Slavery and Liberty in the American Revolution - Archiving Early America
Slavery and Liberty in the American Revolution
by Gregory D. Massey
John Laurens’s Black Regiment Proposal
Early in 1776, as many Americans moved toward an emotionally wrenching separation from Great Britain, two young South Carolinians studying abroad discussed their country’s uncertain future.
John Laurens, son of the wealthy merchant and planter, Henry Laurens, ardently embraced republicanism and independence. Francis Kinloch, ward of former South Carolina royal governor Thomas Boone, feared that his countrymen, without a monarch to check democratic excesses, would degenerate into anarchy. In defending revolution and republicanism, Laurens recognized the disparity between American ideals and practices. It was hypocritical, he wrote, for white Americans to demand their liberty while they held blacks in bondage:
I think we Americans at least in the Southern Colonies, cannot contend with a good Grace, for Liberty, until we shall have enfranchised our Slaves. How can we whose Jealousy has been alarm’d more at the Name of Oppression sometimes than at the Reality, reconcile to our spirited Assertions of the Rights of Mankind, the galling abject Slavery of our negroes. . . . If as some pretend, but I am persuaded more thro’ interest, than from Conviction, the Culture of the Ground with us cannot be carried on without African Slaves, Let us fly it as a hateful Country, and say ubi Libertas ibi Patria [where Liberty is there is my Country].
Championing emancipation in a private letter was one thing; championing emancipation in public was something else altogether. In an August 1776 letter to his son John, Henry Laurens privately acknowledged that slavery violated the Golden Rule. The elder Laurens, whose devout Christian faith set him apart from most other American political leaders, hoped one day to free his own slaves and convince his contemporaries to follow suit. Despite this pledge, he never made a public attack on slavery. Of the nearly 260 slaves Henry owned, he freed only George, his personal servant during the Revolution.
Unlike his father, John Laurens translated private sentiments into public action. He eventually conceived a bold plan to enlist slaves in the Continental Army and grant them freedom in return for their service. His proposal not only pledged reinforcements to the dwindling American regular forces but also threatened to subvert the institution of slavery in the lower South.
On the surface it appears surprising that John Laurens, of all people, wanted to raise a battalion of slave soldiers. He was, after all, born and raised in a slave society. He owed his public identity as a member of America’s patrician class to the sweat of slaves working on his father’s rice plantations. One day John would inherit much of this human chattel and extensive property and take his rightful place among South Carolina’s political and social elite. Why, then, did he espouse an idea so potentially threatening to slavery, the bedrock of South Carolina’s economy? Why did he continue advocating his plan for so long against such intense political opposition? What motivated him and drove him to be so different from his contemporaries?
John Laurens’s lonely crusade against slavery involved elements of romantic idealism and personal ambition. To a degree, he simply extended to a logical conclusion the views held by two previous generations of the Laurens family. His grandfather, also named John, was a prosperous and respected saddler in Charleston who laid the foundation for the family’s wealth. Though he owned at least five slaves, he was ambivalent toward the institution and predicted its eventual demise. Henry Laurens first made his mark as a merchant, becoming one of the most prominent slave traders in Charleston. He then invested his fortune in land and slaves. A patriarchal master who expected his slaves to be diligent and obedient, Henry paradoxically possessed misgivings about slavery that he communicated to John in person and on paper.