African American Patriots
Prior to the revolution, many free African Americans supported the anti-British cause, most famously Crispus Attucks, believed to be the first person killed at the Boston Massacre. At the time of the American Revolution, some blacks had already been enlisted as Minutemen. Both free and enslaved Africans had served in local militias, especially in the North defending their villages against attacks by Native Americans. In March 1775 the Continental Congress assigned units of the Massachusetts militia as Minutemen. They were under orders to become activated if the British troops in Boston took the offensive. Peter Salem, who had been freed by his owner to join the Framingham militia was one of the blacks in the militia. He served for seven years.
In April 1775 at Lexington and Concord, blacks again responded to the call and fought with Patriot forces. The Battle of Bunker Hill also had African soldiers fighting along the side of the white Patriots. Many Africans both enslaved and free wanted to join with the Patriots, believing that it would either lead to their freedom or expand their civil rights. In addition to the role of soldier, blacks also served as guides, messengers, and spies.
American states had to meet quotas of troops for the new Continental Army, and New England regiments recruited black slaves by promising freedom to those who served in the Continental Army. During the course of the war, about one fifth of the northern army was black. At the Siege of Yorktown in 1781, Baron Closen, a German officer in the French Royal Deux-Ponts Regiment, estimated the American army to be about one quarter black.
Read more about this topic: African Americans In The American Revolution
Famous quotes containing the words african american, african, american and/or patriots:
“The treatment of African and African American culture in our education was no different from their treatment in Tarzan movies.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“A tanned skin is something more than respectable, and perhaps olive is a fitter color than white for a man,—a denizen of the woods. “The pale white man!” I do not wonder that the African pitied him.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“They are a curious mixture of Spanish tradition, American imitation, and insular limitation. This explains why they never catch on to themselves.”
—Helen Lawrenson (1904–1982)
“The American people is out to get the kaiser. We are bending every nerve and every energy towards that end; anybody who gets in the way of the great machine the energy and devotion of a hundred million patriots is building towards the stainless purpose of saving civilization from the Huns will be mashed like a fly. I’m surprised that a collegebred man like you hasn’t more sense. Don’t monkey with the buzzsaw.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)