How was this ever disputed?
Disputed 1619 project was CORRECT, Slavery WAS key to US Revolution; Gerald Horne proved in 2014
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Delusional White people that believed that propaganda of greatness pushed by the bullshyt artist that write American history. Common sense should have told them that slavery was a center piece of the American Revolution just like it was in the Civil War less than a century later. The similarities between the two wars were stunning.
These were land speculators breh 
All that freedom shyt was some libertarian wet dream
The Shameful Final Grievance of the Declaration of Independence
The Shameful Final Grievance of the Declaration of Independence
The revolution wasn’t only an effort to establish independence from the British—it was also a push to preserve slavery and suppress Native American resistance.
Jeffrey OstlerFebruary 8, 2020
Professor of history at University of Oregon
duncan1890 / Getty / The Atlantic
“We hold these truths to be self evident.” Say these words, and many Americans will be able to recite what follows: “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The opening words of the Declaration of Independence—and easily its most remembered part—are widely celebrated as signifying the beginning of an exceptional American history, one characterized, despite setbacks, by a progressive expansion of rights.
The closing words of the Declaration are far less known. The last of a list of 27 grievances against King George III, they read as follows: “He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions.” These words call attention to hard truths about America’s founding that have often been brushed aside.
The 27th grievance raises two issues. The first, the king’s incitement of “domestic insurrections,” refers to slave revolts and reveals a hard truth recently brought to the public’s attention by The New York Times Magazine’s 1619 Project: Some of those who sought independence aimed to protect the institution of slavery. This was particularly true for Virginia slave owners, who were deeply disturbed by a proclamation issued in November 1775 by Virginia Governor Lord Dunmore, which promised enslaved people held by revolutionaries freedom in exchange for joining the British army. Virginians and other southerners feared that it would provoke widespread slave revolts. Edward Rutledge, who later became the governor of South Carolina, declared that Dunmore’s proclamation would do more than any other effort to “work an eternal separation between Great Britain and the Colonies,” and George Washington called Dunmore “that arch-traitor to the rights of humanity.”
A second hard truth exposed by the 27th grievance—and its racist depiction of Native Americans as “merciless Indian savages”—has generated much less public discussion. In indicting the king for unleashing Indians on the “inhabitants of our frontiers,” the Declaration was not referring to a specific event but rather to the recent escalation of violence, which was caused by colonists invading Native lands west of the Appalachian Mountains. In response, a confederation of Senecas, Shawnees, Delawares, Ottawas, Cherokees, and other Native nations exercised a right of self-defense and attacked new colonial settlements. Although the Native nations had British support, they were acting on their own and not at the instigation of the Crown. Nonetheless, Thomas Jefferson, the Declaration’s primary drafter, hoped that by fanning the flames of settlers’ anti-Indian racism and implicating George III, he could ignite a general conflagration against the British in the West. In this way, the 27th grievance helped lay the foundation for an American nationalism that would demonize the continent’s indigenous people, especially when they resisted American aggressions.
Although the reference to the “merciless Indian savages” appealed to the “inhabitants of our frontiers,” Jefferson and others who signed the Declaration had their own reasons for detesting British policies relating to Native Americans and their lands. More than a decade earlier, in order to end a costly war to suppress an indigenous resistance movement led by the Ottawa war leader Pontiac, the king issued the Proclamation of 1763, which recognized indigenous ownership of lands west of the Appalachian mountains’ crest and prevented colonists from settling there. At first glance, ordinary settlers might be expected to have been the proclamation’s major opponents. Some settlers did object, but the most potent source of opposition came from colonial elites, especially in Virginia and Pennsylvania, who had invested in companies with claims to lands west of the boundary set by the proclamation. Unless those lands could be legally settled, land companies could not gain secure title to their claims. Investors would be left with nothing but the debts they had incurred to bet on getting rich.
In 1767, George Washington, one of the era’s most passionate land speculators, predicted that the proclamation “must fall … in a few years.” British imperial officials made some adjustments to the 1763 boundary, but despite Washington’s hopes, and those of other speculators such as Thomas Jefferson, British policy continued to restrict colonists’ perceived liberty to obtain indigenous lands. Colonists found the 1774 Quebec Act—one of the Intolerable Acts—particularly odious. Not only did the Quebec Act grant legal protection to Catholicism, a religion Protestants despised, but it extended Quebec’s boundary south to the Ohio River and blocked settlement in the Ohio Valley. At the First Continental Congress, Richard Lee, a delegate from Virginia, called the Quebec Act the “worst grievance” of them all. Two years later, when Virginia broke with Great Britain, its state constitution claimed lands west of the Mississippi River, thus nullifying the Proclamation of 1763 and the Quebec Act.
Even as colonists declared their independence from Britain, indigenous people were preparing to defend their own freedom. Long experience had led Native Americans to believe that colonists intended not only to take their lands, but to kill them all. In the summer of 1776, an unnamed Shawnee, part of a delegation of Mohawks, Shawnees, Ottawas, and Delawares, urged Cherokees to join a confederation to resist the colonists, warning that the “Virginians,” as he referred to all colonists, possessed “an intention to extirpate … the red people.” Similarly, after the Revolutionary War broke out, the Mohawk leader Joseph Brant declared that it was the intention of another group of colonists—the “Bostonians”—to “exterminate” the Mohawks and other members of the Six Nations (Haudenosaunee) confederacy. The term genocide did not yet exist, but their words conveyed the same idea. Native people were terrified that unshackled colonists would kill them wholesale.
This indigenous perspective returns us to the 27th grievance. Jefferson’s denigration of “merciless Indian savages” signaled that the war for independence from Great Britain would also be a brutal war to seize indigenous lands. From 1776 to 1783, U.S. troops and colonial militias destroyed more than 70 Cherokee towns, 50 Haudenosaunee towns, and at least 10 multiethnic towns in the Ohio Valley, killing several hundred people (including civilians) and subjecting refugees to starvation, disease, and death. In the decades to come, U.S. presidents, Washington and Jefferson included, would call for the extermination of Native Americans who fought against dispossession. Several U.S. armies would try to do precisely that.
The 1619 Project has made an enormous contribution to public understanding of slavery, often referred to as America’s “original sin.” Although critics of the 1619 Project have tried to minimize slavery’s importance, its centrality to the creation of America—and its disturbing legacies—is well established in the scholarly literature and becoming clear to the public. Even so, the 27th grievance reveals that the original sin at America’s founding was twofold. America was built by the labor of enslaved people. It was also built on stolen lands and the genocide of indigenous peoples. To understand where this country is now and to imagine a truly just future, America needs to reckon with both of these hard truths.
This story is part of the project “The Battle for the Constitution,” in partnership with the National Constitution Center.
@Red Shield @Michael's Black Son @Sukairain @YouMadd? @Basil of Baker Street @SupremexKing @Cat piss martini @AndroidHero @Pirius Black @panopticon @johnedwarduado @neotheflyingone @Ishlibidish23 @SJUGRAD13 @BlueHeffner
All that freedom shyt was some libertarian wet dream
The Shameful Final Grievance of the Declaration of Independence
The Shameful Final Grievance of the Declaration of Independence
The revolution wasn’t only an effort to establish independence from the British—it was also a push to preserve slavery and suppress Native American resistance.
Jeffrey OstlerFebruary 8, 2020
Professor of history at University of Oregon
duncan1890 / Getty / The Atlantic
“We hold these truths to be self evident.” Say these words, and many Americans will be able to recite what follows: “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The opening words of the Declaration of Independence—and easily its most remembered part—are widely celebrated as signifying the beginning of an exceptional American history, one characterized, despite setbacks, by a progressive expansion of rights.
The closing words of the Declaration are far less known. The last of a list of 27 grievances against King George III, they read as follows: “He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions.” These words call attention to hard truths about America’s founding that have often been brushed aside.
The 27th grievance raises two issues. The first, the king’s incitement of “domestic insurrections,” refers to slave revolts and reveals a hard truth recently brought to the public’s attention by The New York Times Magazine’s 1619 Project: Some of those who sought independence aimed to protect the institution of slavery. This was particularly true for Virginia slave owners, who were deeply disturbed by a proclamation issued in November 1775 by Virginia Governor Lord Dunmore, which promised enslaved people held by revolutionaries freedom in exchange for joining the British army. Virginians and other southerners feared that it would provoke widespread slave revolts. Edward Rutledge, who later became the governor of South Carolina, declared that Dunmore’s proclamation would do more than any other effort to “work an eternal separation between Great Britain and the Colonies,” and George Washington called Dunmore “that arch-traitor to the rights of humanity.”
A second hard truth exposed by the 27th grievance—and its racist depiction of Native Americans as “merciless Indian savages”—has generated much less public discussion. In indicting the king for unleashing Indians on the “inhabitants of our frontiers,” the Declaration was not referring to a specific event but rather to the recent escalation of violence, which was caused by colonists invading Native lands west of the Appalachian Mountains. In response, a confederation of Senecas, Shawnees, Delawares, Ottawas, Cherokees, and other Native nations exercised a right of self-defense and attacked new colonial settlements. Although the Native nations had British support, they were acting on their own and not at the instigation of the Crown. Nonetheless, Thomas Jefferson, the Declaration’s primary drafter, hoped that by fanning the flames of settlers’ anti-Indian racism and implicating George III, he could ignite a general conflagration against the British in the West. In this way, the 27th grievance helped lay the foundation for an American nationalism that would demonize the continent’s indigenous people, especially when they resisted American aggressions.
Although the reference to the “merciless Indian savages” appealed to the “inhabitants of our frontiers,” Jefferson and others who signed the Declaration had their own reasons for detesting British policies relating to Native Americans and their lands. More than a decade earlier, in order to end a costly war to suppress an indigenous resistance movement led by the Ottawa war leader Pontiac, the king issued the Proclamation of 1763, which recognized indigenous ownership of lands west of the Appalachian mountains’ crest and prevented colonists from settling there. At first glance, ordinary settlers might be expected to have been the proclamation’s major opponents. Some settlers did object, but the most potent source of opposition came from colonial elites, especially in Virginia and Pennsylvania, who had invested in companies with claims to lands west of the boundary set by the proclamation. Unless those lands could be legally settled, land companies could not gain secure title to their claims. Investors would be left with nothing but the debts they had incurred to bet on getting rich.
In 1767, George Washington, one of the era’s most passionate land speculators, predicted that the proclamation “must fall … in a few years.” British imperial officials made some adjustments to the 1763 boundary, but despite Washington’s hopes, and those of other speculators such as Thomas Jefferson, British policy continued to restrict colonists’ perceived liberty to obtain indigenous lands. Colonists found the 1774 Quebec Act—one of the Intolerable Acts—particularly odious. Not only did the Quebec Act grant legal protection to Catholicism, a religion Protestants despised, but it extended Quebec’s boundary south to the Ohio River and blocked settlement in the Ohio Valley. At the First Continental Congress, Richard Lee, a delegate from Virginia, called the Quebec Act the “worst grievance” of them all. Two years later, when Virginia broke with Great Britain, its state constitution claimed lands west of the Mississippi River, thus nullifying the Proclamation of 1763 and the Quebec Act.
Even as colonists declared their independence from Britain, indigenous people were preparing to defend their own freedom. Long experience had led Native Americans to believe that colonists intended not only to take their lands, but to kill them all. In the summer of 1776, an unnamed Shawnee, part of a delegation of Mohawks, Shawnees, Ottawas, and Delawares, urged Cherokees to join a confederation to resist the colonists, warning that the “Virginians,” as he referred to all colonists, possessed “an intention to extirpate … the red people.” Similarly, after the Revolutionary War broke out, the Mohawk leader Joseph Brant declared that it was the intention of another group of colonists—the “Bostonians”—to “exterminate” the Mohawks and other members of the Six Nations (Haudenosaunee) confederacy. The term genocide did not yet exist, but their words conveyed the same idea. Native people were terrified that unshackled colonists would kill them wholesale.
This indigenous perspective returns us to the 27th grievance. Jefferson’s denigration of “merciless Indian savages” signaled that the war for independence from Great Britain would also be a brutal war to seize indigenous lands. From 1776 to 1783, U.S. troops and colonial militias destroyed more than 70 Cherokee towns, 50 Haudenosaunee towns, and at least 10 multiethnic towns in the Ohio Valley, killing several hundred people (including civilians) and subjecting refugees to starvation, disease, and death. In the decades to come, U.S. presidents, Washington and Jefferson included, would call for the extermination of Native Americans who fought against dispossession. Several U.S. armies would try to do precisely that.
The 1619 Project has made an enormous contribution to public understanding of slavery, often referred to as America’s “original sin.” Although critics of the 1619 Project have tried to minimize slavery’s importance, its centrality to the creation of America—and its disturbing legacies—is well established in the scholarly literature and becoming clear to the public. Even so, the 27th grievance reveals that the original sin at America’s founding was twofold. America was built by the labor of enslaved people. It was also built on stolen lands and the genocide of indigenous peoples. To understand where this country is now and to imagine a truly just future, America needs to reckon with both of these hard truths.
This story is part of the project “The Battle for the Constitution,” in partnership with the National Constitution Center.
@Red Shield @Michael's Black Son @Sukairain @YouMadd? @Basil of Baker Street @SupremexKing @Cat piss martini @AndroidHero @Pirius Black @panopticon @johnedwarduado @neotheflyingone @Ishlibidish23 @SJUGRAD13 @BlueHeffner
Whats wild is that the Emancipation Proclamation wasn't even the first one! There were NUMEROUS events like this before, after, and during the Revolution AND Civil War.
There were NUMEROUS war-time proclamations to get slaves to defect to competing powers to undermine the other power.
Spanish were telling slaves to leave British masters
British masters were telling the American slaves to defect etc.
Americans lying to Spanish slaves
etc.
This shyt was WILD.
This was NOT the first time
Slaves were used as chits in war time propaganda to weaken their enemy.
its become sheer religion, even white leftists buy into this shyt cause there was massive backlash even from socialist websites claiming that even pointing out the role of slavery was "anti-history" or something.
The New York Times’ 1619 Project - World Socialist Web Sitelook at this response that a local historian got from a historian laureate from Rhode Island for pointing out FACTS of the role of slavery
Some rich a$$hole land owner in Rhode Island tried to shut this down...
Nope!
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Even this white historian is open to the idea that Dunmore's proclamation changed his mind on the role of slavery in the revolution:
The American Revolution
The Philipsburg Proclamation (June 30, 1779)
The year 1779 is often overlooked by historians of the American Revolution because the war seemed to have been put on hold. But while there were few noteworthy battles in America in that year, the conflict continued to reshape lives on both sides of the Atlantic. That can be clearly seen in Sir Henry Clinton's issuance, on June 30, 1779, of what has come to be known as the Philipsburg Proclamation — a document that freed thousands of enslaved African Americans. Clinton was George Washington's British counterpart as the "General and Commander in Chief of all his Majesty's Forces" in North America and, in 1779, was looking for any way to increase his army's advantage before embarking on a campaign to win the war by invading the southern states. One way of doing that would be to weaken his patriot enemies by attacking the main supply of labor for their plantations and an important one for their military: slaves.
John Murray, Earl of Dunmore, Virginia's last royal governor, attempted to do the same thing in November 1775 when he issued a proclamation that granted freedom to any rebel-owned slave who would take up arms for the King. Clinton's carefully worded proclamation went much further. Although not once mentioning the word "slave," Clinton "most strictly forbid any Person to sell or claim Right over any NEGROE, the property of a Rebel, who may take Refuge with any part" of the British army. Furthermore, he promised "to every NEGROE Who shall desert the Rebel Standard, full Security to follow within these Lines, any Occupation which he shall think proper." In other words, once a slave reached British lines anywhere in North America, his or her status as property ended; no one could claim that he or she belonged to someone else. Also, former slaves did not have to fight in the army to gain freedom; they could do whatever they chose to do. And as British commander-in-chief in America, Clinton's order applied to the entire country as official policy.
Of course, the proclamation also included a counterpoint to undermine the patriots' use of slaves to support their armies and therefore encouraged — if not demanded — that slaves make a choice between staying with their masters and joining the British. It threatened that "any NEGROES taken in Arms or upon any military Duty, shall be purchased for a stated price" and then sold, perhaps to the West Indies or some other such place where conditions for slaves were much worse than they were in America.
First published in loyalist printer James Rivington's New York Gazette of July 21, 1779, news of the proclamation — subsequently named for Philipsburg Manor in what's now Sleepy Hollow, New York, where Clinton had his headquarters — quickly spread through the colonies. When British troops captured Charleston, South Carolina, in 1780, thousands of slaves joined them. The same pattern was replicated in Virginia in 1781, where thousands more joined the British armies and naval warships that were freely operating on its land and rivers. Both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson lost slaves to Clinton's strategy as British commanders such as Charles Cornwallis upheld its provisions. In August 1781, Cornwallis reported to Virginia governor Thomas Nelson that "great numbers" of blacks "have come to us from different parts of the country" and reiterated that they were therefore no longer the property of anyone else. Any Virginian, Cornwallis told Nelson, was free "to search the [British] camp for his Negroes" but could only leave "if they are willing to go with him." They also proved a burden, however, as Cornwallis found it increasingly difficult to feed them or to treat the smallpox that ravaged their ranks. In the end, Cornwallis' surrender at Yorktown in October 1781 returned many of the former slaves into bondage as a condition of his capitulation.
At the end of the war, the terms of the Philipsburg Proclamation were continued as official British policy. In 1783, as peace talks neared their conclusion, Sir Guy Carleton, Clinton's successor as commander-in-chief, established, with the full support of the British government in London, the policy that all former slaves who reached the British lines before November 30, 1782 (when an initial peace agreement was signed) were free and therefore could not be considered as property under the terms of any peace treaty. Carleton restated the policy directly to George Washington in a meeting on May 6, 1783, telling the Virginia plantation owner that he had no intention of returning any black who had gained freedom behind British lines and, in fact, was already in the process of evacuating them to "Nova Scotia or wherever else he [or she] may think proper." Almost 4,000 former slaves left New York with the British in 1783. Furthermore, loyalists could not claim any compensation for slaves as property left behind or seized by patriots.
While the Philipsburg Proclamation might not have been issued by Clinton with an altruistic eye towards ending slavery, the effect of its terms was undeniable. It offered slaves a credible choice between the aspirational language of American liberty and the practical policy of British freedom. It should come as no surprise that thousands of enslaved peoples found in the Philipsburg Proclamation their own declaration of independence.
Secure Da Bag
Veteran
Preventing Slave Insurrection in South Carolina & Georgia, 1775-1776 - Journal of the American Revolution
PREVENTING SLAVE INSURRECTION IN SOUTH CAROLINA & GEORGIA, 1775-1776
by Jim Piecuch
A view of Charles-Town, the capital of South Carolina / painted by Thos. Leitch ; engraved by Saml. Smith. (Library of Congress)
As the colonies of South Carolina and Georgia moved closer to open rebellion against Great Britain in the summer of 1775, leaders of the revolutionary movement found themselves facing a host of potential threats. In addition to the numerous loyalists in both colonies, the tribes of pro-British Indians on their frontiers, and the possibility of an attack from British forces, the risk of a slave uprising loomed large in the minds of the rebels. Even in times of stability, slave revolts were a constant danger; in the crisis resulting from an impending war between Britain and the colonies, a slave insurrection might doom the southernmost colonies’ attempt to resist the British.
In 1775 slaves outnumbered whites by 104,000 to 70,000 in South Carolina, and the disparity was greater in the low country, where the province’s rice plantations were located. Georgia’s white and slave populations were approximately equal, each group numbering about 25,000.[1] Revolutionary leaders in these colonies recognized that their large slave populations made them uniquely vulnerable to a British attack. While attending the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia, Georgia delegates Archibald Bulloch and John Houstoun told John Adams that if the British sent just one thousand troops to Georgia, “and their commander be provided with Arms and Cloaths enough, and proclaim freedom to all the Negroes who would join his Camp, 20,000 Negroes would join it from the two Provinces in a fortnight.” Their only security against the British taking such a step, they told Adams, was that “all the Kings Friends and Tools of Government have large Plantations and Property in Negroes. So that the Slaves of the Tories would be lost as well as those of the Whiggs.”[2]
Bulloch and Houstoun were unaware that many British leaders were actively pressing the government to adopt the kind of measures the Georgians feared. Generals Thomas Gage and John Burgoyne both urged the government to arm slaves, while another officer offered a more specific plan to enlist a corps of slaves in the Chesapeake Bay area to operate against the rebels there.
William Lyttelton, a former royal governor of South Carolina, proposed in the House of Commons on October 26, 1775, that a few British regiments be sent to the southern colonies expressly to encourage and support a slave uprising, but the House rejected the measure.[3]Arthur Lee, a revolutionary who was still residing in London, sent news of these proposals to America where they circulated widely and created panic in South Carolina. The newly arrived royal governor of the province, Lord William Campbell, wrote that Lee had convinced the inhabitants that the king’s ministers planned “to instigate and encourage an insurrection among the slaves,” and that people in Charleston believed that the vessel that had brought Campbell to the city carried “14,000 Stand of Arms” to be issued to slaves.[4] South Carolina rebel Thomas Lynch denounced the British for offering “every incitement to our Slaves to rebel – and murder their masters.”[5] Lynch did not yet know it, but five days earlier, on November 14, the royal governor of Virginia had already taken steps to arm slaves without waiting for approval from London. John Murray, the Earl of Dunmore, believed that it was more important to use all available means to suppress the rebellion, and then worry about reconciliation. Accordingly, he issued a proclamation granting freedom to all rebel-owned indentured servants and slaves who would fight for King George III. Dunmore’s proclamation caused an uproar throughout the southern provinces; South Carolinian Edward Rutledge denounced it as the worst measure the British could have ever taken against the colonies.[6]
George Washington declared that “if that man [Dunmore] is not crushed before spring he will become the most formidable enemy America has; his strength will increase as a snowball by rolling, and faster, if some expedient cannot be hit upon to convince the slaves and servants of the impotency of his designs.”[7] Like Washington, South Carolina’s rebel leaders may have been shocked by Dunmore’s actions, but they were not caught unprepared. By the summer of 1775 they had tightened enforcement of the slave codes, so that “regulations which had gone unenforced for years were given new life.”[8] Militia patrols were strengthened, with their primary responsibility being, said Whig Josiah Smith, “to guard against any hostile attempts that might be made by our domesticks.”[9] Some planters labored to persuade their slaves not to be seduced by offers of freedom, which, they warned, would surely prove false. A committee charged with planning South Carolina’s defense proposed, in the event of a British invasion, to relocate the slaves in the vicinity of Charleston to the interior of the colony.
Afterwards, constant militia patrols would prevent any communication between the slaves and the British.[10] No effort was ever made to carry out this scheme, which would have been nearly impossible to implement and may actually have created opportunities for slaves to escape.Officials took more concrete measures against slaves suspected of rebellious intentions. In June, several low country slaves were tried on charges of plotting an insurrection. The evidence proved inconclusive, but one or two slaves were whipped as an example to those who might be considering rebellion. The following month, reports reached the Council of Safety that slaves in St. Bartholomew’s Parish were plotting an insurrection, abetted by a white preacher named John Burnet. Several slaves were arrested and tried; one was hanged and others whipped. Burnet was acquitted.[11]
Rebel leaders also worried about a free black, Thomas Jeremiah of Charleston, who had amassed considerable wealth from his skills as a harbor pilot and was himself a slave owner. One of the suspected slaves arrested in June had, during his interrogation, claimed that Jeremiah had asked him to carry guns to another slave, “to be placed in Negro’s Hands to fight against the Inhabitants of this Province, and that He Jeremiah was to have the chief Command of the said Negroes.” A second slave stated that he had sought Jeremiah’s advice on what to do if war came, and that Jeremiah had told him to “join the [British] Soldiers; that the War was come to help the poor Negroes.”
The Whigs tried Jeremiah on August 11, sentenced him “to be hanged and afterwards burned,” and carried out the sentence a week later despite the protests of the royal governor, Lord William Campbell.[12] Campbell sought the assistance of the provincial attorney general, James Simpson, and several judges to demonstrate that Jeremiah had not been tried according to proper legal practice and that the evidence of his guilt was insufficient, but neither this effort nor the support for Jeremiah offered by the prominent Anglican ministers Robert Cooper and Robert Smith were sufficient to alter the decision of the rebel leaders.[13]Most historians, like the judges whose opinions were sought by Campbell, have since called into question the legality of Jeremiah’s trial as well as his guilt. In all likelihood, the rebels targeted Jeremiah because of the danger he represented as a prosperous free black man in a society based on slavery. Rebel leader Henry Laurens, normally considered a moderate revolutionary, maligned Jeremiah as “a forward fellow, puffed up by prosperity, ruined by Luxury & debauchery & grown to an amazing pitch of vanity & ambition.”[14] J. William Harris, author of a study of the Jeremiah incident, pointed out with more than a hint of sarcasm that “if this sort of character was a sign of guilt, half of South Carolina’s political leaders would have deserved hanging.”[15]Nevertheless, Jeremiah’s execution served both to remove the potential threat posed by a wealthy free black man with great influence among Charleston’s African American community, and, in the words of one witness to Jeremiah’s hanging, to “deter others from offending in the like manner.”[16]
Jeremiah’s execution brought an end to white South Carolinians’ fears of slave insurrection, although its deterrent effect was limited as many slaves continued to make their way to the coast and seek refuge aboard British warships, while others fled overland to British East Florida.
Some of the former joined British sailors in nighttime raids along the South Carolina coast. By December, a further five hundred fugitive slaves were camped on Sullivan’s Island at the entrance to Charleston harbor, awaiting an opportunity to board Royal Navy vessels.[17] PART 2:
Preventing Slave Insurrection in South Carolina & Georgia, 1775-1776 - Journal of the American Revolution
Amid the tensions produced by Dunmore’s proclamation, Whig leaders could not tolerate this outright defiance of white authority. On December 9, Gen. William Moultrie ordered Maj. Charles Cotesworth Pinckney to take 150 troops and capture the slaves in a surprise night attack. Pinckney, however, was unable to find a ford. A second attempt on December 18 succeeded. The troops, reinforced by fifty-four Catawba Indians, struck before dawn and killed an estimated fifty blacks. Several more were captured, along with a few British sailors. Fewer than twenty slaves escaped and were picked up by boats from British warships.[18] The Council of Safety expressed satisfaction with the operation, declaring that it would “serve to humble our Negroes in general.”[19]
The Royal Navy’s policy of granting refuge to fugitive slaves caused the Whigs to repudiate an agreement whereby they sold provisions to the naval vessels at Charleston in exchange for the officers’ pledge not to take supplies by force. On December 10, a Whig accused Capt. John Tollemache of HMS Scorpion of harboring fugitive slaves. Tollemache replied that the blacks “came as free men, and demanded protection,” and he refused to return them.[20] When the Scorpion left Charleston shortly afterward, the Whigs believed that between thirty and forty slaves were on board.[21] Henry Laurens denounced the British “robberies” of slaves as “sufficient to alarm every man” in the colony.[22]
Slaves continually tried to escape to British warships through the spring and summer of 1776.Two who stole a schooner and attempted to reach a naval vessel were caught, and hanged on April 27. Five slaves employed as bargemen used the craft to reach a British ship in May. Some of the slaves took an active role in raiding parties that the British dispatched to seize supplies.[23] In August, a party of forty sailors and twenty armed blacks from a British frigate landed on Bull’s Island, taking cattle and six slaves. Henry Laurens observed that “many hundreds” of slaves had by then “been stolen & decoyed by the Servants of King George the third.”[24]
In Georgia, royal governor Sir James Wright clung to a vestige of his authority until the beginning of 1776, so that rebel leaders in that colony could not undertake any measures of their own to forestall a slave rebellion. However, when a Royal Navy squadron arrived in Savannah in January, the Whigs placed Wright under arrest. Then, in concert with South Carolina, the rebel militia searched slave quarters on both sides of the Savannah River, confiscating all arms and ammunition they found. The militia also searched the homes of overseers, leaving each of them with only one musket and thirteen rounds of ammunition. That measure was ordered by the Georgia Council of Safety to give overseers the means to defend against a slave revolt, but to deny slaves access to larger quantities of arms and ammunition should an insurrection succeed.[25]
As in South Carolina, slaves in Georgia did not rebel; instead, those most determined to bid for freedom tried to reach British ships. Many succeeded, while other fugitives gathered on Tybee Island to await their opportunity. By mid-March, about two hundred slaves were there. Col. Stephen Bull of the South Carolina militia, who had taken a detachment southward to assist the Georgians, urged his colony’s Council of Safety to authorize harsh measures against the runaways. If the slaves managed to board British vessels, Bull asserted, it would “enable an enemy to fight us with our own … property.”[26] Bull wanted to mount an attack on Tybee using Creek warriors who were then at Savannah. He suggested that the attackers execute all of the slaves who could not be recaptured, with their owners compensated at public expense. In addition to eliminating the fugitive slave refuge and setting an example for other slaves who might try to escape to the British, Bull hoped that employing the Creeks against the blacks would “establish a hatred or aversion between the Indians and negroes.”[27]
South Carolina officials approved Bull’s plan, although they stipulated that the attack should be carried out by the Georgians, who should also decide whether or not the Creeks should participate. The governments of South Carolina and Georgia would share the cost of reimbursing owners of any slaves who were killed in the operation. Finally, the Council told Bull to blame the violence on the British: “to those Royal Miscreants who are carrying on an inglorious picaroon Warr let every inglorious unavoidable act of necessity which we may be driven to commit for our self preservation, be imputed.”[28] The Georgia militia, dressed and painted like Indians and assisted by about thirty Creeks, attacked the fugitive slaves on Tybee Island on the night of March 25. A dozen slaves were captured, and the rest were killed.[29] The exact number of dead was never reported, but if Bull’s estimate was correct, perhaps as many as 200 slaves died in the one-sided battle. The British later denounced the “savage barbarity” of the attackers, and claimed that the white militiamen had acted more brutally than the Creeks.[30]
Georgia slaves nonetheless continued to flee to the British when opportunities offered. The Georgia Council of Safety noted in July that “negroes are daily inveigled and carried away” by British warships.[31] Others took advantage of the colony’s proximity to East Florida to escape overland to that staunchly loyalist province.[32]
The slave rebellion feared by South Carolinians and Georgians alike never came. The vigilance of Whig leaders, the harsh punishments meted out as examples to blacks like Thomas Jeremiah, and the brutal assaults on fugitive encampments on Sullivan’s and Tybee Islands convinced most slaves that rebellion could not succeed, at least in the circumstances of 1775 and 1776. Yet it was also clear that many slaves ardently desired a chance at freedom, saw the British as the agents of that freedom, and endured the risks and hardships involved in attempting to reach British vessels or on the trek to East Florida. The Whigs would maintain control over the vast majority of their slaves during the next two years, until British troops landed in Georgia at the end of 1778. From that time onward, as the British occupied Georgia and South Carolina by mid-1780, thousands of slaves would leave their plantations and attach themselves to the Royal Army. They would provide valuable support in various military departments as pioneers, laborers, teamsters, and artisans. Some would take a more active role as spies and even soldiers. Many would lose their lives, be retaken by their masters, or re-enslaved by the British, but a considerable number would find the freedom they sought. The extensive and often brutal efforts employed by the South Carolinians and Georgians at the start of the Revolution to maintain control over their slaves delayed, but did not prevent, the flight of thousands of African Americans from bondage.
Preventing Slave Insurrection in South Carolina & Georgia, 1775-1776 - Journal of the American Revolution
Amid the tensions produced by Dunmore’s proclamation, Whig leaders could not tolerate this outright defiance of white authority. On December 9, Gen. William Moultrie ordered Maj. Charles Cotesworth Pinckney to take 150 troops and capture the slaves in a surprise night attack. Pinckney, however, was unable to find a ford. A second attempt on December 18 succeeded. The troops, reinforced by fifty-four Catawba Indians, struck before dawn and killed an estimated fifty blacks. Several more were captured, along with a few British sailors. Fewer than twenty slaves escaped and were picked up by boats from British warships.[18] The Council of Safety expressed satisfaction with the operation, declaring that it would “serve to humble our Negroes in general.”[19]
The Royal Navy’s policy of granting refuge to fugitive slaves caused the Whigs to repudiate an agreement whereby they sold provisions to the naval vessels at Charleston in exchange for the officers’ pledge not to take supplies by force. On December 10, a Whig accused Capt. John Tollemache of HMS Scorpion of harboring fugitive slaves. Tollemache replied that the blacks “came as free men, and demanded protection,” and he refused to return them.[20] When the Scorpion left Charleston shortly afterward, the Whigs believed that between thirty and forty slaves were on board.[21] Henry Laurens denounced the British “robberies” of slaves as “sufficient to alarm every man” in the colony.[22]
Slaves continually tried to escape to British warships through the spring and summer of 1776.
Two who stole a schooner and attempted to reach a naval vessel were caught, and hanged on April 27. Five slaves employed as bargemen used the craft to reach a British ship in May. Some of the slaves took an active role in raiding parties that the British dispatched to seize supplies.[23] In August, a party of forty sailors and twenty armed blacks from a British frigate landed on Bull’s Island, taking cattle and six slaves. Henry Laurens observed that “many hundreds” of slaves had by then “been stolen & decoyed by the Servants of King George the third.”[24]In Georgia, royal governor Sir James Wright clung to a vestige of his authority until the beginning of 1776, so that rebel leaders in that colony could not undertake any measures of their own to forestall a slave rebellion. However, when a Royal Navy squadron arrived in Savannah in January, the Whigs placed Wright under arrest. Then, in concert with South Carolina, the rebel militia searched slave quarters on both sides of the Savannah River, confiscating all arms and ammunition they found. The militia also searched the homes of overseers, leaving each of them with only one musket and thirteen rounds of ammunition. That measure was ordered by the Georgia Council of Safety to give overseers the means to defend against a slave revolt, but to deny slaves access to larger quantities of arms and ammunition should an insurrection succeed.[25]
As in South Carolina, slaves in Georgia did not rebel; instead, those most determined to bid for freedom tried to reach British ships. Many succeeded, while other fugitives gathered on Tybee Island to await their opportunity. By mid-March, about two hundred slaves were there. Col. Stephen Bull of the South Carolina militia, who had taken a detachment southward to assist the Georgians, urged his colony’s Council of Safety to authorize harsh measures against the runaways. If the slaves managed to board British vessels, Bull asserted, it would “enable an enemy to fight us with our own … property.”[26] Bull wanted to mount an attack on Tybee using Creek warriors who were then at Savannah. He suggested that the attackers execute all of the slaves who could not be recaptured, with their owners compensated at public expense. In addition to eliminating the fugitive slave refuge and setting an example for other slaves who might try to escape to the British, Bull hoped that employing the Creeks against the blacks would “establish a hatred or aversion between the Indians and negroes.”[27]
South Carolina officials approved Bull’s plan, although they stipulated that the attack should be carried out by the Georgians, who should also decide whether or not the Creeks should participate. The governments of South Carolina and Georgia would share the cost of reimbursing owners of any slaves who were killed in the operation. Finally, the Council told Bull to blame the violence on the British: “to those Royal Miscreants who are carrying on an inglorious picaroon Warr let every inglorious unavoidable act of necessity which we may be driven to commit for our self preservation, be imputed.”[28] The Georgia militia, dressed and painted like Indians and assisted by about thirty Creeks, attacked the fugitive slaves on Tybee Island on the night of March 25. A dozen slaves were captured, and the rest were killed.[29] The exact number of dead was never reported, but if Bull’s estimate was correct, perhaps as many as 200 slaves died in the one-sided battle. The British later denounced the “savage barbarity” of the attackers, and claimed that the white militiamen had acted more brutally than the Creeks.[30]
Georgia slaves nonetheless continued to flee to the British when opportunities offered. The Georgia Council of Safety noted in July that “negroes are daily inveigled and carried away” by British warships.[31] Others took advantage of the colony’s proximity to East Florida to escape overland to that staunchly loyalist province.[32]
The slave rebellion feared by South Carolinians and Georgians alike never came. The vigilance of Whig leaders, the harsh punishments meted out as examples to blacks like Thomas Jeremiah, and the brutal assaults on fugitive encampments on Sullivan’s and Tybee Islands convinced most slaves that rebellion could not succeed, at least in the circumstances of 1775 and 1776. Yet it was also clear that many slaves ardently desired a chance at freedom, saw the British as the agents of that freedom, and endured the risks and hardships involved in attempting to reach British vessels or on the trek to East Florida. The Whigs would maintain control over the vast majority of their slaves during the next two years, until British troops landed in Georgia at the end of 1778. From that time onward, as the British occupied Georgia and South Carolina by mid-1780, thousands of slaves would leave their plantations and attach themselves to the Royal Army. They would provide valuable support in various military departments as pioneers, laborers, teamsters, and artisans. Some would take a more active role as spies and even soldiers. Many would lose their lives, be retaken by their masters, or re-enslaved by the British, but a considerable number would find the freedom they sought. The extensive and often brutal efforts employed by the South Carolinians and Georgians at the start of the Revolution to maintain control over their slaves delayed, but did not prevent, the flight of thousands of African Americans from bondage.
ERIC - ED245272 - Colonial Newspaper Reaction to the Somerset Decision., 1984-Aug
To examine colonial American press coverage of the British court decision to free American slave James Somerset, a study was conducted to clarify why the decision worked as a victory for British abolitionists but was usually citied even in a post-revolution America in the passage of increasingly oppressive slave legislation. Twenty-three of the thirty-two regular publishing newspapers of 1772 were selected for survey. The extent of coverage was ascertained by determining the number of insertions each paper devoted to the story during the trial period and by counting the total number of words given to the story in these insertions. Because of the colonial editors' tradition of transcribing verbatim British press accounts, completeness of coverage was determined in large part by word count. On a colony by colony basis, it was found that readers in the areas surveyed could be as well informed as readers of most British papers. For example, the "Boston Gazette" provided only 42 words on the story, while its rival, "The Massachusetts Gazette and Boston New-Letter," devoted some 2,700 words to it, including trial coverage and opinion papers. Since the patriotic press saw its duty as inflaming rather than informing the public, the findings suggest that coverage of the Somerset trial manipulated colonial fear of racial equality as a way of providing yet another reason colonist should seek reparation from Great Britain.
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