The American Revolution was approached as a mixed blessing by both slave and free African-Americans. The principles of the revolution unambiguously implied the end of slavery, but the revolutionaries never really delivered on that promise despite severe misgivings. It had been the most ardent desire of Thomas Jefferson to end slavery with the formation of the new nation, yet he himself never freed his own slaves. So in many ways Jefferson is iconic for the American Revolution as a whole: despite its promise of freedom and rights, the revolutionaries would not grant to African-Americans the same foundational rights and equality that they claimed formed the spirit of the revolution itself. This double-edged attitude was not lost on African-Americans, many of whom fought on either side, believing either the revolutionaries or the British were more likely to grant freedom to the slaves.

   African-Americans, however, were instrumental in the American Revolution in spite of George Washington's attempt to ban them from the Continental Army. Even Washington eventually had to face up to the fact that African-Americans were the best soldiers in the army. The Revolution itself began with a black man, Crispus Attucks, the first martyr of the war.

Crispus Attucks

   The day of March 5, 1770, a Monday, is the date at which the start of the Revolutionary War is often dated. That day, in Boston, was a day filled with problems. Relations between colonists and the British soldiers were strained and frequently violent; in the days preceding that Sunday there were numerous tavern brawls and street fights between colonists and British soldiers and supporters&emdash;in one incident, three British soldiers were beaten and driven out of the town, but returned later with reinforcements. On the icy evening of March 5, a group of soldiers, having just emerged from their barracks, were confronted by a small crowd of boys--African Americans, some Irish, and others. They traded insults with the soldiers and the two groups began to fight. The Americans, led by the African American, Crispus Attucks, managed to drive the British back to the barracks. Someone rang the town bell and confused Bostonians began to fill the streets.

   Into this fiery mix, a barber's apprentice started running down the street with blood streaming from his head. He said that a sentry had bludgeoned him with a musket and the angry crowd, with Crispus Attucks at its front, descended on the hapless sentry. Seeing himself in front of an angry mob, the sentry backed down and called for reinforcement. Seven soldiers arrived, but Attucks cried, "They dare not fire on us!" and the crowd began to taunt the soldiers to fire their muskets. A British private was struck on the head with a stick, and fired his musket straight into Crispus Attucks. Several more shots rang out, and when the smoke had cleared, five people had been shot to death.

   The Boston Massacre, as it came to be called, turned out to be the turning point in British and American relations. Even though the British soldiers were put on trial (John Adams was their defense attorney), everyone seemed to realize that the bonds between Britain and England had been irreperably severed. In a great irony of history, the first battle of the revolution was unpremeditated, and, in an even more profound irony, the first hero of the War of Independence was an African American, a former slave, whose passion and courage led the angry crowd and whose death became the first death in the long struggle.

The War

   After the Boston Massacre, African-Americans became an active part of the American cause, fighting at Concord, Lexington, and Bunker Hill; in all these engagements, black Americans were prominent in the fighting. Despite this, when George Washington assumed command of the Continental Army in July, 1775, he permanently barred the enlistment of blacks. By November, Washington had thrown all African-Americans out of the army. It wasn't until Valley Forge and the large scale desertion of the Continental Army that Washington was forced by circumstances to re-think his views and take African-Americans into his army.

   The British, meanwhile, filled the vacuum that Washington had created by promising emancipation for all slaves who fought for England. Washington's position towards blacks had made it clear that the individuals running the revolution were not interested in black freedom, so the British offer literally produced a flood of African-American volunteers in the British Army. The escaped slaves were not merely good soldiers, they were passionate soldiers who saw the British cause as a way to rebel against their American masters. It is, of course, a great irony in history that one group of Americans, through the blind racism of men like George Washington, would see in the British cause their own chance for revolution against oppressive masters.

   Despite setbacks, the American Revolution marks the beginning of the emancipation movement. Even though the Continental Congress caved in to colonies that had large numbers of slaveowners, the Revolutionary War and its ideology inspired several northern states to adopt emancipation as part of the promise of the Declaration of Independence. The first to do so was Vermont, which in 1777 abolished slavery. Over the next few years, one northern state after another abolished slavery within its territories.