Armistead, James (Lafayette)

By: David W. Bishop

Source:

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

Armistead, James (Lafayette)

1760–1832
African American spy in the services of General Marquis de Lafayette during the American Revolution.

James Armistead had been the slave of William Armistead of New Kent County, Virginia, before being granted permission by his master in March 1781 to serve with General Lafayette, a French statesman who was fighting on the side of the colonists. By July 7, 1781, Armistead was able to infiltrate the headquarters of British general Charles Cornwallis, ostensibly as a servant hired to spy on the Americans but in reality a patriot who spied on the British. Although his birth and early childhood remain in obscurity, he is remembered for his written intelligence reports relating to the Yorktown campaign that ended the Revolutionary War. In the spring of 1781, Cornwallis had moved his British forces from the Carolinas into Virginia, quartering near Portsmouth, and practically controlled Virginia. Lafayette quartered near Richmond at New Kent County Court House and Williamsburg, with American forces half the size of those of the British. These circumstances necessitated intelligence reports of enemy movements, equipment, and personnel.

On July 13, 1781, General George Washington sent instructions to Lafayette to strengthen his forces and to keep him informed of Cornwallis's future positions, equipment, and military personnel. Lafayette sent several spies into Cornwallis's camp, but none were able to make reliable reports until Armistead sent messages, which were received on July 31, 1781. Lafayette's letter to Washington reveals not only intelligence reports on Cornwallis but also the ability of Armistead: “A correspondant of mine, servant to Lord Cornwallis, writes on the 26th of July at Portsmouth, and says … the greatest part of the army is embarked. There is in Hampton Road one 50 guns ship, and two six and thirty guns frigats … 18 sloop loaded with horses. There remain but nine vessels in Portsmouth. … There is a large quantity of Negroes … but no vessels it seems to take them off.” This information was enough for Lafayette to suggest to Washington that if a French fleet entered Hampton Roads, the British army would be trapped.

Probably the most significant military information Armistead sent to Lafayette was related in the August 25, 1781, letter to Washington: “I have got some intelligences by way of this servant I have mentioned. … I hear that they begin fortifying at York. … The works at Gloster are finished—They consist of some redoubts across Gloster Neck and a battery of 18 pieces. … The enemy have 60 sails of vessels into York River. There is an amazing quantity of Negroes. … In a word this part affords the greatest number of regulars and the only active Army to attak [sic].”

The value of Armistead's reports is stated in the following certificate by Lafayette: “This is to certify that the bearer by the name of James has done essential services to me while I had the honour to command in this State. His intelligences from the enemy's camp were industriously collected and more faithfully delivered. He properly acquitted himself with some important communications I gave him and appears to be entitled to every reward his situation can admit of. Done under my hand, Richmond, November 21st, 1784. LaFayette.”

It was the quality of Armistead's reports that led American and French commanders to station a French fleet in Chesapeake Bay, thus forcing the surrender of Cornwallis. After his surrender he “was shocked to find in the Frenchman's headquarters a Negro he had hired to spy on the Americans.”

The Virginia legislature granted Armistead his freedom in 1786 because of his services as a spy. (Special authorization was necessary because Armistead did not qualify for emancipation under the Act of 1783 for slave-soldiers: He was a slave-spy.) In 1816 he bought 16 hectares (40 acres) of land 14 km (9 mi) south of New Kent County, and reared a large family there. In 1819 the Virginia legislature granted him an annual pension of forty dollars. His signal postwar honor came when Lafayette greeted him personally in Richmond upon Lafayette's return to America in 1824.

Documents of the activities of James Armistead can be found in Louis Gottschalk (ed.), The Letters of Lafayette to Washington (1944). Luther Porter Jackson's Virginia Negro Sailors and Seamen in the Revolutionary War (1944) includes a brief account.

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