American Revolution

Source:

 Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, Second Edition

American Revolution

Conflict between Great Britain and thirteen of Britain's North American colonies (1775–1783) that resulted in independence for the colonies and in the formation of the United States of America.

Espousing views of Enlightenment thinkers who argued that every person had an inherent right to life, liberty, and property, thirteen British colonies along the eastern seaboard of North America rebelled against their mother country and fought for their freedom and liberty. By 1770 one-fifth of the population in these colonies was of African ancestry, and almost 95 percent of the African descendants were slaves. The black population was militarily vital to both sides and African Americans were involved in every aspect of the American Revolution. The ideology of freedom championed during the revolution became the rallying cry for those who would fight for the abolition of slavery.

In the 1760s the conflict between Britain and the colonies was escalating as Parliament passed laws that the colonists declared unjust and refused to obey. This happened with the Stamp Act (1765) and the Townshend Acts (1767). As the conflict escalated, Massachusetts became a hotbed of colonial resistance. When Boston citizens rioted in March 1770, British troops fired into the crowd, killing five men. Among the Boston Massacre's dead was a sailor named Crispus Attucks who had escaped from slavery as a young man.

The conflict continued to escalate until it broke into open warfare with the battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775. Blacks in the Massachusetts colony fought in these first battles and in the June 1775 Battle of Bunker Hill. Peter Salem and Salem Poor were black men who fought at these battles and continued to fight with the Continental Army throughout the Revolution. General George Washington initially persuaded the Continental Congress to ban the enlistment of black soldiers in the Continental Army. However, in 1777, faced with desperate shortages of manpower, Washington was forced to open the ranks to free black men. Some colonies allowed slaves to win their freedom by serving in the military; however, colonies in which agricultural success depended on slave labor did not allow slaves to serve. Nonetheless, by the end of the war, African Americans had fought at Trenton, Brandywine, Saratoga, and other battles. By the war's end at least 5,000 blacks had served on the side of the colonists. Some, such as Cornelius Lenox Remond, Barzillai Lew, Cuff Whitmore, Tack Sisson, and Prince Whipple won distinction in their military service. Other blacks, such as James Forten, served with the Continental Navy.

During the Revolution many African Americans also sided with the British. Particularly for enslaved blacks in the South, there was little guarantee that they would have any more freedom under the rule of the colonists than they did under the rule of the British. Indeed, in November 1775 Lord Dunmore, the royal governor of Virginia, issued a proclamation that any slaves who fled to his lines and assisted in suppressing the revolt would be given their freedom. This was a more enticing offer than the colonists made, as the Southern colonies generally would not recruit slaves to fight. Over 2,000 slaves joined Dunmore and became his Ethiopian Regiment. When the fighting moved South in 1779, thousands of slaves ran away from their masters and fled to the British lines. There they were often pressed into service as laborers, building fortifications around Charleston and Savannah.

By the end of the war many blacks had served in some capacity. Many slaves who served in the military in Northern colonies were immediately freed. Many who had fled to the British or served with them were removed to Nova Scotia, and these black Loyalists, finding Nova Scotia inhospitable, emigrated to Sierra Leone. In the South some slaves who had served with a verbal promise of freedom were later freed, while others were returned to slavery.

The American Revolution raised a fundamental contradiction that America's founding fathers could not seem to reconcile. The foundational principles of the Revolution were life, liberty, property, and equality; yet in the colonies nearly one-fifth of the population was denied these rights. Most Northern colonies ended slavery soon after the Revolution. Vermont banned slavery in 1777, and a Massachusetts judge declared slavery unconstitutional in 1783. However, in the South, agriculture was far more dependent on slave labor. A few plantation owners, imbued with the revolutionary spirit, freed their slaves and resettled them in the Northwest Territory either upon the war's end or upon the owners' deaths. For the most part, however, Southern plantation owners simply imported more slaves to replace those who ran away, and slavery continued as America's basic contradiction.

See also Abolitionism in the United States; Military, Blacks in the American.

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