Out of Necessity: Blacks and the Revolutionary War.

By joliv3r
  • Period: to

    James Forten and the Continental Navy

    Unlike its counterpart banch of service, the Continental Navy enlisted both free and enslaved Blacks due to necessity. James Forten was on of the most notable who served in the Navy.

  • Crispus Attuks and the Boston Massacre

    Crispus Attucks joins a protest against British in Massachusetts colony. Independence from British control was not offical, many still considers him as the first causualty of war in this battle. Because he had Wampanoag ancestors, his role was also important to Native Americans.

  • Lemuel Haynes

    Enlisted as a Minuteman in the local mititia. He fought in the Battle of Lexington and wrote ballard-sermon about the battle. His was the first African American Protestant minster.

  • Caesar Agustus

    Died during the Batltle of Lexington. This was the start of the War for American Independence (Revoluntionary War).

  • Battle of Lexington and Concord

    NC Lost SoulsThis was the first battle for America's freedom from British control." Blacks served at the battles of Lexington and Concord. Peter Salem, a freed slave, stood on the green at Lexington facing the British when the first battle broke out with the shot that was heard around the world. One of the last men wounded in the battle as the British escaped to Boston was Prince Estabrook, a black man fromWest Lexington."

  • Agrippa Hull

    Born a free man in 1759, he enlisted in the Colonial Army in 1777. He served as an orderly for General John Paterson. He lived in Stockbridge Massachusett next door to Elizabeth Freeman, the first slave free under the new state constitution.

  • Prince Hall

    Prince Hall was important figure in Boston. Served in Boston Regimen of Artillery during Battle of Bunker Hill.

  • Militia Laws regarding Black Enlistment

    Although many Blacks enlisted in the Revolutionary War, the Militia Laws has a profound effect on the number of enlistees that was officially allowed to serve in the Continental Army. New Jersey's Militia Act of May 1777 allowed masters to enlist slaves to fullfill their own military obligation.