Writing the Declaration of Independence, 1776, Jean Leon Gerome Ferris
Black Americans fought for the Revolution knowing it exposed its own hypocrisy — their service and voices, like minister Lemuel Haynes, demanded the nation live up to its own declaration that all men are created equal.
The American Revolution is often romanticized as a unified struggle for liberty led by white Patriots against an oppressive British Crown. This conventional narrative, however, often reduces the complex and important role that blacks, both enslaved and free, played in the war for independence. For many of them, the war was not merely about independence for a single nation, but a desperate and righteous struggle for personal freedom. Their participation was shaped by the opportunity for both political and personal liberty as they contemplated the hypocrisy of a nation fighting for its own liberty while perpetuating the institution of slavery. For black Americans, actively supporting the war effort took two forms: military service and the church pulpit. Military service provided action, and the pulpit steadied their perseverance in political and religious conviction. Black soldiers fighting for potential equality with their white counterparts and the message of liberty (both civil and spiritual) from patriot ministers linked their own quest for emancipation to the founding of the nation.
The war’s initial stages immediately revealed the contradictions within the American cause. In fear of arming a population held in bondage, the Continental Congress initially prohibited black enlistment in the Continental Army. Upon appointment to the Continental Army, George Washington admitted that “boys, deserters, and negroes” were less than desirable for his army. 1 Enslaved people were barred from enlisting, and free blacks were released from service. This legislation reflected white anxieties about a slave revolt and the potential for a racially mixed army. In a continued cry for freedom from the British crown, colonists still denied it to blacks. Ironically, in the same breath, Congress had declared that “being with one Mind resolved to die Freemen rather than to live Slaves.”2
The British were quick to exploit this weakness. In November 1775, Virginia’s Royal Governor, Earl of Dunmore, John Murray, issued a proclamation declaring that all “indented servants, Negroes, or others (appertaining to rebels) free, that are able and willing to bear arms.”3 This proclamation, one of the most significant of the revolution for blacks, immediately spurred thousands to support the crown. Guaranteed freedom, an ideal reward for military service, was a far more compelling incentive than the abstract ideals of liberty and simply “potential” freedom offered by the colonies if they won the war. Thousands of black men, women, and children escaped their colonial masters to reach British-controlled territory and a promise of liberty. The multitudes of able-bodied black men led to the formation of their own units, such as the “Ethiopian Regiment,” a unit of former slaves who donned uniforms inscribed with the words “Liberty to Slaves.”4 Their loyalty demonstrated that to many, the British were more open to the ideas of freedom and equality.
The droves of blacks seeking refuge under the British forced George Washington and the Continental Congress to reconsider their racist enlistment policies. Faced with the possibility of losing a considerable part of the labor force and potential soldiers to the British, Congress reversed its position and allowed free men of African descent who had already enlisted in the Continental Army to continue. Toward the end of 1776, blacks had already fought in the Battles of Lexington and Concord as well as the Battle of Bunker Hill, but uneasiness with armed blacks still resonated among the white ruling class. However, those who saw them in action viewed them as equal combatants. In a letter to John Adams, Colonel John Thomas mirrored the sentiment and claimed, “We have Some Negros, but I Look on them in General Equally Servicable with other men, for Fatigue and in Action; many of them have Proved themselves brave.”5
Additionally, individual states began to allow black men into their militias. Estimates vary, but around 5,000 blacks served in the Continental Army and Navy, with hundreds more serving in state militias. Many were free men who saw an opportunity to demonstrate their patriotism and earn respect within a society that had long marginalized them. Others were enslaved men whose owners promised freedom in exchange for military service. These soldiers fought in nearly every major engagement and theatre of the war, from the Battle of Lexington and Concord to the final capture of British General. Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia. Early in the war, Congress discovered that whites were not meeting their troop quotas. Allowing blacks to serve would solve the problem, but would lead to racially integrated regiments. Perhaps the most well-known mixed-race unit was the 1st Rhode Island Regiment. On February 14, 1778, the Rhode Island General Assembly voted to allow the enlistment of “every able-bodied negro, mulatto, or Indian man slave.” Further, such a person “upon his passing muster… be immediately discharged from the service of his master or mistress, and be absolutely free as though he had never been incumbered and be incumbered with any kind of servitude or slavery.” This enticed black patriots to enlist to potentially gain their freedom and an opportunity to prove themselves as equal recipients of liberty.6
Beyond the battlefield, black men and women served in support roles, as teamsters, blacksmiths, carpenters, and nurses, sustaining the army with vital labor. This multirole support was essential to the war effort, highlighting that the patriot cause could not have succeeded without the contributions of black labor. For example, in Washington’s camp at Valley Forge between 1777 and 1778, the Continental Army was on the brink of starvation. It is estimated that the army needed 113 wagons of food per day. However, the camp only had eight. For a variety of reasons, including geographic location, terrain, and weather, it was difficult to keep the army fed and supplied. In one of General Henry Lee’s ledgers, he lists some of the wagon drivers making trips to and from the camp. Among them are “Negro Joseph,” “Negro Sam,” “Negro Harry,” “Negro Jack,” “Negro Cuff,” and “Negro David.” One of the reasons Washington’s army survived the winter at Valley Forge was that these enslaved blacks kept them alive.
Black support for the American Revolution was not limited to firing a musket or driving a wagon. The ideals of liberty, freedom, and equality were decried from the church pulpit, which in turn spurred action among blacks to support the war. The aforementioned teachings coincided with Christian doctrine and resonated deeply with blacks (both enslaved and free), many of whom saw parallels between their own plight and the biblical narratives of freedom. Because of the interlocking of state-supported churches and political institutions, sermons were directly linked to social and political order in colonial society. 7 Therefore, ministers had coercive power to sway their congregations in favor, or disfavor, of the American cause. For those ministers who believed that American independence was divinely sanctioned, their sermons provided a moral and religious framework for blacks to understand the conflict as a righteous cause and to take action.
One such figure was Lemuel Haynes (1753–1833), a mulatto from New England whose mother was of white, “respectable” ancestry, and whose father was an unnamed black man whose identity has also been lost to history. Haynes was born in West Hartford, Connecticut, but was immediately abandoned by his mother. At his birth, it was apparent that his father was of African descent. Even though New England was a hotbed of progressive ideas, a biracial child would have been too much of a burden for her. At five months old, Haynes was given over to the Rose family, who were moving to Granville, Massachusetts. Although he had something of a surrogate family, he was not initially treated like a family member. Haynes grew up as an indentured servant but showed promising intelligence and was educated along with the younger members of the Rose household. In 1774, at the age of twenty-one, he gained his freedom. One of his first acts as a free man was joining the Minutemen. The aftermath of the Battle of Lexington and Concord led him to march with the militia to Roxbury, Massachusetts, and help Ethan Allen secure Fort Ticonderoga from the British. Despite the racist and oppressive social structures in which he lived, Haynes would go on to become a minister and abolitionist, in addition to a veteran. His support for the American cause, in both spiritual and military terms, embodied revolutionary ideals.8
Toward the end of 1776, Haynes’s stint in the military had ended, and he returned home. There, he began preparing for ministry by studying religion and the biblical languages, and by preaching to local congregations. Sometime in 1776, Haynes wrote a sermon called “Liberty Further Extended.” This sermon was prefaced with a quote directly from the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be Self-Evident, that all men are created Equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His sermon embraced the American Revolution’s ideology of liberty and natural rights, while demanding that Americans be consistent and liberate all enslaved people. Haynes encouraged the war effort and thought it was the “duty, and honor of every son of freedom to repel” tyranny. Already a war veteran, he understood the cost and struggle for a black person during the revolutionary period — namely, the tension between fighting for a nation to gain its independence from an oppressor while simultaneously oppressing blacks in bondage.
Appealing to the Revolution’s idea, Haynes asks, “Shall a man’s color be the decisive criterion whereby to judge of his natural right?” He rejected this and argued that it was a hypocrisy for Americans to keep some in bondage while struggling for their own freedom. Blacks had a natural right to pursue happiness freely. “Liberty is equally as precious to a black man, as it is to a white one,” he argued, and that “bondage equally as intolerable to the one as it is to the other.” Haynes was a careful reader of the Declaration of Independence. For him and the posture he took in the pulpit, the “Truths to be Self-Evident” were meant for all people regardless of skin color. His preaching was for all, and to his listeners, he argued that national reform to end slavery required the success of the American Revolution. This challenged patriots to be true to their own cause; for whites to succeed in winning the war, then grant liberty to enslaved blacks, and for blacks to aid in the righteous and moral cause. Despite the inconsistency of America’s ideals and practice at the time, for Haynes and black patriots like him, supporting the Americans’ independence was worth it. Moreover, it gave them hope that the new nation would live up to its own ideals.9
The legacy of black support for the American Revolution is complex, revealing that the war itself was not a uniform black struggle for a single cause but an overarching struggle with individual and collective motivations. For black Americans, the revolution was an opportunity to fight for their own emancipation in what appeared to be a promising path to freedom. Their support and participation in the war challenged the morality of the new nation. They exposed the deep-seated hypocrisy of its founding ideals (which Frederick Douglass later recalled in his book What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?). After the war, blacks, both free and enslaved, would view it as a failure because it did not immediately bring universal emancipation. However, black support set in motion the religious, political, and philosophical beliefs that would eventually lead to the abolition of slavery. Unfortunately, the majority of blacks, including Lemuel Haynes, did not live to see their revolutionary ideas realized. However, their participation was a tangible demonstration to whites of their agency and their commitment to freedom that the nation refused to grant them. The bearing of arms, coupled with the religious fervor of ministers like Haynes, allowed blacks to pursue both personal freedom and national liberty during the American Revolution. By understanding their role, we gain a more accurate and complete picture of the American Revolution — not simply a war for independence, but a crucible in which the fundamental principles of American liberty were both forged and, for many, denied on racial grounds.
1 George Washington, The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, ed. Philander D. Chase, vol.1, June 16 1775- September 15, 1775 (Charlottesville, Virginia: University Press of Virginia, 1985), 85–97.
2 The Declaration as Adopted by Congress, July 6, 1775. The New York slave revolt in 1741 was neither an isolated nor the first slave revolt in the colonies. For example, two years prior, in 1739, there was the Stono Rebellion in South Carolina, where enslaved Africans had acquired firearms, burnt entire plantations, and killed dozens of whites. Because of these events, those like them, brandishing blacks — whether free or enslaved — were a dangerous idea to white elites. For more information about the New York Slave Revolt, see Serena R. Zabin, New York Conspiracy Trials of 1741: Daniel Horsmanden’s Journal of the Proceedings with Related Documents (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2004), 1–18; Jill Lepore, New York Burning: Liberty, Slavery, and Conspiracy in Eighteenth-Century Manhattan (New York: Vintage Books, 2005); Peter Charles Hoffer, The Great New York Conspiracy of 1741: Slavery, Crime, and Colonial Law (Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas Press, 2003).
3 John Murray, Pennsylvania Journal and Weekly Advertiser, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, December 6, 1775.
4 The Virginia Gazette (Dixon and Hunter), December 2, 1775.
5 “John Thomas to John Adams, October 24 1775,” The Adams Papers, ed. Robert J. Taylor, vol.3, May 1775 – January 1776, (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1979), 239–241.
6 February 14, 1778, the Rhode Island General Assembly. For more information on the 1st Rhode Island Regiment, see Lorenzo J. Greene, “Some Observations on the Black Regiment of Rhode Island in the American Revolution,” The Journal of Negro History 37 No. 2 (April 1952): 142—172; Paul F. Dearden, The Rhode Island Campaign of 1778: Inauspicious Dawn of Alliance (Providence, Rhode Island: Bicentennial Foundation, for the Rhode Island Publications Society, 1980).
7 Harry S. Stout, The New England Soul: Preaching and Religious Culture in Colonial New England (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 23. Stout argues that the church and the sermon had power to impose their interpretations of scripture on society. The sermons “told the people how they must live as a church but also defined andlegitimated the meaning of their lives as citizen and magistrate, superior and inferior, solider, parents, child, and laborer. Sermons were authority incarnate.”
8 John Saillant, Black Puritan, Black Republican: The Life and Thought of Lemuel Haynes, 1753—1833 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003).
9 Lemuel Haynes, Liberty Further Extended: Or Free Thoughts on the Illegality of Slave-keeping; (1776). The sermon was not formally published in Haynes lifetime. It was published later in Richard S. Newman, ed. Black Preacher to White America: The Collected Writings of Lemuel Haynes, 1774–1833 (Brooklyn: Carlson Publishing, 1990).
