312 Political Activity and Resistance to Oppression: From the American Revolution to the Civil War
black veterans of the Revolutionary War refl ected on their
experiences and sought to expose the contradiction be-
tween revolutionary ideology and slavery by using the
image of their patriotism and military service as a way to
fi ght against the immorality of slavery and the denial of
suff rage.
Ultimately, however, the American Revolution had a
mixed legacy for the black population. Although Enlight-
enment philosophy eventually inspired religious reformers
and politicians to bring an end to slavery in the North, the
institution of slavery expanded dramatically in the South.
In fact, following the war, the slave trade was reinvigorated,
and hundreds of thousands of Africans were brought to
the United States where they were reduced to a permanent
state of bondage. Regardless, this painful reality did not dis-
suade black calls for liberty. Instead, for centuries aft er the
Revolutionary War, African Americans continued to draw
on the language of the American Revolution to bolster their
demands for freedom.
See also: Attucks, Crispus; Boston Massacre; Declaration of
Independence; Lord Dunmore; Poor, Salem; Salem, Peter;
Williams, Peter Sr.Leslie M. AlexanderBibliography
Aptheker, Herbert. Th e Negro in the American Revolution. New
York: International Publishers, 1940.
Frey, Sylvia. Water From the Rock: Black Resistance in a Revolution-
ary Age. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991.
Kaplan, Sidney. Th e Black Presence in the Era of the American Rev-
olution, 1770–1800. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institu-
tion, 1973.
Quarles, Benjamin. Th e Negro in the American Revolution. New
York: Norton, 1961.Amistad
On July 2, 1839, off the coast of Cuba, 53 West Africans
took control of the slave ship Amistad. Th eir actions and
the U.S. legal trials they spurred had profound and far-
reaching historical consequences. Th e Amistad case galva-
nized the nascent abolitionist movement in the American
North, intensifi ed U.S. tensions over slavery, prompted a
former U.S. president to censure an active administration,
upset diplomatic ties between Spain and the United States,he wanted to encourage the defection of blacks who would
be willing to fi ght in order to cause white colonists to feel
insecure about their safety and their economic strength. In
essence, Dunmore wanted to destroy the Southern econ-
omy. In that regard, Dunmore’s Proclamation was extremely
successful. Th e hope for freedom prompted an estimated
100,000 black people to fl ee their plantations and seek pro-
tection with the British military. It also led to paranoia,
particularly in the South, as there was an increased fear of
insurrections. In fact, the threat of slave rebellions became
a particular problem in the Chesapeake, the Carolinas, and
Georgia, where there was a majority (or near majority)
black population.
In the end, however, Dunmore’s Proclamation proved
to be mostly illusory. Because the British were never re-
ally committed to emancipation as a moral issue, their re-
sponses to black people were varied. As the British military
became overwhelmed by black fugitives, sometimes the
British greeted them with uniforms and promises of free-
dom; other times, they turned them away; and in some
cases, they even returned them to their enraged owners.
In a few instances, the British gave fugitives temporary ref-
uge and then sold them back into slavery. Moreover, at the
conclusion of the war, the British were defeated and were
obviously forced to evacuate. Although they initially tried
to deliver on their promise of freedom to black loyalists,
in many cases, the situation turned disastrous. When the
British fi nally withdrew from the United States, over 20,000
black people departed with them. Reports circulated of
black people fl ocking to the harbors, hoping to be among
those to escape slavery; parents threw their children on
board to strangers, hopeful that their child would not have
to live in bondage, and others clung to the sides of ships
as they pulled out into the ocean. Yet although a lucky few
who departed with the British eventually gained freedom in
England, Nova Scotia, or Sierra Leone, many were brought
to the British Caribbean (Bahamas, Barbados, and Jamaica)
and were re-enslaved.
Most black men who fought with the Americans were
also denied their freedom at war’s end. Even emancipated
black soldiers were not appreciated for their labor and will-
ingness to risk their lives; not only were they denied the
military benefi ts given to other veterans, but additionally,
those who perished in the war were not honored with a
proper burial because whites did not want to be buried
alongside black soldiers. In the years that followed, many