The Colored Patriots of the American Revolution: With Sketches of Several Distinguished Black Persons

INTRODUCTION.

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The colored race have been generally considered by their enemies, and sometimes even by their friends, as deficient in energy and courage. Their virtues have been supposed to be principally negative ones. This little collection of interesting incidents, made by a colored man, will redeem the character of the race from this misconception, and show how much injustice there may often be in a generally admitted idea.

In considering the services of the Colored Patriots of the Revolution, we are to reflect upon them as far more magnanimous, because rendered to a nation which did not acknowledge them as citizens and equals, and in whose interests and prosperity they had less at stake. It was not for their own land they fought, not even for a land which had adopted them, but for a land which had enslaved them, and whose laws, even in freedom, oftener oppressed than protected. Bravery, under such circumstances, has a peculiar beauty and merit.

It is to be hoped that the reading of these sketches will give new self-respect and confidence to the race here represented. Let them emulate the noble deeds and sentiments of their ancestors, and feel that the dark skin can never be a badge of disgrace, while it has been ennobled by such examples.

And their white brothers in reading may remember, that generosity, disinterested courage and bravery, are of not particular race and complexion, and that the image of the Heavenly Father may be reflected alike by all. Each record of worth in this oppressed and despised should be pondered, for it is by many such that the cruel and unjust public sentiment, which has so long proscribed them, may be reversed, and full opportunities given them to take rank among the nations of the earth.

H. B. STOWE.

ANDOVER, October, 1855.

INTRODUCTION TO PAMPHLET EDITION.

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The following pages are an effort to stem the tide of prejudice against the colored race. The white man despises the colored man, and has come to think him fit only for the menial drudgery to which the majority of the race has been so long doomed. This prejudice was never reasoned up and will never be reasoned down. It must be lived down. In a land where wealth is the basis of reputation, the colored man must prove his sagacity and enterprise by successful trade or speculation. To show his capacity for mental culture, he must BE, not merely claim the right to be, a scholar. Professional eminence is peculiarly the result of practice and long experience. The colored people, therefore, owe it to each other and to their race to extend liberal encouragement to colored lawyers, physicians, and teachers--as well as to mechanics and artisans of all kinds. Let no individual despair. Not to name the living, let me hold up the example of one whose career deserves to be often spoken of, as complete proof that a colored man can rise to social respect and the highest employment and usefulness, in spite not only of the prejudice that crushes his race, but of the heaviest personal burthens. Dr. DAVID RUGGLES, poor, blind, and an invalid, founded a well-known Water-Cure Establishment in the town where I write, erected expensive buildings, won honorable distinction as a most successful and skillful practitioner, secured the warm regard and esteem of this community, and left a name embalmed in the hearts of many who feel that they owe life to his eminent skill and careful practice. Black though he was, his aid was sought sometimes by those numbered among the Pro-Slavery class. To be sure, his is but a single instance, and I know it required preeminent ability to make a way up to light through the overwhelming mass of prejudice and contempt. But it is these rare cases of strong will and eminent endowment,--always sure to make the world feel them whether it will or no,--that will finally wring from a contemptuous community the reluctant confession of the colored man's equality.

I ask, therefore, the reader's patronage of the following sheets on several grounds; first, as an encouragement to the author, Mr. NELL, to pursue a subject which well deserves illustration on other points beside those on which he has labored; secondly, to scatter broadly as possible the facts here collected, as instances of the colored man's success--a record of the genius he has shown, and the services he has rendered society in the higher departments of exertion; thirdly to encourage such men as RUGGLES to perseverance, by showing a generous appreciation of their labors, and a cordial sympathy in their trials.

Some things set down here go to prove colored men patriotic though denied a country:--and all show a wish, on their part, prove themselves men, in a land whose laws refuse to recognise their manhood. If the reader shall, sometimes, blush to find that, in the days of our country's weakness, we remembered their power to help or harm us, and availed ourselves gladly of their gone services, while we have, since, used our strength only to crush them the more completely, let him resolve henceforth to do them justice himself and claim it for them of others. If any shall be convinced by these facts, that they need only a free path to show the same capacity and reap the same rewards as other races, open every door to their efforts, and hasten the day when to be black shall not, almost necessarily, doom a man to poverty and the most menial drudgery. There is touching eloquence, as well as something of Spartan brevity, in the appeal of a well-known colored man, Rev. PETER WILLIAMS, of New York:--We are NATIVES Of this country: we ask only to be treated as well as FOREIGNERS. Not a few of our fathers suffered and bled to purchase its independence; we ask only to be treated as well as those who fought against it. We have toiled to cultivate it, and to raise it to its present prosperous condition; we ask only to share equal privileges with those who come from distant lands to enjoy the fruits of our labor.

WENDELL PHILLIPS.

NORTHAMPTON, Oct. 25, 1852.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

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In the month of July, 1847, the eloquent Bard of Freedom, JOHN G. WHITTIER, contributed to the National Era a statement of facts relative to the Military Services of Colored Americans in the Revolution of 1776, and the War of 1812. Being a member of the Society of Friends, he disclaimed any eulogy upon the shedding of blood, even in the cause of acknowledged justice, but, says he, when we see a whole nation doing honor to the memories of one class of its defenders, to the total neglect of another class, who had the misfortune to be of darker complexion, we cannot forego the satisfaction of inviting notice to certain historical facts, which, for the last half century, have been quietly elbowed aside, as no more deserving of a place in patriotic recollection, than the descendants of the men, to whom the facts in question relate, have to a place in a Fourth of July procession, [in the nation's estimation.] Of the services and sufferings of the Colored Soldiers of the Revolution, no attempt has, to our knowledge, been made to preserve a record. They have had no historian. With here and there an exception, they have all passed away, and only some faint traditions linger among their descendants. Yet enough is known to show that the free colored men of the United States bore their full proportion of the sacrifices and trials of the Revolutionary War.

In my attempt, then, to rescue from oblivion the name and fame of those who, though tinged with the hated stain, yet had warm hearts and active hands in the times that tried men's souls, I will first gratefully tender him my thanks for the service his compilation has afforded me, and my acknowledgments also to other individuals who have kindly contributed facts for this work. Imperfect as these pages may prove, to prepare even these, journeys have been made to confer with the living, and even pilgrimages to grave-yards, to save all that may still be gleaned from their fast disappearing records.

There is now an institution of learning in the State of New York, (Central College,) where the chair of Professorship in Belles Lettres has been filled by three colored young men, CHARLES L. REASON, WILLIAM G. ALLEN, and GEORGE B. VASHON, each of whom has worn the Professor's mantle gracefully, giving proof of good scholarship and manly character.

These men, as teachers, especially in Colleges open to all, irrespective of accidental differences, are doing a mighty work in uprooting prejudice. The influences thus generated are already felt. Many a young white man or woman who, in early life, has imbibed wrong notions of the colored man's inferiority, is taught a new lesson by the colored Professors at McGrawville; and they leave its honored walls with thanksgiving in their hearts for their conversion from pro-slavery heathenism to the Gospel of Christian Freedom, and are thus prepared to go forth as pioneers in the cause of Human Brotherhood.

But the Orator's voice and Author's pen have both been eloquent in detailing the merits of Colored American, in these various ramifications of society, while a combination of circumstances has veiled from the public eye a narration of those military services which are generally conceded as passports to the honorable and lasting notice of Americans.¹

I was born on Beacon Hill, and from early childhood, have loved to visit the Eastern wing of the State House, and read the four stones taken from the monument that once towered from its summit. One contains the following inscription:--

"Americans, while from this eminence scenes of luxuriant fertility, of flourishing commerce, and the abodes of social happiness, meet your view, forget not those who by their exertions have secured to you these blessings.

These words became indelibly impressed upon my mind, and have contributed their share in the production of this book, which, like the labors of Old Mortality, rendered immortal by the genius of Scott, I humbly trust will deepen in the heart and conscience of this nation the sense of justice, that will ere long manifest itself in deeds worthy a people who, free themselves, should be foremost to make free.

WILLIAM C. NELL.

BOSTON, October, 1855.

OMISSION.

The following brief account of the organization of a colored military company in Boston, accidentally omitted from the body of this work, is inserted here, (though somewhat out of place,) as a matter too important to be overlooked in a book of this character:--

The Massasoit Guards, a military company originating among some of the colored citizens of Boston, having been refused a loan of State arms, have equipped themselves in preparation for volunteer service. They do not wish to be considered a caste company, and hence invite to their ranks any citizens of good moral character who may wish to enrol their names.

Many query, "Why call themselves 'Massasoit Guards?' why not 'Attucks' Guards,' after one of their own race, and the first martyr of American Independence, on the 5th of March, 1770?

Perhaps, as the name of Attucks has been already appropriated by colored military companies in New York and Cincinnati, they accepted Massasoit as their patron saint. He was one of those Indian chiefs, who, in early colonial times, proved himself signally friendly to the interests of the Old Bay State. Their pride of loyalty may have prompted the choice, though we believe a better selection could have been made. Still, if they are satisfied, the preferences of others are superfluous.

We earnestly hope they will revive the efforts for erasing the word white from the military clause in the statute-book, for, until that is accomplished, their manhood and citizenship are under proscription.

CHAPTER I.

MASSACHUSETTS.

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CRISPUS ATTUCKS--COLORED AMERICANS ON BUNKER HILL-- SEYMOUR BURR--JEREMY JONAH--A BRAVE COLORED ARTILLERIST --GOVERNOR HANCOCK'S FLAG--BIG DICK--PRIMUS HALL-- JAMES AND HOSEA EASTON--JOB LEWIS--QUACK MATRICK-- JACK GROVE--BOSSON WRIGHT--PETITIONS OF COLORED MEN IN OLD COLONY TIMES--LEGISLATIVE ACTION ON SLAVERY-- MUM BETT--GOV. HANCOCK AGAINST KIDNAPPING-- PAUL CUFFE--ETC. ETC.

On the 5th of March, 1851, the following petition was presented to the Massachusetts Legislature, asking an appropriation of $1,500, for the erection of a monument to the memory of CRISPUS ATTUCKS, the first martyr in the Boston Massacre of March 5th, 1770:--

To the Honorable the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Massachusetts, in General Court assembled:

The undersigned, citizens of Boston, respectfully ask that an appropriation of fifteen hundred dollars may be made by your Honorable Body, for a monument to be erected to the memory of CRISPUS ATTUCKS, the first martyr of the American Revolution.

WILLIAM C. NELL,

CHARLES LENOX REMOND,

HENRY WEEDEN,

LEWIS HAYDEN,

FREDERICK G. BARBADOES,

JOSHUA B. SMITH,

LEMUEL BURR.

BOSTON, Feb. 22d, 1851.

This petition was referred to the Committee on Military Affairs, who granted a bearing to the petitioners, in whose behalf appeared Wendell Phillips, Esq., and William C. Nell, but finally submitted an adverse report, on the ground that a boy, Christopher Snyder, was previously killed. Admitting this fact, (which was the result of a very different scene from that in which Attucks fell,) it does not offset the claims of Attucks, and those who made the 5th of March famous in our annals the day which history selects as the dawn of the American Revolution.

Botta's History, and Hewes's Reminiscences (the tea party survivor), establish the fact that the colored man, ATTUCKS, was of and with the people, and was never regarded otherwise.

Botta, in speaking of the scenes of the 5th of March, says:--The people were greatly exasperated. The multitude ran towards King street, crying, 'Let us drive out these ribalds; they have no business here!' The rioters rushed furiously towards the Custom House; they approached the sentinel, crying, 'Kill him, kill him!' They assaulted him with snowballs, pieces of ice, and whatever they could lay their hands upon. The guard were then called, and, in marching to the Custom House, they encountered, continues Botta, a band of the populace, led by a mulatto named ATTUCKS, who brandished their clubs, and pelted them with snowballs. The maledictions, the imprecations, the execrations of the multitude, were horrible. In the midst of a torrent of invective from every quarter, the military were challenged to fire. The populace advanced to the points of their bayonets. The soldiers appeared like statues; the cries, the howlings, the menaces, the violent din of bells still sounding the alarm, increased the confusion and the horrors of these moments; at length, the mulatto and twelve of his companions, pressing forward, environed the soldiers, and striking their muskets with their clubs, cried to the multitude: 'Be not afraid; they dare not fire: why do you hesitate, why do you not kill them, why not crush them at once?' The mulatto lifted his arm against Capt. Preston, and having turned one of the muskets, he seized the bayonet with his left hand, as if he intended to execute his threat. At this moment, confused cries were heard: 'The wretches dare not fire!' Firing succeeds. ATTUCKS is slain. The other discharges follow. Three were killed, five severely wounded, and several others slightly.

ATTUCKS had formed the patriots in Dock Square, from whence they marched up King street, passing through the street up to the main guard, in order to make the attack.

ATTUCKS was killed by Montgomery, one of Capt. Preston's soldiers. He had been foremost in resisting, and was first slain. As proof of a front engagement, he received two balls, one in each breast.

John Adams, counsel for the soldiers, admitted that Attucks appeared to have undertaken to be the hero of the night, and to lead the people. He and Caldwell, not being residents of Boston, were both buried from Faneuil Hall. The citizens generally participated in the solemnities.

The Boston Transcript of March 7, 1851, published an anonymous communication, disparaging the whole affair; denouncing CRISPUS ATTUCKS as a very firebrand of disorder and sedition, the most conspicuous, inflammatory, and uproarious of the misguided populace, and who, if he had not fallen a martyr, would richly have deserved hanging as an incendiary.² If the leader, ATTUCKS, deserved the epithets above applied, is it not a legitimate inference, that the citizens who followed on are included, and hence should swing in his company on the gallows? If the leader and his patriot band were misguided, the distinguished orators who, in after days, commemorated the 5th of March, must, indeed, have been misguided, and with them, the masses who were inspired by their eloquence; for John Hancock, in 1774, invokes the injured shades of Maverick, Gray, Caldwell, ATTUCKS, Carr; and Judge Dawes, in 1775, thus alludes to the band of misguided incendiaries:--The provocation of that night must be numbered among the master-springs which gave the first motion to a vast machinery,--a noble and comprehensive system of national independence.

Ramsay's History of the American Revolution, Vol. I., p. 22, says--The anniversary of the 5th of March was observed with great solemnity; eloquent orators were successively employed to preserve the remembrance of it fresh in the mind. On these occasions, the blessings of liberty, the horrors of slavery, and the danger of a standing army, were presented to the public view. These annual orations administered fuel to the fire of liberty, and kept it burning with an irresistible flame.

The 5th of March continued to be celebrated for the above reasons, until the Anniversary of the Declaration of American Independence was substituted in its place; and its orators were expected to honor the feelings and principles of the former as having given birth to the latter.

On the 5th of March, 1776, Washington repaired to the intrenchments. Remember, said he, it is the 5th of March, and avenge the death of your brethren!

In judging, then, of the merits of those who launched the American Revolution, we should not take counsel from the Tories of that or the present day, but rather heed the approving eulogy of Lovell, Hancock, and Warren.

Welcome, then, be every taunt that such correspondents may fling at ATTUCKS and his company, as the best evidence of their merits and their strong claim upon our gratitude! Envy and the foe do not labor to traduce any but prominent champions of a cause.

The rejection of the petition was to be expected, if we accept the axiom that a colored man never gets justice done him in the United States, except by mistake. The petitioners only asked for justice, and that the name of CRISPUS ATTUCKS might be honored as a grateful country honors other gallant Americans.

And yet, let it be recorded, the same session of the Legislature which had refused the ATTUCKS monument, granted one to ISAAC DAVIS, of Concord. Both were promoters of the American Revolution, but one was white, the other was black; and this is the only solution to the problem why justice was not fairly meted out.

In April, 1851, Thomas Sims, a fugitive slave from Georgia, was returned to bondage from the city of Boston, and on Friday, June 2d, 1854, Anthony Burns, a fugitive from Virginia, was dragged back to slavery,--both marching over the very ground that ATTUCKS trod. Among the allusions to the man, and the associations clustering around King street of the past and State street of the present, the following are selected. The first is from a speech of the Hon. ANSON BURLINGAME, in Faneuil Hall, Oct. 13, 1852, on the rendition of Thomas Sims:--

The conquering of our New England prejudices in favor of liberty 'does not pay.' It 'does not pay,' I submit, to plat our fellow-citizens under practical martial law; to beat the drum in our streets; to clothe our temples of justice in chains, and to creep along, by the light of the morning star, over the ground wet with the blood of CRISPUS ATTUCKS, the noble colored man, who fell in King street before the muskets of tyranny, away in the dawn of our Revolution; creep by Faneuil Hall, silent and dark; by the Green Dragon, where that noble mechanic, Paul Revere, once mustered the sons of liberty; within sight of Bunker Hill, where was first unfurled the glorious banner of our country; creep along, with funeral pace, bearing a brother, a man made in the image of God, not to the grave,--O, that were merciful, for in the grave there is no work and no device, and the voice of a master never comes,--but back to the degradation of a slavery which kills out of a living body an immortal soul. O, where is the man now, who took part in that mournful transaction, who would wish, looking back upon it, to avow it!

Thousands of agitated people came out to see the preacher [Burns] led off to slavery, over the spot where Hancock stood and ATTUCKS fell.³

And at high 'change, over the spot where, on the 5th of March, 1770, fell the first victim in the Boston Massacre,--where the negro blood of CHRISTOPHER ATTUCKS stained the ground,--over that spot, Boston authorities carried a citizen of Massachusetts to Alexandria as a slave.⁴

A short distance from that sacred edifice, [Faneuil Hall,] and between it and the Court House, where the disgusting rites of sacrificing a human being to slavery were lately performed, was the spot which was first moistened with American blood in resisting slavery, and among the first victims was a colored person.⁵

Nearly all those who had watched the trial of poor Burns, who heard his doom, saw the slave-guard march from the Court House, that had been closed so long, through State street, swept as if by a pestilence, down to the vessel that, under our flag, bore him out of the Bay the Pilgrims entered, into captivity, would rather have looked on a funeral procession, rather have heard the rattling of British guns again . . . . . Sad, shocking, was the sight of the harmless, innocent victim of all that mighty machinery, as he passed down Queen's street and King's street, all hung in mourning. Better to have seen the halter and the coffin for a criminal again paraded through our streets, than the cutlasses and the cannon for him. As he went down to the dock into which the tea was thrown, the spirits that lingered about the spots he passed vanished and fled, whilst dire and frightful images arose in their place.

HENRY HILL, a colored man, and a Revolutionary Soldier, died in Chilicothe, on the 12th of August, 1833, aged eighty years. He was buried with the honors of war,--a singular tribute of respect to the memory of a colored man, but no doubt richly merited in this case. Henry, I should infer from an obituary notice in the Chilicothe Advertiser, was at the battle of Lexington, Brandywine, Monmouth, Princeton, and Yorktown.

Swett, in his Sketches of Bunker Hill Battle, alludes to the presence of a colored man in that fight. He says:-- Major Pitcairn caused the first effusion of blood at Lexington. In that battle, his horse was shot under him, while he was separated from his troops. With presence of mind, he feigned himself slain; his pistols were taken from his holsters, and he was left for dead, when he seized the opportunity, and escaped. He appeared at Bunker Hill, and, says the historian, 'Among those who mounted the works was the gallant Major Pitcairn, who exultingly cried out, The day is ours! when a black soldier named SALEM shot him through, and he fell. His agonized son received him in his arms, and tenderly bore him to the boats.' A contribution was made in the army for the colored soldier, and he was presented to Washington as having performed this feat.⁶

     Besides SALEM, there were quite a number of colored soldiers at Bunker Hill. Among them, TITUS COBURN, ALEXANDER AMES, and BARZILAI LEW, all of Andover; and also CATO HOWE, of Plymouth,--each of whom received a pension. Lew was a fifer. His daughter, Mrs. Dalton, now lives within a few rods of the battle field.

SEYMOUR BURR was a slave in Connecticut, to a brother of Col. Aaron Burr, from whom he derived his name. Though treated with much favor by his master, his heart yearned for liberty, and he seized an occasion to induce several of his fellow slaves to escape in a boat, intending to join the British, that they might become freemen; but being pursued by their owners, armed with the implements of death, they were compelled to surrender.

Burr's master, contrary to his expectation, did not inflict corporeal punishment, but reminded him of the kindness with which he had been treated, and asked what inducement he could have for leaving him. Burr replied, that he wanted his liberty. His owner finally proposed, that if he would give him the bounty money, he might join the American army, and at the end of the war be his own man. Burr, willing to make any sacrifice for his liberty, consented, and served faithfully during the campaign, attached to the Seventh Regiment, commanded by Colonel, afterwards Governor Brooks, of Medford. He was present at the siege of Fort Catskill, and endured much suffering from starvation and cold. After some skirmishing, the army was relieved by the arrival of Gen. Washington, who, as witnessed by him, shed tears of joy on finding them unexpectedly safe.

Burr married one of the Punkapog tribe of Indians, and settled in Canton, Mass. He received a pension from Government. His widow died in 1852, aged over one hundred years.

JEREMY JONAH served in the same Regiment, (Col. Brooks's,) at the same time with Seymour Burr. The two veterans used to make merry together in recounting their military adventures, especially the drill on one occasion, when Jonah stumbled over a stone heap; for which he was severely caned by the Colonel. He drew a pension.

LEMUEL BURR, (grandson of Seymour,) a resident of Boston, often speaks of their reminiscences of DEBORAH GANNETT. In confirmation of this part of their history, I give the following extract from the Resolves of the General court of Massachusetts during the session of 1791:--

XXIII.--Resolve on the petition of DEBORAH GANNETT, granting her £34 for services in the Continental Army. January 20,1792.

On the petition of DEBORAH GANNETT, praying for compensation for services performed in the late army of the United States:

Whereas, it appears to this Court that the said DEBORAH GANNETT enlisted, under the name of Robert Shurtliff, in Capt. Webb's company, in the 4th Massachusetts Regiment, on May 20th, 1782, and did actually perform the duty of a soldier, in the late army of the United States, to the 23d day of October, 1783, for which she has received no compensation; and, whereas, it further appears that the said Deborah exhibited an extraordinary instance of female heroism, by discharging the duties of a faithful gallant soldier, and at the same time preserving the virtue and chastity of her sex unsuspected and unblemished, and was discharged from the service with a fair and honorable character; therefore,

Resolved, That the Treasurer of this Commonwealth be, and he hereby is, directed to issue his note to the said Deborah for the sum of thirty four pounds, bearing interest from Oct. 23, 1783.

Joshua B. Smith has stated to me that he was present at a company of distinguished Massachusetts men, when the conversation turned upon the exploits of Revolutionary times; and that the late Judge Story related an incident of a colored Artillerist who, while having charge of a cannon with a white fellow soldier, was wounded in one arm. He immediately turned to his comrade, and proposed changing his position, exclaiming that he had yet one arm left with which he could render some service to his country. The change proved fatal to the heroic soldier, for another shot from the enemy killed him upon the spot. Judge Story furnished other incidents of the bravery of colored soldiers, adding, that he had often thought them and their descendants too much neglected, considering the part they had sustained in the wars; and he regretted that he did not, in early life, gather the facts into a shape for general information.

The late Governor Eustis, of Massachusetts, the pride and boast of the Democracy of the East, himself an active participant in the war, and therefore a most competent witness, states that the free colored soldiers entered the ranks with the whites. The time of those who were slaves was purchased of their masters, and they were induced to enter the service in consequence of a law of Congress, by which, on condition of their serving in the ranks during the war, they were made freemen. This hope of liberty inspired them with fresh courage to oppose their breasts to the Hessian bayonet at Red Bank, and enabled them to endure with fortitude the cold and famine of Valley Forge.

At the close of the Revolutionary War, John Hancock presented the colored company, called the Bucks of America, with an appropriate banner, bearing his initials, as a tribute to their courage and devotion throughout the struggle. The Bucks, under the command of Colonel Middleton, were invited to a collation in a neighboring town, and, en route, were requested to halt in front of the Hancock Mansion, in Beacon street, where the Governor and his son united in the above presentation.

LYDIA MARIA CHILD gives the following sketch of Col. MIDDLETON, commander of the Bucks:--

"Col. Middleton was not a very good specimen of the colored man. He was an old horse-breaker, who owned a house that he inhabited at the head of Belknap street. He was greatly respected by his own people,