-83), insurrection by which 13 of Great Britain's North American colonies won political independence and went on to form the United States of America. The war followed more than a decade of growing estrangement between the British crown and a large and influential segment of its North American colonies that was caused by British attempts to assert greater control over colonial affairs after having long adhered to a policy of salutary neglect. Until early in 1778 the conflict was a civil war within the British Empire, but afterward it became an international war as France (in 1778) and Spain (in 1779) joined the colonies against Britain. Meanwhile, the Netherlands, which provided both official recognition of the United States and financial support for it, was engaged in its own war against Britain. From the beginning, sea power was vital in determining the course of the war, lending to British strategy a flexibility that helped compensate for the comparatively small numbers of troops sent to America and ultimately enabling the French to help bring about the final British surrender at Yorktown.

Land campaigns to 1778

Americans fought the war on land with essentially two types of organization: the Continental (national) Army and the state militias. The total number of the former provided by quotas from the states throughout the conflict was 231,771 men, and the militias totaled 164,087. At any given time, however, the American forces seldom numbered over 20,000; in 1781 there were only about 29,000 insurgents under arms throughout the country. The war was therefore one fought by small field armies. Militias, poorly disciplined and with elected officers, were summoned for periods usually not exceeding three months. The terms of Continental Army service were only gradually increased from one to three years, and not even bounties and the offer of land kept the army up to strength. Reasons for the difficulty in maintaining an adequate Continental force included the colonists' traditional antipathy toward regular armies, the objections of farmers to being away from their fields, the competition of the states with the Continental Congress to keep men in the militia, and the wretched and uncertain pay in a period of inflation.

By contrast, the British army was a reliable steady force of professionals. Since it numbered only about 42,000, heavy recruiting programs were introduced. Many of the enlisted men were farm boys, as were most of the Americans. Others were unemployed persons from the urban slums. Still others joined the army to escape fines or imprisonment. The great majority became efficient soldiers as a result of sound training and ferocious discipline. The officers were drawn largely from the gentry and the aristocracy and obtained their commissions and promotions by purchase. Though they received no formal training, they were not so dependent on a book knowledge of military tactics as were many of the Americans. British generals, however, tended toward a lack of imagination and initiative, while those who demonstrated such qualities often were rash.

Because troops were few and conscription unknown, the British government, following a traditional policy, purchased about 30,000 troops from various German princes. The Lensgreve (landgrave) of Hesse furnished approximately three-fifths of that total. Few acts by the crown roused so much antagonism in America as that use of foreign mercenaries.

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American Revolution | Causes, Battles, Aftermath, & Facts

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American Revolution (1775-83), insurrection by which 13 of Great Britain's North American colonies won political independence and went on to form the United States of America. The war followed more than a decade of growing estrangement between the British crown and many North American colonists.

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Interactive Map of the American Revolution

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In this documentary, in the form of an interactive map, you can zoom in on the 195 battles of the American Revolution. You can zoom in on the actual battle fields, read background information about each battle, and obtain travel directions and surrounding points of interest information.

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Fighting the American Revolution, Soldier Narratives, Black Soldiers, Prisoners, Prison Ship, Primary Sources for Teachers, America in Class, National Humanities Center

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The images at right depict war from a distance. An individual soldier is a vertical line among many, his identity irrelevant in the artist's attempt to evoke the reality of a battle, a march, a surrender. For the soldier, of course, reality was the comrade next to him-and the enemy he was to kill.

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American Revolution for Kids: Life as a Revolutionary War Soldier

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Kids learn about the daily life of a Revolutionary War Soldier including the Continental army, the militia, how much they were paid, how old they were, and more.

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Africans in America | Part 2 | The Revolutionary War

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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.

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Learn about the women from the American Revolution including roles such as spies, nurses, camp followers, and soldiers. Also, famous women who played an important part in the war.

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History Brief: African Americans in the Revolution

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Learn about Valley Forge. The place where George Washington and the Continental Army spent the winter during the Revolutionary War.

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Doctor Selig received his Ph.D. in history cum laude from Universität Würzburg, 1988
He has most recently been Visiting Professor of History and German at Hope College in Michigan.
Recipient of many awards and grants, his articles have appeared in American Heritage, Colonial Williamsburg (where this work first appeared in Summer 1997), Military History Quarterly, William and Mary Quarterly, and others. Other fine articles by him include Franz Ludwig Michel , the story of an early visitor to America, Georg Daniel Flohr's Journal, soon to be expanded into a book, and Deux-Ponts Germans, as well as articles on Admiral DeGrasse at Yorktown and Lauzun's Legion.
He is available to lecture on the present topic. He may be contacted by clicking on his name above, or visit Dr. Selig's website by clicking here.

John Murray, fourth Earl of Dunmore, the last royal governor of Virginia, in April 1772 expressed his conviction to Lord Dartmouth, Bntish secretary of state for the colonies, that "in case of a War" the slaves, "attached by no tye to their Master or to the Country" would "join the first that would encourage them to revenge themselves by which means a Conquest of this Country would inevitably be effected in a very short time." Dunmore's fears were shared by many white Virginians, though none expected that three years later Dunmore himself would attempt "a Conquest of this Country" with the help of African-American slaves.

The early 1770s were a period of slave unrest in Virginia, prompting the city of Williamsburg to establish a night watch in July 1772 to apprehend "disorderly People, Slaves as well as others." Slave restiveness increased when news of the Somersett case reached the colonies in September 1772. James Somersett, a slave taken to England by his master Charles Steuart, had run away. Recaptured and in chains in the hull of a ship bound for Jamaica, he sued for his freedom. In June 1772, Lord Mansfield, Chief Justice of the King's Bench, held that slavery "is so odious, that nothing can be suffered to support it, but positive law." As "the law of England" neither "allowed" nor "approved" of slavery, Mansfield ruled that "the black must be discharged."

Mansfield's decision outlawed slavery only in England; it did not apply to British colonies. But that was immaterial to American slaves. In January 1773, the General Court in Boston received the first of three petitions in which slaves pleaded their freedom with the argument that Mansfield's decision should indeed apply to the colonies, where they were "held in a state of Slavery within a free and christian Country."

By September 1773, the first of Virginia's 250,000 slaves were also trying to get "out of the Colony, particularly to Britain" - so noted John Austin Finnie's advertisement for runaways Bacchus and Amy - "where they imagine they will be free." The king was on their side - or so slaves thought - and against their masters, who feared a British-instigated slave revolt. Following the discovery in November 1774 of slaves conspiring to desert "when the English troops should arrive," James Madison wrote to William Bradford of his conviction that "If america & Britain come to an hostile rupture I am afraid an Insurrection among the slaves may & will be promoted" in an attempt to preserve Virginia for the crown of King George III.

When tensions between Dunmore and Virginia's ruling elite increased in early 1775, the ground was well prepared for his lordship to "arm all my own Negroes and receive all others that will come to me who I shall declare free," as he wrote to Dartmouth on March 1. Dunmore could argue that since the colonists were clamoring for English law, they could get a taste of it, Somersett and all. The slaves, on the other hand, considered the government in London and its local representatives to be sympathetic to their cause, and they were only waiting for the sign to take up arms to "reduce the refractory people of this Colony to obedience."

Armed conflict was looming, and Dunmore ordered Royal Marines to seize the gunpowder stored in the Williamsburg Magazine during the night of April 20-21. When Virginia threatened to erupt in open violence, Dunmore backed down. Forced to pay restitution for the powder, Dunmore lost his temper in front of the town leaders. Williamsburg resident Dr. William Pasteur heard the governor say that he would "declare freedom to the slaves and reduce the City of Williamsburg to ashes." He boasted he would have "all the slaves on the side of the government". By mid-May, rumors of Dunmore's plans had spread all the way to Boston, from where General Thomas Gage, Governor of Massachusetts, informed Dartmouth: "We hear that a Declaration his Lordship has made, of proclaiming all the Negroes free, who should join him, has Startled the Insurgents."

Gage was jumping the gun but not by much. On June 8, Dunmore fled Williamsburg for the safety of the man-of-war Fowey at Yorktown. The Virginia Convention quickly assured the governor of his own personal safety but expressed its extreme displeasure of this "most diabolical" scheme "meditated, and generally recommended, by a Person of great Influence, to offer Freedom to our slaves, and turn them against their Masters." But Dunmore felt that he had no alternative. His ranks reduced to some 300 soldiers, sailors, and loyalists, he let it be known that he welcomed supporters of any skin color. As word spread along the coast, about 100 black runaways reached Dunmore's fleet during the fall of 1775. In early November his troops routed a corps of Virginia militia at Kemp's Landing. That was the signal for the publication of Dunmore's long-anticipated proclamation to American slaves.

Dated November 7, it declared "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" This was not a general emancipation of slaves and indentured servants. Dunmore invited only those slaves to his banner who were owned by rebels, and of those, only males could bear arms.

The response was overwhelming. By December 1, about 300 runaways were carrying muskets and wearing the garb of Lord Dunmore's Ethiopian Regiment, the words "Liberty to Slaves" emblazoned on their chests. During the Battle of Great Bridge on December 9, they accounted for about half of Dunmore's 600 men. After losing 17 killed and 49 wounded, he retreated to his fleet.

The Virginia Convention decreed death to "all Negro or other Slaves, conspiring to rebel or make insurrection." Those who laid down their arms and returned within ten days would be pardoned; all others would be sold in the West Indies. To set an example, 32 black runaways taken at Great Bridge were ordered sold in the Caribbean in January 1776.

Despite a fever epidemic and reports of "Hungry bellies, naked backs, and no fuel... the most cruel and inhuman treatment," runaways were lured to the coast. On March 30, 1776, Dunmore informed Lord Germain: "I have been endeavoring to raise two regiments here - one of white people, the other of black. The former goes on very slowly, but the latter very well."

By the summer of 1776, at least 800 blacks "willing to bear arms" had joined Dunmore's force now quartered on Gwynn's Island. When he left Virginia for good on August 7, only about 300 were still alive; all others had died of fevers. Once Dunmore had cast anchor in New York seven days later, the regiment was dissolved, and the former soldiers left to fend for themselves.

Dunmore's proclamation had been driven as much by political as by military considerations, but his early attempt at using blacks as soldiers never became general policy. Sir William Howe, who had replaced Gage in September 1775, was personally opposed to their use and dismissed blacks wherever he could find them. Provincial forces wore ordered to "be put on the most Respectable Footing [and] all Negroes, Molattoes and other Improper Persons who have been admitted into these Corps be immediately discharged." King George's army would remain a white army.

It is hard to estimate how many free blacks and slaves served in the Royal Army, but whatever the number; it is only a fraction of those who were willing to wear red coats-if only the British had let them. It is not that the blacks were necessarily pro-British; first and foremost they were pro-black, prepared to support the side that held out the greatest hope for them to improve their lot. That side was the British, as their response to Dunmore's proclamation showed. But freedom, the price for black help in the war, was a price neither the British nor their loyalist allies were prepared to pay.

As black soldiers were becoming a rarity in the British army, their numbers were increasing on the American side. When Congress instructed the states in September 1776 to raise 88 infantry battalions, few African-Americans were left in the Continental Army. Southern opposition had resulted in the exclusion of most black men. However, the realities of war forced Congress and the states to reevaluate their policies.

Despite bonuses and bounties, recruits were slow to sign up. To bring the Continental Army up to strength, Congress ordered the states in January 1777 to fill their units "by drafts, from their militia, or in any other way." As Virginia was unable to meet her quota of 10,200 men with volunteers, a draft based on the existing militia lists had to be considered. The Militia Act of the summer of 1775 had required that "all free male persons, hired servants, and apprentices between the ages of 16 and 50 years . . . be enrolled or forced into companies." This excluded slaves by definition, but free blacks were registered to serve, though "without arms."

Registration on a militia list was one thing, serving in the Continental Army quite another. The militia usually served short-term and hardly ever outside state boundaries. The Continental Army wanted long-term soldiers who served wherever needed, an unappealing prospect for Virginians at a time of heightened slave unrest and the threat of wholesale desertion of their black property to the British.

The lottery-based draft law enacted in May 1777 greatly increased the number of blacks in the Virginia Line. Free blacks were the first to be called up, as Virginia tightened the enforcement of the draft. "It was thought that they could best be spared," Governor Thomas Nelson informed George Washington.

Very few free blacks were as wealthy as James Harris of Charles City County, who was able to afford a substitute to fight in his place in 1780; most had no choice but to join up. But slave owners could afford substitutes and, when faced with a draft notice, many a master presented a slave to the recruiting officer for a freeman and a substitute. Many a runaway told the nearest recruiter that he was a freeman, anxious to fight.

More often than not, he was accepted without too many questions; the army was always short of men. General Washington himself had opened the door for African-Americans in his general orders of January 12, 1777, in which he instructed recruiters to "enlist none but Freemen," the implication being that the recruit could be black just as long as he was free. To put an end to such unpatriotic behavior on the part of some masters and to stop the self-emancipation of slaves, the Virginia Legislature amended the 1775 Militia Law in June 1777 by "forbidding any recruiting officers within this Commonwealth to enlist any negro or mulatto into the service of this, or either of the United States, until such Negro shall produce a certificate ... that he is a freeman."

During the winter of 1777-78, dozens of black Virginians served in every one of the state regiments, freezing, starving, and dying at Valley Forge. By February 1778, the survivors were marching with white comrades through the snow, practicing Baron von Steuben's as yet unfamiliar drill. When the Steuben-trained army proved its mettle at Monmouth in June, about 700 blacks fought side-by-side with whites. Eight weeks later, an army report listed 755 blacks in the Continental Army, including 138 Blacks in the Virginia Line.

Partially in response to Monmouth, Sir Henry Clinton, who had replaced Howe in May 1778, shifted the theater of war to the South. On June 30, 1779, Clinton promised in his Philippsburg Declaration that "every NEGRO who shall desert the Rebel Standard, [is granted] full security to follow within these Lines, any Occupation which he shall think proper." In response, tens of thousands of slaves fled behind British lines.

In May 1780 Charleston fell, and most of the Virginia Line were taken prisoners. When General Horatio Gates lost at Camden in August, Virginia lay virtually defenseless before Lord Cornwallis. The military situation was serious enough that a debate concerning the arming of slaves began in the new capital of Richmond. There was ample precedence for such a step.

New Jersey's Militia Act of May 1777 permitted masters to enlist slaves as substitutes. New Hampshire opened the door to the recruitment of slaves to fill the state's Continental quota in the fall of that year, and Connecticut soon followed suit. In October 1780 an all black unit, the 2nd Company, 4th Connecticut Regiment, was formed. That company, some 48 black privates and NCOs under four white officers, existed until November 1782.

In January 1778, General Washington had given his approval to Rhode Island's plan to raise slaves. Over the next five years 250 former slave and freedmen served in the an entire regiment of black 1st Rhode Island Regiment. Massachusetts' all-black unit, the Bucks of America under Samuel Middleton, the only black commissioned officer in the Continental Army, probably also had its origins early in 1778. Similar to Rhode Island, the state bought and emancipated slaves willing to become soldiers. In October 1780, even Maryland accepted "any able-bodied slave between 16 and 40 years of age, who voluntarily enters into service . . . with the consent and agreement of his master." New York would begin to recruit slaves in March 1781.

Although the white sails of Major General Alexander Leslie's fleet with 2,500 British troops on board had already appeared in Hampton Roads, the Virginia Legislature refused to arm slaves. Instead it voted in October 1780 to grant every recruit who enlisted for the duration of the war 300 acres of land and the choice between a healthy black male slave between the ages of 10 and 30 years or £60 in specie. The slave bonus would be raised by a special tax on planters who owned more than 20 slaves. The use of slaves as bounties later became known as "Sumter's Law," after General Thomas Sumter, who began offering Tory slaves as enlistment bonuses in South Carolina in April 1781.

Military necessity made the Continental Army and the Virginia State Line an integrated force. Observed a Hessian officer: "The Negro can take the field instead of his master, and therefore no regiment is to be seen in which there are not Negroes in abundance, and among them are able-bodied and strong fellows." What the diarist did not report was that every Hessian regiment contained black soldiers as well.

Britain's German auxiliaries had disembarked in New York during the early summer of 1776; by March 1777 they had hegun to recruit black volunteers. Facing manpower shortages as severe as those of the British, they quickly tapped the labor pool of runaways. Hundreds served as laborers or servants, but the Germans readily put blacks in uniform as well.

Most of the 115 African-Americans on Hessen-Cassel and Hessen-Hanau regimental rosters came from southern states. Many were very young, mere children of 11, 12, 13 years, who served as drummers and fifers, freeing up older, taller whites for service with the musket. Hessian records from 1777 to 1783 show 83 black drummers as well as 3 fifers.

On the eve of departure for Europe, the Hessians discharged some two dozen black men who wanted to stay in America. About 30 soldiers plus an unknown number of officer servants not on regimental rosters, some with their wives and children, crossed the Atlantic for Cassel, where they arrived in late 1783.

A contingent of Brunswick troops under Baron Friedrich Adolf von Riedesel that had been captured at Saratoga spent four years as part of the Convention Army interned around Charlottesville. In February 1781 the exchanged Baron Riedesel encouraged his officers to recruit black soldiers from among the refugees in New York. Among them was James Barkes of Williamsburg, possibly a former slave of Norfolk merchant James Parker and a survivor of Dunmore's regiment.

In France, Africans had served in the armed forces since the late 17th century. When the Comte de Rochambeau's expeditionary corps stepped ashore in Newport in 1780, it counted at least one black soldier in its ranks: Jean-Baptiste Pandoua from Madagascar, who had joined the Bourbonnais regiment as a musician in 1777. He deserted in June 1782, while his regiment was quartered in Virginia . Unlike other participants in the war; the French did not, could not, recruit American blacks. After all, they had come to aid the Americans, not to steal their property.

In June 1781, the French and American armies joined forces at White Plains. Baron Closen, a German officer in the French Royal Deux-Ponts, estimated the American army to be about one fourth black, about 1,200 --1,500 men out of less than 6,000 Continentals! On the eve of its decisive victory over Lord Cornwallis, the Continental Army had reached a degree of integration it would not achieve again for another 200 years. Among the troops at White Plains was the Rhode Island Regiment (the two bataillons had been consolidated on 1 January 1781) with its high percentage of African-Americans, which Closen considered the best American unit: "the most neatly dressed, the best under arms, and the most precise in its maneuvres.

In July it was off for Virginia, where the Marquis de Lafayette had been shadowing Cornwallis for months. His success in avoiding the earl was due partly to James Armistead (portrait at left shows Armistead in later life), the slave of William Armistead of New Kent County. Born around 1760, the young black man had approached Lafayette in Williamsburg or during the journey to Annapolis, where he arrived on April 3, 1781. Armistead had permission from his master to serve with the marquis as a servant. But Lafayette had other plans for him: Use him to gain reliable intelligence about Cornwallis's plans.

Lafayette's attempts at infiltrating British headquarters were futile until the first week of July, when Cornwallis hired James Armistead to spy on the Americans. Though Lafayette had to inform Washington on July 31 that "His lordship is So Shy of His papers that My Honest friend Says He Cannot get at them," the written and oral reports of the unlikely double agent kept the allies apprised of British plans. On August 25, Lafayette could report that Cornwallis had begun "fortifing at York." On September 28, the siege began.

The First Rhode Island Regiment, the only all-black American unit at the siege, formed part of Major General Benjamin Lincoln's division. The soldiers were among the 4,300 men who dug the first parallel on the evening of October 6 about 550 yards from the enemy. They were in the trenches on the 9th, when the first American artillery shells hit Yorktown. And they were in the trenches again on the night of the 15th, when Lord Cornwallis made his only serious sortie against the Franco-American siege lines.

Two days later, surrender negotiations began; in the early afternoon of the 19th the defeated British army and German allies laid down their arms. Yorktown lay in ruins. Death and destruction were everywhere. "All over the place and wherever you looked," Private Georg Daniel Flohr of the Royal Deux-Ponts saw "corpses... lying about that had not been buried; the larger part of these were Mohren." They were the corpses of black Hessians and black Frenchmen, black Englishmen and black Americans. They all had fought each other at Yorktown.

Among the survivors, a few black Hessians made it to Germany, and a smaller number was spirited away by the French. Black patriots numbering some 5,000, including about 500 black Virginians, soon went home, too.

In 1782, Virginia had passed a law permitting manumission with the stipulation that former owners remain responsible for manumitted slaves unable to support themselves. Between 1782 and 1792, about 1,000 slaves, undoubtedly including some who had fought for their masters, were manumitted by them. But more were returned to slavery, so that even a legislature such as Virginia's, dominated as it was by slave owners, spoke out against the obvious injustice.

In the fall of 1783, the Assembly passed a bill condemning owners who "contrary to principles of justice and to their own solemn promise" kept their soldier substitutes as slaves. They were freed by legislative decree with instructions to the attorney general of Virginia to act on behalf of any former slave held in servitude despite his enlistment. how many slaves received their freedom as a result of this bill is not known, since a slave could not himself initiate legal proceedings for his own manumission.

But if the number of slaves freed by the legislature as a reward for nonmilitary service is any indication, they were few. Eight slaves are known to have been granted freedom by the legislature for service in the Revolutionary War.

Among them was James Armistead, who had slipped out of Yorktown before the siege began and returned to Lafayette's service. When Cornwallis paid a courtesy call on the marquis, he was surprised to encounter a black man there he considered to be in his pay.

In October 1784, Lafayette (in the picture on the left with Armistead holding his horse) penned a certificate declaring that James Armistead had done "Essential Service" in collecting "Intelligence from the Ennemy's Camp" and was therefore "Entitled to Every Reward His Situation Can Admit of." The document in hand, Armistead hurried to the legislature, where his manumission request came up in December. But more than two years would pass until his emancipation on January 9, 1787.

"At the peril of his life" he had "found means to frequent the British camp" and collect information essential to the American cause. Now he was free, while his master was compensated at the going auction-block figure.

In 1816, he bought 40 acres of land in New Kent County, where he raised his family. In 1819, Virginia granted him $60 relief money and put him on the regular pension roll at $40 a year. In 1824, the marquis and James Lafayette - as he now called himself - met one last time in Richmond, during Lafayette's triumphant tour of the United States.

Colonial militias were typically composed of most adult men capable of bearing arms in a community. Unlike a standing army, militias served primarily as a manpower pool from which soldiers were drawn as needed in emergencies and for expeditions against Indians. Originally militias were very inclusive, but as the 17th century neared its end, they became more selective. Indentured servants, free blacks, and slaves were the first to he purged.

Virginia led the way among the colonies in excluding blacks from militia service, when the House of Burgesses required in January 1639 that only white Virginians arm themselves. Yet, in a pattern that was to repeat itself into the 18th century, both sides armed slaves and promised them freedom in exchange for military service in 1676 during Bacon's Rebellion.

The year 1705 brought the first true slave code to Virginia. Under this code, slaves were - and remained - excluded from military service. Skin color rather than legal status determined the role of free blacks as well. In many ways they, too, were subject to the slave code.

The code of 1705 denied the few free blacks living in the colony the right to serve in the militia on an equal footing with whites. The code of 1723, confirmed in 1748, assigned free blacks only a role as drummers or trumpeters. But in emergencies such as invasion, insurrection, or rebellion, they could "march with the militia and . . . do the duty of pioneers or such other servile labor as they shall be directed to perform."

After 1723, "no negro, mulatto, or indian whatsoever" was allowed to carry a firearm under penalty of up to 39 lashes. Only a black slave who lived on the frontier and who had a license from the justice of the peace, or if he was a free man and "enlisted in the militia... may be permitted to keep one gun, powder and shot."

This was the law in 1754, when Virginia prepared for yet another war with France and her Indian allies. In a move that did not endear him to white Virginians, General Edward Braddock seized upon this provision and in mid-March 1755 wrote Robert Napier from Williamsburg: "There are here a number of mulattoes and free Negroes of whom I shall make bat men, whom the province are to furnish with pay and frocks." In July, Braddock's expedition ended in disaster at the Monongahela River, despite last-minute orders that batmen carry firearms and ready themselves for combat.

To ward off the expected Franco-Indian invasion, Virginia Governor Robert Dinwiddie pressured the House of Burgesses for a new militia law. But the assembly only authorized the enlistment of free blacks as drummers, trumpeters, or pioneers. The following year, 1756, the legislature increased the authorized strength of Colonel George Washington's Virginia Regiment to 1,500 men. But when white recruits did not join up in sufficient numbers, free blacks took their places. Yet the Militia Law of 1757 still denied free blacks the right to carry arms. On the frontier, however, military necessity voided legislative intent. Some 36 black soldiers formed part of Washington's force ready to attack Fort Duquesne in October 1758.

What kept crown officials and Virginia planters from using the black manpower potential of the colony was fear. They were afraid that in an insurrection, free and freed blacks might make common cause with their own slaves. In July 1755, Governor Robert Dinwiddie wrote to Charles Carter that "the villany of the Negroes on an emergency of govt is w't I always fear."

Twenty years later, in early 1775, frightened Virginians sold back into slavery a freed black named Sam, "when it was discovered he was attempting to inveigle away a number of negroes to the new or Indian country." Sam had purchased his freedom in 1772 and served with Lord Dunmore against the Indians in the late summer and fall of 1774.

When Sam ran away from his new master in May 1775, a new militia law was being debated in Richmond, which sounded inclusive enough when it assigned the right to serve in the militia to "all free male persons, hired servants, and apprentices between the ages of 16 and 50 years." Blacks, even if free and male, had to register for militia duty but could only serve "without arms." Lord Dunmore's proclamation of November 1775 and the manpower needs of the war on the American side soon rendered that restriction obsolete.

Aptheker, Herbert. "A Documentary History of the Negro People in the United States." New York, 1962.

Buckley, Robert N., "Slaves in Red Coats: The British West India Regiments, 1795-1815". New Haven: Yale U, 1979.

Crow, Jeffrey J. "The Black Experience in Revolutionary North Carolina." North Carolina Division of Archives and History, 1996.

Davis, Lenwood G. and George Hill. "Blacks in the American Armed Forces, 1776-1983: A Bibliography." Forewords by Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. and Percy E. Johnston. Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut. 1985.

Eicholz, Alice and James M. Rose, comps. Free Black Heads of Household in the New York State Federal Census, 1790-1830. Gale Genealogy and Local History Series, vol. 14. Detroit, MI: Gale Research Co., 1981.

Frey, Sylvia R. "Water From the Rock: Black Resistance in a Revolutionary Age." Princeton, NJ, 1991.

Garrison, William L., et al. "The Negro Soldier: A Select Compilation". NY: Negro U, 1970; orig pub 1861. Guide to articles on blacks in American wars, 1641-1815.

Glasrud, Bruce A. and Smith, Alan M. (Eds) "Race Relations in British North America, 1607-1783." Chicago, 1982.

Greene, Robert Ewell. "Black Courage, 1775-1783." NSDAR. 1984.

Guthrie, James M. "Camp-Fires of the Afro-American", Phila: Afro-American, 1899. See Chaps 3-13.

Johnson, Jesse J. (Editor). "A Pictorial History of Black Soldiers (1619-1969) in Peace and War." Hampton Institute, Hampton, Virginia. 1969.

MacLeod Duncan J. "Slavery, Race and the American Revolution." New York, 1974.

Moore, Frank. Diary of the American Revolution From Newspapers and Original Documents. 2 vols. NY: Scribner, 1860. See index "Negroes."

Moss, Bobby. "The Patriots at the Cowpens." A roster of the patriots who fought at the Battle of Cowpens. Paperback, 338 pages. Contains entries for several individual free blacks.

Mullen, Robert F. "Blacks in America's Wars: The Shift in Attitudes from the Revolutionary War to Vietnam." Monad Press. 1974.

Nalty, Bernard C. Strength for the Fight: a History of Black Americans in the Military. New York: Free Press, 1986.

, with Sketches of Several Distinguished Colored Persons, to Which Is Added a Brief Survey of the Condition and Prospects of Colored Americans. Boston: R.F. Wallcut, 1855. Reprint. New York: Arno Press, 1968. Nell, William Cooper. The Colored Patriots of the American Revolution
This is one of the first scholarly works to document the contributions of blacks in the patriotic cause. Harriet Beecher Stowe and Wendell Phillips, the famed abolitionists, wrote introductions to this book.

Opinions of the Early Presidents and of the Fathers of the Republic upon Slavery and upon Negroes as Men and Soldiers. Pamphlets, Loyal Publication Society, vol. 18. New York: C. Bryant & Co., Printers, 1863.

Quarles, Benjamin and Fishell, Leslie H. Jr. "The Black American." Glenview, Ill., 1970.

Quarles, Benjamin. "The Negro in the Making of America." Collier Books, New York. 1964.

Smith, James Avery "The History of the Black Population of Amherst, MA, 1728-1870", New England Historic Genealogical Society, 160 North Washington St., Boston, MA 02114-2120

Sterling, Dorothy, ed. Speak Out in Thunder Tones: Letters and Other Writings by Black Northerners, 1787-1865. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1973.

Wilkes, Laura E. Missing "Pages in American History, Revealing the Services of Negroes in the early Wars of the United States of America, 1641-1815." (In "The Negro Soldier: A Select Compilation." Reprint. Negro University Press, New York. Originally Published1861, Robert F. Walcutt, Boston.) 1970.

Williams, George W. "History of the Negro Race in American From 1619 to 1880", 2 vols., See Vol 1, Chaps 26-31, NY,Putnams, 1883.

Wilson, Joseph T. "The Black Phalanx, A History of the Negro Soldiers of the United States in the wars of 1775-1812, 1861-1865." Reprint. Arno Press, New York. (Originally Published1885, Robert F. Walcutt, Boston.) 1968.

Woodson, Carter G. "The Negro in Our History." Washington DC, 1962.

U.S. Army Military History Research Collection. The U.S. Army and the Negro. Carlisle Barracks, Pa: U.S. Army Military History Research Collection, 1971.

Bowman, Larry G. "Virginia's Use of Blacks in the French and Indian War." Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine 53:57-63. 1970.

Greene, Lorenzo J. "The Negro in the Armed Forces of the United States, 1619- 1783." Negro History Bulletin 14:123-127. 1951.

Jones, George Fenwick. "The Black Hessians: Negroes Recruited by the Hessians in South Carolina and Other Colonies." SC Hist Mag 83 (Oct 1982): pp. 287-302.

McElroy, Guy C. "Facing History: the Black Image in American Art, 1710-1940". Essay by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Contributions by Janet Levine, Francis Martin, Jr., and Claudia Vess. Edited by Christopher C. Washington, DC: Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1990.

Norton, Mary Beth, "The Fate of Some Black Loyalists of the American Revolution." Journal of Negro History, Vol. LVIII, pp. 402-426. 1973.

Quarles, Benjamin. "The Colonial Militia and Negro Manpower." MS Valley Hist Rev 45 (Mar 1959): pp. 643-652.

Reddick, L.D. The Negro Policy of the United States Army, 1775-1945. Journal of Negro History 34:9-29. 1949.

Additionally, The Journal of Negro History from the 1910's through the 1970's has a number of articles on the subject from all over the colonies.

Ansel, Colonel Raymond. "From Segregation to Desegregation: Blacks In the U.S. Army 1703-1954." Thesis, U.S. Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. 1990.

Aptheker, Herbert. The Negro in the American Revolution. NY: International, 1940. 47 p.

Moore, George H. Historical Notes on the Employment of Negroes in the American Army of the Revolution. NY: Evans, 1862. 24 p.

U.S. Army War College. Hist Sec. The Attempts of Rhode Island to Raise a Regiment of Slaves for Service in the War of the Revolution - The So-Called "Rhode Island Black Regiment" of 1778. Report, 10 p. File #127-23F/W, Arch. Incl 2 clippings.

The Clements Library at the University of Michigan is a nationally renowned archive of American Military History. This archive specializes in Early Americana with extensive holdings on British Military correspondence. Within these documents, researchers can find accounts of enslaved and freed African Americans who supported the British effort.

The Clements Library also holds the papers of Thomas Clarkson, a leading British abolitionist who worked with Black Loyalists to found the Sierra Leone Colony. The Schoff Collection specializes in Civil War manuscripts and lists accounts of blacks who served in the Union army.

The Black Cultural Center of Nova Scotia has some holdings about Black Loyalists who settled in Nova Scotia after the American Revolution. Most of the collections on this subject, however, are held at the Public Archives of Nova Scotia and the National Archives of Canada

Colored Patriots of the American Revolution
The entire 1855 classic by Nell in electronic form

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Doctor Selig received his Ph.D. in history cum laude from Universität Würzburg, 1988 He has most recently been Visiting Professor of History and German at Hope College in Michigan. Recipient of many awards and grants, his articles have appeared in American Heritage, Colonial Williamsburg (where this work first appeared in Summer 1997), Military History Quarterly, William and Mary Quarterly, and others.

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General Washington in the American Revolution

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George Washington was appointed commander of the Continental Army in 1775. Despite having little experience in commanding large, conventional military forces, his leadership presence and fortitude held the American military together long enough to secure victory at Yorktown and independence for his new nation in 1781.

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5 Patriot Spies of the American Revolution

During the American Revolution, the fledgling Continental Army employed a sophisticated network of spies, double agents and secret informants to gain the upper hand on the British. Espionage duty was notoriously hazardous work-operatives faced the gallows if caught-but that didn't stop dozens of intrepid volunteers from collecting intelligence and undertaking covert missions behind enemy lines. From a doomed Patriot to an officer who spied on the British in plain sight, get the facts on five of the American Revolution's most legendary secret agents.

Nathan Hale

Often dubbed "America's first spy," Nathan Hale was a Yale graduate who served in Knowlton's Rangers, a short-lived Continental reconnaissance unit. When General George Washington's forces became bottled up on Manhattan Island in September 1776, Hale volunteered for a mission to gather much-needed intelligence behind enemy lines. He was ferried across the Long Island Sound on September 16, slipped into the occupied town of Huntington and began surveying British fortifications and encampments while posing as a schoolmaster.

Hale was undoubtedly courageous, but according to most historians, he wasn't a very skilled intelligence officer. It only took a few days before his suspicious questions drew attention from loyalist locals, and he later blew his cover after a British agent approached him in a tavern and pretended to be a fellow Patriot spy. Hale was arrested the next day and discovered to have incriminating documents concealed beneath the soles of his shoes. Charged as an illegal combatant, he was executed by hanging on the morning of September 22. According to legend, the 21-year-old patriot faced the gallows with "gentle dignity" before uttering the famous words, "I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country."

James Armistead

During the Yorktown campaign, the Marquis de Lafayette found an unlikely secret agent in James Armistead, a black slave who got his master's permission to assist the Continental Army. The Virginia-born bondsman began his service by transporting dispatches and intelligence reports across enemy lines. He then graduated to full-blown espionage in the summer of 1781, when he infiltrated Charles Cornwallis's camp by posing as a runaway slave loyal to the British. He proved so convincing in the undercover role, that Cornwallis eventually enlisted him to work as a British spy. Armistead agreed and immediately began funneling the Redcoats phony information supplied by Lafayette, including a fraudulent report that referenced nonexistent units of Continental troops. He also kept his ears open for any word of enemy movements. In July 1781, he was one of the first sources to inform Lafayette that the British were marshaling their forces at Yorktown.

Despite having risked his life for his country's freedom, Armistead was sent back to his master after the war and held as a slave for several more years. He finally won his release papers in 1787, thanks in part to Lafayette, who wrote a letter to the Virginia legislature on his behalf. As a sign of his gratitude to his former commander, Armistead later changed his name to James Armistead Lafayette.

Benjamin Tallmadge and the Culper Ring

Serving with distinction at the Battles of White Plains, Brandywine, and Germantown, Continental dragoon Benjamin Tallmadge was also the mastermind behind the Culper Spy Ring, one of the most effective espionage networks of the American Revolution. The New York native first organized the cabal in late-1778 at the behest of General George Washington. Operating under the pseudonym John Bolton, he recruited childhood friend Abraham Woodhull and several other acquaintances to provide intelligence from in and around British-controlled Long Island. Tallmadge instructed his operatives to communicate via a complex system of dead drops and coded messages. He even had them write some of their reports in invisible ink that could only be read after being brushed with a chemical compound. Once smuggled out of the city, the documents would be ferried to Tallmadge's coastal Connecticut headquarters by a fleet of whaleboats operated by an agent named Caleb Brewster.

Despite operating from the heart of enemy territory, Tallmadge's Culper Ring managed to gather intelligence for some five years without losing a single agent to the British. One of their most significant achievements came during the summer of 1780, when they informed Washington of a British plan to ambush French forces gathered at Newport, Rhode Island.

Enoch Crosby

Enoch Crosby's spy career began with a simple case of mistaken identity. In 1776, the Connecticut-born shoemaker was making his way to a Continental Army camp in New York when he was confused for a British sympathizer and invited to a meeting of loyalist militiamen. Crosby played along and later reported what he learned to Patriot leader John Jay, who seized the opportunity to recruit him as one of the nation's first counterintelligence operatives. The job required Crosby to work deep undercover. To help sell his new identity, his handlers arranged for him to be arrested as a loyalist before staging his escape to the Hudson River Valley. Crosby then reunited with the British sympathizers and began reporting on their movements. Thanks to the intelligence he gathered, the entire gang was rounded up in a Continental raid a few days later.

In the months that followed, Crosby infiltrated British loyalist groups on at least four more occasions. Each time he would be "arrested" along with his hapless co-conspirators, only to later escape and return to the field to start the whole process over again. The young spy carried a special pass that would identify him as an American agent in a pinch-he once had to use it to avoid being picked up by Continental sentries-but outside of Jay and a few others, no one knew he was actually working for the colonials. Before he was finally discharged and hailed as a hero in 1777, even Crosby's own parents believed their son was a traitor to the Patriot cause.

Lewis Costigin

Not only did Lieutenant Lewis Costigin supply valuable intelligence from behind British lines, he did it while openly wearing a Continental Army uniform. His bizarre career in espionage began in early 1777, when George Washington sent him to New Brunswick, New Jersey to report on British movements after the Battle of Trenton. Costigin was promptly captured, but he was wearing enough of a uniform at the time to be classified as a soldier rather than a spy, thereby avoiding the noose. After shipping him to New York City as a prisoner of war, the British placed him on parole and allowed him to wander the city freely on a pledge that he wouldn't take up arms or communicate with his superiors.

Costigin was exchanged for a British officer in September 1778, but rather than return to his unit, he remained in occupied New York and began collecting intelligence for the Continentals-which he was now legally free to do under the terms of his parole. Luckily for Costigin, the British had grown so used to seeing him around town they no longer viewed him as a threat. Though still clad in an enemy uniform, he was able to openly roam the streets gathering information on everything from troop movements to military shipping and British army rations, all of which he reported to Washington in dispatches written under the pseudonym "Z." By the time Costigin finally left New York in January 1779, he had spent some four months spying on the British in plain sight.

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5 Patriot Spies of the American Revolution - History Lists

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Print Cite Article Details: During the American Revolution, the fledgling Continental Army employed a sophisticated network of spies, double agents and secret informants to gain the upper hand on the British. Espionage duty was notoriously hazardous work-operatives faced the gallows if caught-but that didn't stop dozens of intrepid volunteers from collecting intelligence and undertaking covert missions behind enemy lines.

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African Americans

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Learn about African Americans during the Civil War including soldiers and regiments. Famous patriots such as Crispus Attucks, James Armistead, William Lee, and Peter Salem.

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Kids learning about Revolutionary Women in this issue will be surprised to find out that while women did not hold the front lines during the War of Independence, they greatly contributed to efforts to keep soldiers fed on the battlefield, lent their voices to political debates, and generally kept the home fires burning. From patriots like Deborah Samson, who actually served secretly in the army, to loyalists like Margaret Draper, who kept publishing the Boston News-Letter after her husband's death, this evenhanded account of how women influenced the war in big and small ways, laying the groundwork for the suffrage movement that followed much later, is not to be missed.

Equally surprising to kids will be the fact that many of the women who took action during the war were mere teenagers, like Sybil Ludington, a 16-year-old who rode alone 40 miles one rainy night to alert patriots of a planned attack. Other incredible tales of bravery like this make learning about Revolutionary women a high point of the study of early American History. Women even worked as spies during the Revolution, collecting valuable info about the other side and passing it to officers in dangerous acts of defiance. Learning about Revolutionary Women, for kids interested in this era, opens their eyes to a whole other side to this famous war, showing them how great men - as the saying goes - often stand on the shoulders of great women.

Kids learning about Revolutionary Women in this issue will be surprised to find out that while women did not hold the front lines during the War of Independence, they greatly ...
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Studying Revolutionary history would not be complete without also learning about Revolutionary women and their contributions to the war effort; in this issue, kids will hear all about the heroic and dedicated efforts of women on both sides of the war...

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Slavery, the American Revolution, and the Constitution

African American soldiers served with valor at the battles of Lexington and Bunker Hill. In November 1775, however, Congress decided to exclude blacks from future enlistment out of a sensitivity to the opinion of southern slave holders. But Lord Dunmore's promise of freedom to slaves who enlisted in the British army led Congress reluctantly to reverse it decision, fearful that black soldiers might join the redcoats.

African Americans played an important role in the revolution. They fought at Fort Ticonderoga and the Battle of Bunker Hill. A slave helped row Washington across the Delaware. Altogether, some 5,000 free blacks and slaves served in the Continental army during the Revolution. By 1778, many states, including Virginia, granted freedom to slaves who served in the Revolutionary war.

The American Revolution had profound effects on the institution of slavery. Several thousand slaves won their freedom by serving on both sides of the War of Independence. As a result of the Revolution, a surprising number of slaves were manumitted, while thousands of others freed themselves by running away. In Georgia alone, 5000 slaves, a third of the colony's prewar total, escaped. In South Carolina, a quarter of the slaves achieved freedom.

Both the British and the colonists believed that slaves could serve an important role during the revolution. In April 1775, Lord Dunmore (1732-1809), the royal governor of Virginia, threatened that he would proclaim liberty to the slaves and reduce Williamsburg to ashes if the colonists resorted to force against British authority. In November, he promised freedom to all slaves belonging to rebels who would join "His Majesty's Troops...for the more speedily reducing the Colony to a proper sense of their duty...." Some eight hundred slaves joined British forces, some wearing the emblem "Liberty to the Slaves." The British appeal to slave unrest outraged slave holders not only in the South but in New York's Hudson Valley. Later, Sir Henry Clinton (1738-1795) promised protection to all slaves who deserted from the rebels. Clinton's promise may well have contributed to the collapse of the British cause in the South. By suggesting that the Revolution was a war over slavery, he alienated many neutrals and even some loyalists.

Meanwhile, an American diplomat, Silas Deane (1737-1789), hatched a secret plan to incite slave insurrections in Jamaica. Two South Carolinians, John Laurens (1754-1782) and his father Henry (1724-1792), persuaded Congress to unanimously approve a plan to recruit an army of 3000 slave troops in South Carolina and Georgia. The federal government would compensate the slaves' owners and each black would, at the end of the war, be emancipated and receive $50. The South Carolina legislature rejected the plan, scuttling the proposal. In the end, however, and in contrast to the later Latin American wars of independence and the U.S. Civil War, neither the British nor the Americans proved willing to risk a full-scale social revolution by issuing an emancipation proclamation.

The Constitution and Slavery

On the 200th anniversary of the U.S. Constitution, Thurgood Marshall, the first African American to sit on the Supreme Court, said that the Constitution was "defective from the start." He point out that the framers had left out a majority of Americans when they wrote the phrase, "We the People." While some members of the Constitutional Convention voiced "eloquent objections" to slavery, Marshall said they "consented to a document which laid a foundation for the tragic events which were to follow."

The word "slave" does not appear in the Constitution. The framers consciously avoided the word, recognizing that it would sully the document. Nevertheless, slavery received important protections in the Constitution. The notorious Three-fifths clause--which counted three fifths of the slave population in apportioning representation--gave the South extra representation in the House and extra votes in the Electoral College. Thomas Jefferson would have lost the election of 1800 if not for the Three-fifths compromise. The Constitution also prohibited Congress from outlawing the Atlantic slave trade for twenty years. A fugitive slave clause required the return of runaway slaves to their owners. The Constitution gave the federal government the power to put down domestic rebellions, including slave insurrections.

The framers of the Constitution believed that concessions on slavery were the price for the support of southern delegates for a strong central government. They were convinced that if the Constitution restricted the slave trade, South Carolina and Georgia would refuse to join the Union. But by sidestepping the slavery issue, the framers left the seeds for future conflict. After the convention approved the great compromise, Madison wrote: "It seems now to be pretty well understood that the real difference of interests lies not between the large and small but between the northern and southern states. The institution of slavery and its consequences form the line of discrimination."

Of the 55 Convention delegates, about 25 owned slaves. Many of the framers harbored moral qualms about slavery. Some, including Benjamin Franklin (a former slave owner) and Alexander Hamilton (who was born in a slave colony in the British West Indies) became members of antislavery societies.

On August 21, 1787, a bitter debate broke out over a South Carolina proposal to prohibit the federal government from regulating the Atlantic slave trade. Luther Martin of Maryland, a slaveholder, said that the slave should be subject to federal regulation since the entire nation would be responsible for suppressing slave revolts. He also considered the slave trade contrary to America's republican ideals. "It is inconsistent with the principles of the Revolution," he said, "and dishonorable to the American character to have such a feature in the constitution."

John Rutledge of South Carolina responded forcefully. "Religion and humanity have nothing to do with this question," he insisted. Unless regulation of the slave trade was left to the states, the southern-most states "shall not be parties to the union." A Virginia delegate, George Mason, who owned hundreds of slaves, spoke out against slavery in ringing terms. "Slavery," he said, "discourages arts and manufactures. The poor despise labor when performed by slaves." Slavery also corrupted slave holders and threatened the country with divine punishment: "Every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant. They bring the judgment of heaven on a country."

Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut accused slave holders from Maryland and Virginia of hypocrisy. They could afford to oppose the slave trade, he claimed, because "slaves multiply so fast in Virginia and Maryland that it is cheaper to raise then import them, whilst in the sickly rice swamps [of South carolina and Georgia] foreign supplies are necessary." Ellsworth suggested that ending the slave trade would benefit slave owners in the Chesapeake region, since the demand for slaves in other parts of the South was increase the price of slaves once the external supply was cut off.

The controversy over the Atlantic slave trade was ultimately settled by compromise. In exchange for a 20-year ban on any restrictions on the Atlantic slave trade, southern delegates agreed to remove a clause restricting the national government's power to enact laws requiring goods to be shipped on American vessels (benefiting northeastern shipbuilders and sailors). The same day this agreement was reached, the convention also adopted the fugitive slave clause, requiring the return of runaway slaves to their owners.

Was the Constitution a pro-slavery document, as abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison claimed when he burned the document in 1854 and called it "a covenant with death and an agreement with Hell"? This question still provokes controversy. If the Constitution temporarily strengthened slavery, it also created a central government powerful enough to eventually abolish the institution.

Discussion Topic: Did the framers of the Constitution miss an opportunity to put slavery on the path to eventual extinction?

In June 1787, the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery - the world's first antislavery society - asked its president, Benjamin Franklin, to deliver an anti-slave trade resolution to the Constitutional Convention. The resolution declared: "In vain will be Americans' Pretentions to a love of liberty or regard for national character while they share in the profits of a Commerce that can only be conducted upon Rivers of human tears and blood."

Franklin never presented that resolution or any other antislavery materials to the convention. He explained that he "thought it advisable to let them lie over for the present."

In 1790 Franklin did send a petition to Congress on behalf of the Society asking for the abolition of slavery and an end to the slave trade. The petition, signed on February 3, 1790, asked the first Congress, then meeting in New York City, to "devise means for removing the Inconsistency from the Character of the American People," and to "promote mercy and justice toward this distressed Race."

The petition was denounced by pro-slavery congressmen and sparked a heated debate in both the House and the Senate. The Senate took no action on the petition, and the House referred it to a select committee for further consideration. The committee claimed that the Constitution restrains Congress from prohibiting the importation or emancipation of slaves until 1808 and then tabled the petition. On April 17, 1790, just two months later, Franklin died in Philadelphia at the age of 84.

Petition from the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery, signed by Benjamin Franklin, President of the Pennsylvania Society,
February 3, 1790, Records of the United States Senate, Center for Legislative Archives.

Inquiry Questions: Speaking Out Against Slavery

1. Why do you think that antislavery northern delegates like Franklin were reluctant to speak out openly against slavery at the Constitutional Convention?

2. Why, in contrast, were slave owners, like George Mason of Virginia and Luther Martin of Maryland, more willing to speak out against the Atlantic slave trade?

3. Why did delegates feel that they had to placate South Carolina and Georgia at a time when those states were faced by a serious military threat from the Spanish in Florida and from the powerful Creek Indian confederacy?

Additional Activity: Analyzing a Primary Source - Pennsylvania Ends Slavery

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Slavery, the American Revolution, and the Constitution African American soldiers served with valor at the battles of Lexington and Bunker Hill. In November 1775, however, Congress decided to exclude blacks from future enlistment out of a sensitivity to the opinion of southern slave holders.