Cromwell, Oliver

By: Penny Anne Welbourne

Source:

 Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895: From the Colonial Period to the Age of Frederick Douglass

Cromwell, Oliver

(b. c. 1752; d. 24 January 1853),
an African American Patriot in the Revolutionary War.

Oliver Cromwell was born a free African American in Burlington County, New Jersey, in the town that later became Columbus. He lived with the family of John Hutchin, a farmer, and was expected to become a farmer as well. Little else is known about Cromwell's life before he was twenty, the age at which he enlisted in a company attached to the Second New Jersey Regiment, led by Colonel Israel Shreve. In 1772 free African Americans were permitted to fight in the American Revolutionary War, a practice later reinforced by the passage of the Militia Act of New Jersey in 1777.

Ironically, Cromwell served for six years and nine months under the immediate command of George Washington, who was initially opposed to African Americans' enlisting in the Continental army. Along with another African American, Prince Whipple, on Christmas Eve 1776 Cromwell crossed the Delaware River with Washington to Trenton, New Jersey, where the Patriots successfully attacked the Hessians and claimed a major victory. For an unknown reason, the famous painting of this event by John Trumble includes only one African American soldier, usually identified as Whipple (although some historians believe that the lone figure is Cromwell).

During his time of service from 1776 to 1783 Cromwell also fought at the battles of Princeton and Brandywine (1777), Monmouth (1778), and Yorktown (1781) and claimed to be present at the last killing to take place in the war. On 5 June 1783 Cromwell received an honorable discharge signed by General George Washington, as well as a Badge of Merit for his six years of service as a private in the New Jersey regiment. However, Cromwell was denied his veteran's pension when he applied for it. After several local politicians, lawyers, and judges came to his assistance, Cromwell received a federal pension of ninety-six dollars a year.

He used his pension to purchase a 100-acre farm in Burlington County, New Jersey, where he raised fourteen children. In his later life he moved to a small house in the city of Burlington at 114 East Union Street (which was designated as an historic site in the early 2000s). At the time of his death in 1853 Cromwell had just passed his hundredth birthday and was reportedly a pauper. He was buried near his home in the cemetery of the Broad Street Methodist Church and was survived by several of his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, some of whom still resided in Burlington more than 150 years later.

In 1976, as part of the American bicentennial celebration, a commemorative stamp was issued depicting both Cromwell and Whipple as the African American soldiers who accompanied Washington across the Delaware River. In the early 1980s the Oliver Cromwell Black History Society was formed in Burlington City to research and disseminate information about Cromwell and other African American soldiers who fought in the American Revolution. The group's goal was to bridge the gap between African American history and what has traditionally been categorized as American history to ultimately present a more accurate picture of America's past.

See also American Revolution; Military; New Jersey; and Washington, George, and African Americans.

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