The British were the first to promise freedom after the war to any slaves who fought with them instead of the colonists, and freedom is quite the motivator to take up arms…as noted by the white colonists who were taking up arms to “free” themselves from British rule.
Throughout the colonies there were slaves fighting alongside the British because they’d rather be free and heavily taxed (assuming they were even aware of the political landscape and why their white masters were going off to war) than continue to live as property in a “free” country with the same ol masters. One lasting record of the Brits’ promise to free slaves is The Book of Negroes, a list of slaves who signed up to fight for Britain and were then shipped off to freedom in Nova Scotia and England by Lord Dunmore after they lost the war.
How’s that for making good on a promise?
Britain wasn’t the first to have the idea to free slaves in exchange for participating in the war. It was also discussed in the colonies. Alexander Hamilton, one of the founding fathers, was in favor of allowing slaves to form their own troops to fight alongside the colonists, and those who fought would be freed after the war. The legislature was obviously against that because arming slaves – after what they’d been through – was a frightening prospect. Plus, the South needed its economic engine to keep chugging along (Northern colonies were more receptive to the idea). By the end of the war when manpower was running low, some colonies would allow free Blacks to serve and some would offer freedom to slaves who fought, but most plantation owners went back on that promise after the war was over.
In the end, more Blacks (free and slave) actually fought alongside the American rebels in the hopes that they’d receive freedom or a bounty or a pat on the head or even a thank you after it was over if the Americans prevailed. The Americans did win…and the majority of those slaves went right back to the fields for another eighty years unless they managed to escape in the confusion of the war. The revolution did turn some individual slave owners into abolitionists, especially in communities of Quakers where slaves were freed after the war because they recognized the hypocrisy of fighting a war for freedom from another country while you kept humans as property in your “new” country.
So when some uber Patriotic white guy you went to high school with (who is still your Facebook friend for some reason) posts a status update at the fireworks show tonight about his ancestors fighting for freedom, remember that ours did too. And most of them didn’t even get a thank you.
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