The First American Army - Bruce Chadwick [142]
The slaves in the state navies not only fought for America’s independence alone; their families did again and again. A black sailor named John De Baptist, of Spotsylvania, Virginia, fought in the U.S. Navy in the Revolution, his son served in it during the war of 1812, and his grandson did the same in the Civil War.
In addition to the men on ships, hundreds of other slaves or black freedmen worked for the navy as laborers on shore. Most repaired ships and some worked with white laborers in building small craft. One integrated work crew was hired on an annual basis to do maintenance at Charleston harbor. Other black freedmen and slaves worked on the privateers sanctioned by the government.
The black men in the navy in the southern states were treated differently from those in the army. Soldiers earned freedom directly, but sailors did not. Some were given freedom for their service. Most were hired out from their owners for service that could range from one day to a year. Some states bought slaves outright from owners and made them the “slaves” of the state navies. Hard-working black sailors were rewarded in many ways, however. Many saw naval work preferable to laboring in the heat on plantations. Some loved the sea. All hoped that victory over the British would bring an end to slavery. Although many slaves were returned to their owners after the war, or were sold to others by the states if their masters were Loyalists, still others were awarded their freedom for meritorious service to the state navy.
The black pilots engaged the enemy. The Liberty, with its heavily black crew, was involved in twenty sea battles. A slave named William Graves was killed in one engagement while at the wheel of his vessel. Another, Minny, was killed while leading a group of men in boarding a British ship during a hot firefight on the waters of the Chesapeake.
Most of the slaves who worked for the Revolution were common laborers. The army needed large groups of workers to build fortifications, toil in mines, ironworks, and shipyards to help manufacture cannon, ammunition, boats, leather goods, clothing, wagons, and lead musket balls. Some were trained as firemen in case their towns were set ablaze in a bombardment. George Washington never had as many soldiers as he needed and could not deploy hundreds of them to work in those capacities.
The slaves who had fled to the British for protection and freedom often lost it if the British army was defeated in a battle. Southern states saw all slaves as contraband, like cargo on ships seized on the high seas, and the property of the victor. Slaves captured from the British were sometimes given away to newly commissioned officers in the American army, along with parcels of land, as their bonus for joining the service.
The slaves who avoided recapture by American forces may have fared worse under the “protection” of the British army. At the end of the Revolution, the British were protecting nearly twenty thousand slaves. They refused to give them back to the Americans, despite Congress’ demands for their return to their masters in the United States. The English brought all of them with them as they evacuated between 1781 and 1783. Almost all of the slaves were turned over to slavers in the West Indies, where they spent the rest of their lives.40
Chapter Twenty-Five
THE HEROISM OF THE BLACK RHODE ISLAND REGIMENT
The all-black First Rhode Island, trained by Jeremiah Greenman, was not a