The Negro in the American Revolution

Benjamin Quarles published this book already in 1961. This is a new edition from 1996 with a introduction by Gary Nash. Nash believes that Quarles' book was among the first to tell the truth about the role of Blacks in the American Revolution. Previous book usually concentrated on the Patriotic Blacks, those who fought on the American side against the British. There were about 5,000 Patriotic Blacks used in various capacities by the revolutionary forces. There is just one little problem. The number of Blacks working for the British was 100,000. I'm pretty well read, and I had no idea until a few years ago, when I read a book about the Sierra Leone settlement. But even then, I didn't realize the sheer magnitude of it. The British were no abolitionists, but they realized that a victorious war against the colonies called for unorthodox measures. By promising Black slaves owned by Rebel masters their freedom, the British excited a mass exodus of Blacks in the South to the British lines. Even some of Jefferson's and Washington's slaves absconded. A few of the freed Blacks were armed and saw combat, but most were employed as pilots onboard ships, scouts, drummers or manual labourers. Apart from the freed Blacks, there were also thousands of still enslaved Blacks behind the British lines. These were owned by Loyalists. The fate of the "Loyalist" Blacks was varied. The slaves were shipped to the West Indies and often re-sold. Even a few free Blacks ended up being slaves in Jamaica. Most of the free Blacks moved to Canada, and were eventually resettled in Sierra Leone in West Africa. The capital of that nation is still called Freetown. The American Revolution is virtually always portrayed as a glorious event and as the opening shot in the battle for liberty. Perhaps it was - for the Whites. Blacks saw things differently. The Southern states didn't abolish slavery. The Northern states eventually did, but there, the number of Blacks was smaller, and slavery seems to have been abolished mostly because White skilled workers saw the slaves as dangerous competitors. The British didn't abolish slavery until long after the war in America, but at least they promised freedom to the Blacks in the thirteen colonies. Small wonder most of them absconded to enemy territory, rather than continuing being slaves under Washington, Adams or Jefferson. The really interesting question, of course, is what this tells us about the American Revolution. At least from a Black perspective, Britain and the United States were birds of a feather. Obviously, however, the Blacks preferred the empire that was willing to grant them freedom. And that empire was...Britain. Small wonder this has been covered up for so long!

The primary concern of Benjamin Quarles in his work The Negro in the American Revolution is to bring greater attention to the Negro as an overlooked role-player during the revolutionary period. Quarles postulates that the American Negroes actually personified the movement for independence through their own desire for freedom, and were moved to action not by loyalty to any particular flag or place, but rather by a freshly awakened hope for personal independence and individual "unalienable rights". It was logical, Quarles suggests, that the Negro would gravitate toward the side that made the best promise of freedom, even if this side was often the British, the very nation that the white colonists were rebelling against under cries of enslavement. Using extensive research and many specific instances to portray the sentiments of Negroes as a whole, Quarles is successfully able to prove this thesis.