May We Meet in the Heavenly World by Lemuel Haynes

New York: New York University Press, 2016. Hardesty, Jared Ross Unfreedom: Slavery And Dependence In Eighteenth-Century Boston. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012. Black Patriots and Loyalists Fighting for Emancipation in the War for Independence. Throughout the following pages you will find the incredible stories of the individuals who risked everything during their struggle for liberty, equality, and freedom for all. Unfortunately, systemic racism and historical bias have erased or buried many records of Black and Indigenous people who played a prominent role in the founding of the United States. Why don't we hear more about this part of the American Revolution?

Eighty-six years after the fighting on April 19, 1775, Americans went to war again This time to address the problem of slavery, left unresolved from the time of the revolution. Under the new United States of America, the practice of slavery grew and solidified in the American South. Unfortunately, the revolution did not provide freedom for all, instead, it was just the beginning of a long struggle. In many cases, the veterans of color who fought during the war lead the movements for abolition afterward. Through the diligent work of the community of color, slavery gradually came to an end in Massachusetts after the American Revolution. '.I query, whether Liberty is so contracted a principle as to be Confin'd to any nation under Heaven nay, I think it not hyperbolical to affirm, that Even an Affrican, has Equally as good a right to his Liberty in common with Englishmen.' African American Militiaman Lemuel Haynes wrote in 1776,

During this tumultuous period filled with talk of liberty and freedom, many individuals also questioned the practice of human enslavement as highly inconsistent with those ideals. Others considered life, liberty, and property to be the birthright of all British subjects and many were willing to die for those concepts.

Some individuals saw the war as an opportunity to affirm their cultural agency or gain further influence with Anglo-American society.

In 1775, a wide spectrum of people engaged in warfare to defend what was most dear to them. Why then would these men fight for a society that treated them as inferior? By the end of the conflict, an estimated 5,500 African and Native American men served on the colonial side Many more served on the side of the British, particularly after the fighting moved south.ĭuring the 17th and 18th centuries slavery and racism were an integral part of Colonial American society, and deeply rooted in Massachusetts. Although excluded from required militia service prior to the war, these individuals of color were the first of many to take up arms between 17. Between twenty and forty colonists of the approximately 4,000 who fought along the Battle Road on April 19, 1775, were of African descent or Native American.

May We Meet in the Heavenly World by Lemuel Haynes