The Great Stain

by Noel Rae

  It was true, as the letter-writer claimed, that the London government had vetoed various laws passed by colonial assemblies to restrict the import of slaves, usually by imposing a high duty; but the motive for preventing the “horrid traffick” was not “compassion” but either a temporary, panic-stricken reaction to an uprising such as that at Stono, or a protectionist measure to encourage the market in homegrown slaves. But the idea that slavery was an English invention, forced upon reluctant colonists by greedy traders, was what people wanted to believe, among them Thomas Jefferson who, in his first draft of the Declaration of Independence, indignantly claimed that George III had “waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of INFIDEL powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain.” And when colonial legislatures had tried “to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce,” what did he do but have his ministers veto them?! (“Prostituted his negative,” to use Jefferson’s phrase.) However, as he later explained in his autobiography, this clause “reprobating the enslaving the inhabitants of Africa, was struck out in complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia,” who wanted to continue the trade.

  Although Dunmore remained convinced that he had hit upon a winning strategy, the aristocratic British generals and admirals had no intention of upsetting the social order by encouraging slaves to rise up against their masters. Instead, of the tens of thousands who escaped to the British lines only some were enrolled as pioneers in labor battalions, or hired as servants to officers. For the most part, the only ones to serve as soldiers were those who enlisted in regiments based in the West Indies, where they would fight the French and help keep the slaves in subjection. Owners who were loyalists, or who had been rebels but then changed sides and taken an oath of allegiance to the king, were allowed by the British to reclaim their slaves.

  For their part, the Patriots were also unsure how to exploit black people militarily. Everyone could agree that they should be put to work digging entrenchments, cleaning latrines, working as orderlies, loading and unloading and driving wagons, but should they be allowed to fight in the cause of freedom and independence? Among the many things George Washington found to disapprove of when he arrived in Cambridge to take command in July, 1775—the lack of discipline, the “dirty & nasty people” (i.e. New Englanders) and their “leveling spirit”—was the presence of numerous free black soldiers in the army that was now besieging the British in Boston. Soon an order appeared that “neither Negroes, boys unable to bear arms, nor old men unfit to endure the fatigues of the campaign are to be inlisted.” Then, in December, free Negroes were allowed to enlist; then Massachusetts passed a militia act excluding all blacks, slave or free; then Washington changed his mind and approved recruiting “such slaves as should be willing to enter into the service.” As a result, when Rhode Island was required to supply two battalions for the continental army, the assembly “voted and resolved that every able-bodied Negro, mulatto or Indian man slave in this state may enlist into either of the said two battalions, to serve during the continuance of the present war with Great Britain; that every slave so enlisting shall be entitled to, and receive, all the bounties, wages, and encouragements allowed by the Continental Congress to any soldier enlisting in their service. It is further voted and resolved that every slave so enlisting shall, upon his passing muster before Col. Christopher Greene, be immediately discharged from the service of his master or mistress, and be absolutely FREE, as though he had never been encumbered with any kind of servitude or slavery … And whereas slaves have been, by the laws, deemed the property of their owners, and therefore compensation ought to be made to the owners for the loss of their service, It is further voted and resolved that there be allowed, and paid by this state to the owner, for every such slave so enlisting, a sum according to his worth, at a price not exceeding £120 for the most valuable slave; and in proportion for a slave of less value.”

  Three years later Baron von Closen, an officer with Rochambeau’s French army, met some of these soldiers while on their way down to Yorktown. “Three quarters of the Rhode Island Regiment consists of Negroes,” he noted, adding that “the regiment is the most neatly dressed, the best under arms, and the most precise in its maneuvers.” The soldiers were “merry, confident and sturdy.” Victory at Yorktown was assured when two British redoubts, numbers 9 and 10, were successfully stormed at bayonet point. Redoubt number 9 was attacked by the French, commanded by Lafayette, Redoubt number 10 by the Rhode Island Regiment, commanded on this occasion by Alexander Hamilton and John Laurens. Though Rochambeau’s troops were mostly white, many of the French soldiers at Yorktown had recently arrived from the French West Indies, among them the Fontages Legion, composed of Haitians. (One of history’s many ironies has been the scant attention paid to the role of black soldiers in winning this country’s independence.)

  In the meantime, John Laurens, son of Henry Laurens, the Charleston slave merchant now prominent in the Continental Congress, had been keen to have South Carolina and Georgia follow Rhode Island’s example, and worked hard to persuade Congress to urge them to raise as many as “three thousand able-bodied Negroes.” Owners would be compensated “at a rate not exceeding one thousand dollars for each active able-bodied Negro man of standard size, not exceeding thirty-five years of age.” Those enlisted would have “no pay or bounty” but would be “cloathed and subsisted at the expense of the United States.” Also “every negro who shall well and faithfully serve as a soldier to the end of the present war, and shall then return in arms,” would “be emancipated, and receive the sum of fifty dollars.” However, though the Continental Congress approved the measure, it gave “great disgust to the southern colonies,” who overwhelmingly voted to reject it, some of the leaders even recommending secession and a separate peace with the British rather than take such a risk.

  But there was another way to exploit black manpower: use slaves as bounties to white volunteers. This was the core of South Carolina’s Act to Procure Recruits and Prevent Desertion. “As an encouragement to those who are willing to serve their country in the defense of her rights and liberties,” the law provided that “every able-bodied [white] recruit between the age of sixteen and forty-five years … shall receive for each and every year’s service, the bounty of one Negro between the age of ten and forty.” If the soldier were killed his heirs would receive the bounty. Slaves to pay the bounty were to come from estates confiscated from loyalists. The system was refined to reflect rank, so that in one cavalry regiment “each colonel to receive three grown Negroes and one small Negro; major to receive three grown Negroes; captain, two grown Negroes; lieutenants one large and one small Negro; the sergeants one and a quarter Negro [i.e. $100, since a full Negro was valued at $400. A half Negro was either under ten or over forty]; each private, one grown Negro.”

  By then the British also had come up with their own ways for using slaves. Those who enlisted in one of the labor battalions such as the Black Pioneers were given regular pay and promised their freedom. There was also an informal arrangement whereby many slaves and their families abandoned their plantations and attached themselves to Cornwallis’ army as it zigzagged northward from victory at Charleston to defeat at Yorktown, fighting and plundering along the way. “As it advanced, the army had increasingly come to look like a wandering Arabian or Tartar horde,” wrote the Hessian Captain von Ewald. “Lord Cornwallis had allowed junior officers to provide themselves with two horses and one Negro servant, captains were allowed four horses and two Negroes, and so on. Even among our jaegers and rangers some officers had four to six horses, three or four Negro servants, and often a Negress or two as a cook or mistress. Even ordinary soldiers had a Negro to carry their bundles.

  “In addition, following the baggage tra
in, came a straggling mass of another four thousand or more Negroes of both sexes and of every age. Wherever they went the place was picked clean, like a field attacked by a swarm of locusts. Adding to the unmilitary appearance of this motley horde was the way the Negroes were dressed. Before leaving many of them had plundered the wardrobes of their masters and mistresses and were now wearing bits and pieces of their loot. One Negro was just about naked except for a pair of silk breeches, another wore a finely colored coat, a third had on a silk waistcoat without sleeves, a fourth wore only an elegant shirt, a fifth had on a fine clergyman’s hat, a sixth was entirely naked except for a white wig. The Negresses also were variously tricked out in silk skirts, dresses with long trains, jackets, laced bodices, silk corsets, and a variety of hats and bonnets.”

  So long as the British army was on the move, the Negroes served some purpose, helping to forage and plunder, driving wagons and performing fatigue duties; and when the army took up position at Yorktown, they were the ones who threw up the massive defensive earth works. But after that, with space confined and supplies short, they were a burden. “On the day that we were first attacked by the enemy, all our black friends, who had been freed by us and taken away so that they could not work in their masters’ fields, and who had served us well by digging entrenchments, were driven out of our camp and toward the enemy,” wrote Captain von Ewald. “They trembled with fear at the prospect of having to go back to their former owners. When I went out on night patrol I encountered many of these unhappy people who were desperate from hunger and were trapped between the lines, exposed to the fire from both sides.”

  To make matters worse, smallpox had broken out and many Negroes were infected. “During the siege,” wrote the American sergeant, Joseph Martin, “we saw in the woods herds of Negroes which Lord Cornwallis … had turned adrift, with no other recompense for their confidence in his humanity than the smallpox for their bounty and starvation and death for their wages. They might be seen scattered about in every direction, dead and dying, with pieces of ears of burnt Indian corn in the hands and mouths, even of those that were dead.”

  When the British surrendered, Article IV of the terms of capitulation stated that “any property obviously belonging to the inhabitants of these states, in the possession of the garrison, shall be subject to be reclaimed.” Such property might be a horse, but more usually a slave. With mixed feelings, Sergeant Martin took part in the reclamation. “After the siege was ended, many of the owners of these deluded creatures came to our camp and engaged some of our men to take them up, generally offering a guinea a head for them. Some of our Sappers and Miners took up several of them that belonged to a Colonel Banister; when he applied for them they refused to deliver them to him unless he would promise not to punish them. He said he had no intention of punishing them, that he did not blame them at all, the blame lay on Lord Cornwallis. I saw several of those miserable wretches delivered to their master; they came before him under a very powerful fit of the ague [i.e. trembling with fear]. He told them that he gave them the free choice either to go with him or remain where they were, that he would not injure a hair of their heads if they returned with him to their duty. Had the poor souls been reprieved at the gallows they could not have been more overjoyed than they appeared to be at what he promised them; their ague fit soon left them.”

  Earlier in the war, in an attempt to win hearts and minds, the British had declared that any “rebel” who changed sides and took the oath of allegiance to the king would have his sins forgiven and his property restored. This gave rise to the following episode when General Baron von Riedesel, commander of the Hessian troops, and his wife, Frederika, were about to board ship in British-occupied New York en route for Canada. The story is told by the baroness who, with her three small children, had insisted on accompanying her husband during Burgoyne’s disastrous campaign.

  “Just as we were on the eve of embarking, we met with a great vexation. Our faithful Negroes, a man, his wife, and a young kinswoman were reclaimed by their first owner (from whom they had been taken on the grounds that he was a rebel) under the pretense that he had again become a royalist. At the very moment when the signal was being given for our ship to leave, he arrived with an order that they should be delivered up to him. As they had served us faithfully, and the man was a bad master who had treated them shockingly, great were the shrieks and lamentations of these poor people. The young maiden, Phillis by name, fainted, and when she recovered threw herself at my feet, embracing them so strongly with her clasped hands that they were obliged to tear her away by force … Later on this excellent young woman actually begged some other people who were going to Canada to take her with them and bring her to me, promising ‘My good lady will be very glad to pay for my passage.’ She was quite right, but none of them wanted to take the risk. My husband had enough money on hand for just this one purchase, but her greedy owner refused to sell her separately, and insisted that we should buy all three. This was more than we could afford, so we had to refuse. Later on, however, we regretted, that we had not made the sacrifice, as we found that female domestics in Canada were very ignorant and clumsy.”

  Similar scenes took place in Charleston when it came time for the British to evacuate that city. Slaves belonging to Loyalists who were leaving for the West Indies or Florida had no choice but to go with their masters. Slaves who had run away from Patriot owners and taken refuge in British-occupied Charleston were returned to their owners, unless they had enlisted under the royal standard and been promised their freedom. Much to the chagrin of Washington, the British were surprisingly firm about honoring this promise, and several thousand former slaves left for England, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick or the West Indies, where many served in the First West India Regiment. According to American propaganda, which may have had some truth in it, several hundred were also clandestinely sold as slaves to West Indian planters by Lt. Col. Moncrieff of the Royal Engineers.

  Turning now to George Washington and his views on slavery, a good place to start is his last will and testament, which ran in part:

  “Upon the decease of my wife, it is my Will & desire that all the slaves which I hold in my own right shall receive their freedom. To emancipate them during her life would, though earnestly wished by me, be attended with such insuperable difficulties on account of their intermixture by marriages with the Dower Negroes, [i.e. those belonging to his wife] as to excite the most painful sensations, if not disagreeable consequences.” On their being freed, those “who from old age or bodily infirmities,” could not support themselves were to be “comfortably clothed and fed by my heir while they live.” Such children “as have no parents living, or if living are unable, or unwilling, to provide for them, shall be bound by the Court until they shall arrive at the age of twenty-five years … The Negroes thus bound, are (by their Masters or Mistresses) to be taught to read and write.”

  Billy Lee, the manservant who had been at his side throughout the war, was to be given “immediate freedom; or if he should prefer it on account of the accidents which have befallen him, and which have rendered him incapable of walking or of any active employment, to remain in the situation he now is, it shall be optional in him to do so: In either case, however, I allow him an annuity of thirty dollars during his natural life, which shall be independent of the victuals and clothes he has been accustomed to receive, if he chooses the last alternative: but in full with his freedom, if he prefers the first: & this I give him as a testimony of my sense of his attachment to me, and for his faithful services during the Revolutionary War.”

  On the whole the executors appear to have done as he asked, with two exceptions: the provision that the young slaves should be taught to read and write was set aside, as it violated Virginia’s laws. And rather than delay their freedom until she died, Martha decided to free George’s slaves a year after his death—not out of kindness, but because she was afraid that in order to hasten the day of their liberation they would poison her.

&nbs
p; But it was only towards the end of his life that Washington came to disapprove of slavery. To show how much he changed, here is a letter written when he was thirty-four and dated Mount Vernon, July 2nd, 1766. It was addressed to Captain Thompson, of the Swift, a schooner trading between Virginia and the West Indies.

  “Sir, With this letter comes a Negro (Tom) which I beg the favour of you to sell in any of the islands you may go to, for whatever he will fetch, & bring me in return for him: One hogshead of best molasses; one ditto of best rum; one barrel of limes—if good & cheap; one pot of tamarinds, containing about 10 lbs; two small ditto of mixed sweetmeats—about 5 lbs each; and the residue, much or little, in good old spirits.

  “That this fellow is both a rogue and a runaway … I shall not pretend to deny. But that he is exceeding healthy, strong, and good at the hoe, the whole neighborhood can testify, & particularly Mr. Johnson and his son, who have both had him under them as foreman of the gang; which gives me reason to hope he may, with your good management, sell well, if kept clean & trim’d up a little when offered to sale. I shall very chearfully allow you the customary commissions on this affair, and must beg the favour of you, (lest he should attempt his escape) to keep him handcuff’d till you get to sea, or in the bay, after which I doubt not but you may make him very useful to you.

  “I wish you a pleasant and prosperous passage, and a safe & speedy return,” etc, etc.

  The next document, written fifteen years later and in a far less breezy tone, was addressed to his cousin, Lund Washington, who was managing the Mount Vernon estate while George was with the army. Though well-intentioned, Lund was politically insensitive and had mismanaged a situation that was embarrassing enough to begin with. This arose from the British policy of sending frigates and gunboats up America’s rivers and into her harbors and then bombarding and setting fire to the buildings which, being made of wood, were easy to destroy. The purpose of these raids was to encourage the rebels to “return to their duty,” and no matter how often this did not happen, the British kept them up throughout the war. Thus it happened that in April, 1781, only a few months before Yorktown, Captain Graves of the Savage sailed up the Potomac, burning and pillaging mansions on both shores. Mount Vernon was spared, but only because it was on a hill high enough to be out of range of the ships’ guns; on the other hand, it was an easy walk downhill for anyone wishing to depart. According to a memorandum by Lund these included: “Peter, an old man. Lewis, an old man. Frank, an old man. Frederick, a man about 45 years old, an overseer and valuable. Gunner, a man about 45 years old; valuable, a brick maker. Harry, a man about 40 years old, valuable, a horseler [hostler]. Tom, a man about 20 years old, stout and healthy. Sambo, a man about 20 years old, stout and healthy. Thomas, a lad about 17 years old, house servant. Peter, a lad about 15 years old, very likely. Stephen, a man about 20 years old, a cooper by trade. James, a man about 25 years old, stout and healthy. Watty, a man about 20 years old, by trade a weaver. Daniel, a man about 19 years old, very likely. Lucy, a woman about 20 years old. Esther, a woman about 18 years old. Deborah, a woman about 16 years old.”