Flora, William

By: Charles W. Jr. Carey

Source:

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

Flora, William

1775–1818
African American war hero and businessman.

William Flora was born probably in the vicinity of Portsmouth, Virginia, the son of free black parents, whose names are unknown. On the eve of the American Revolution fewer than 2,000 free blacks lived in Virginia. The colony's statutes forbade the manumission of slaves except those who exposed an incipient slave uprising. Consequently, Flora, who was known as “Billy,” was probably descended from Africans who arrived in Virginia before 1640, when blacks were treated like indentured servants rather than slaves.

Nothing is known about Flora's life prior to 1775, when he joined Colonel William Woodford's Second Virginia Regiment as a private. He furnished his own musket, suggesting that he had already earned the esteem of his white neighbors, because the colony's statutes also barred free blacks from bearing arms and from serving in the militia. He fought against the British and Loyalist forces commanded by Lord Dunmore, Virginia's last royal governor, at the battle of Great Bridge in December 1775. On the morning of the battle Flora was one of several sentinels guarding the narrow bridge over the Elizabeth River, which separated the British and patriot positions, when the British attacked in force. While the other sentinels immediately retreated to the safety of the patriot barricade, Flora fired eight times as he withdrew and, still under enemy fire, removed the plank that afforded access over the barricade. His bravery in combat earned him the approbation of his superiors and a public commendation in the Virginia Gazette.

Nothing is known about Flora's activities during the rest of the American Revolution except that he fought at the battle of Yorktown in 1781. The suggestion that he fought against the British for the entire duration of the war is highly unlikely, since the vast majority of patriot soldiers fought for brief periods and then returned home. In addition, Woodford and virtually the entire Virginia Continental line were taken prisoner in 1780 after the successful British siege of Charleston, South Carolina. It is more likely that Flora left the army in mid-1776, following the departure of Dunmore's forces from Virginia, and returned to arms four years later, when a British force commanded by the traitor Benedict Arnold invaded Tidewater Virginia.

After the British surrender at Yorktown, Flora either began or continued to operate a cartage enterprise based in Portsmouth, hauling agricultural products and freight between the town's wharves and the farms in the surrounding countryside. He also operated a livery stable that rented out riding carriages. In 1784 he purchased two lots in Portsmouth and is believed to have been the first black to own land in that town. For a number of years thereafter he occasionally bought and sold houses and unimproved lots. Exploiting the opportunities made available to him as a consequence of his freedom while conducting himself in such a way as to avoid exciting the jealousies of his white neighbors, he acquired and retained considerable wealth. In 1810 he owned three large wagons, three two-wheeled carriages, and six horses, and when he died he willed two houses and one lot to his heirs. He married a slave woman, but her name and the date of the marriage are unknown. Flora purchased and freed his wife sometime after 1782, when Virginia's laws against manumission were liberalized considerably. They had two children.

In 1807, when the HMS Leopard attacked the USS Chesapeake, a wave of anti-British sentiment swept through Virginia and the rest of the United States. Caught up in this patriotic fervor, Flora, armed with his old musket, joined a number of local men who volunteered for service against the British once again. Their offer was courteously rejected by the local authorities. In recognition of his service during the American Revolution, Flora in 1818, along with other Virginia veterans, received a land grant of 100 acres in the Virginia Military District (now southwestern Ohio). He probably sold the grant to one of the large land companies attempting to settle the area. It is believed he died in 1820 in Portsmouth.

Flora was a hero of the Revolution in Virginia, a prosperous businessman, and a respected member of the Portsmouth community. Although these accomplishments may seem modest, they are significant in that a black man achieved them at a time when the vast majority of his white contemporaries regarded people of African descent as lazy and inferior and consequently afforded them second-class citizenship.

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