278 Political Activity and Resistance to Oppression: From the American Revolution to the Civil War
Passage. Despite all that slaves claimed to embody and not
be capable of accomplishing, enslaved and free blacks none-
theless became intellectuals, political actors, and creators of
art and established both traditional and alternative families
and kinship networks.
Th e rebellious acts of the colonists leading to 1776 there-
fore had unintended consequences that led to a challenge by
those of African hereditary descent. Th e actions of blacks,
however, had precedents before the anticolonial war of inde-
pendence. In April 1712, there had been a slave revolt in New
York City, where a group of armed slaves set fi re to buildings,
killing at least nine whites in the resulting confusion. As a
result, approximately 20 slaves were executed (and others
committed suicide). Th e anxiety of whites was transformed
into restrictive laws, including one that discouraged manu-
mission at all as well as one that levied a fee of 200 pounds
for liberating a slave (to be given to the freed person if unable
to take care of herself or himself ). Another slave uprising oc-
curred in New York in 1741, which was ignited (literally and
fi guratively) by another series of fi res that swept the city. Th e
extent of a formalized slave conspiracy remains a question of
debate among historians, but it does seems that the breach of
social norms, especially the legal codes restricting the behav-
ior of blacks (dancing and drinking at night and on Sundays,
for instance), caused the kind of anxiety that led many to
think that with the help of some whites (in particular, Catho-
lics), slaves were going to burn the city.
Of course, the most notable colonial rebellion occurred
two years prior in South Carolina, near the Stono River,
20 miles southwest of Charleston. Aft er having met in secret
in September 1739, 20 slaves planned a march toward Span-
ish Florida, where it had been reported that in the wake of
the outbreak of war between Britain and Spain, slaves could
obtain freedom. Arming themselves with weapons seized
from a store near Stono Bridge (killing two storekeepers in
the process) and with their numbers increasing, the rebels
marched toward St. Augustine and Fort Mose (Gracia Real
de Santa Teresa de Mose). Although the former had a sig-
nifi cant free and slave population for the colonial era, the
latter had become, in 1738, the fi rst legally sanctioned free
black community in Spanish-controlled North America.
By the time the hurriedly assembled response of plantation
owners and slaveholders had put down the rebellion, many
slaveholders and family members had been killed as well as
their homes burned. With this serving as a warning to the
dominant society of the lengths to which slaves would goman” discourse to slaves. However, a regiment consisting of
more than 500 gens de couleurs (free men of color) from the
then-French colony of St. Domingue (known as the Corps
de Chasseurs-Volontaires) was able to serve the Revolution-
ary cause, fi ghting valiantly at the 1779 Battle of Savannah.
Ironically, some of the soldiers, who as a group formed a
part of a slaveholding class in St. Domingue, were enslaved
themselves aft er being captured by the British. For their
service, blacks who were slaves were oft en promised free-
dom for enlisting, and some were indeed freed at the end
of the war, as occurred with Prince Estabrook, who joined
George Washington’s army aft er having fought at Lexington
in 1775. Some who had fought for the British would later
fi nd themselves in Nova Scotia and, eventually, because of
the discriminatory conditions there, in Sierra Leone.
With blacks serving in military confl icts in British
North America before the Revolution, such as in the French
and Indian War, and aft erward, such as in the War of 1812,
the Civil War (on both the Union and the Confederate
sides), and the Indian Wars, a paradoxical tradition has
continued to the contemporary era. Th e death of Crispus
Attucks during the 1770 Boston Massacre can be seen as
emblematic of a relation identifi ed by James Baldwin al-
most two centuries later, whereby blacks had pledged alle-
giance to a nation that had yet to pledge allegiance to them.
Nonetheless, though oft en rewarded less for their service,
blacks continued to participate in all the major confl icts of
the nation, including both World War I and World War II,
and continue to do so, even though the dynamic has yet to
fundamentally change.
Th e ironic role of blacks in the military during the Rev-
olutionary War demonstrated a tension that would come to
defi ne much of the experience of African-descended peoples
in British North America and that remains central to what
has oft en been identifi ed as resistance. In the serving, and
literally dying for, the birth (as well as the symbolic rebirth)
of the nation, both the antagonistic and complementary
role of the black presence can be seen. On one level, such
actions called into question the very nature of the society.
If a slave was represented as the conceptual “other” to the
idea of the citizen, how then were they able to participate in
one of the activities that from the classical era has defi ned
citizenship? Th is attempt to be incorporated into the domi-
nant society, despite prohibitions and proscriptions, can be
generalized to defi ne much of the social reality of blacks in
the Americas since arriving as a consequence of the Middle