Black History Month 2024 - "Stolen By The Americans Before The Revolutionary War"
The contributions of persons of color was overlooked in the telling of American history for many years. Over time there has been a conscious effort to tell their stories, or at a minimum note their presence, such as through these bottle trees last year entitled “Forgotten Souls of Tory Row: Remembering the Enslaved People of Brattle Street”, on the lawn of the Hooker-Lee-Nichols House in Cambridge, Massachusetts (now the home of "History Cambridge"). Fortunately, the presence of black men, women and children was noted in multiple sources at the time of the Saratoga campaign, and from the 1777 march of the Convention Army.
While some think of the enslavement of persons of color as a southern institution, slavery existed in New England during the colonial and early federal periods. In 1754 the governor of Massachusetts ordered a count of all enslaved persons over the age of sixteen. Records from 119 towns have been located, with a census count totaling 2,720 enslaved persons. Fifteen of these towns were towns the Convention Army marched through, with a census of 159 enslaved persons, ranging from one in both Palmer and Spencer, to twenty-seven in Springfield, and fifty-six in Cambridge.
Two decades after the census in Massachusetts, Burgoyne's soldiers took notice of people of African-American descent along the route of march of the Convention Army, and the chilling reality of slavery. On October 23, 1777, the author of the Specht Journal noted: "From here [Kinderhook, New York] to Springfield [Massachusetts] in almost every house, you meet a black family that must do the housework. The black children are very carefully raised because they are considered property and selling them is a very profitable business." [2]
In addition to those who were enslaved, "Here and there, you also find free black men who have established themselves very well and live like the other inhabitants..." The author also noted: "In all the regt. [regiments] you find very many black men who serve instead of their masters. They are in part very tall, very well built and physically strong. ... The state has promised freedom to those blacks who serve three years without removing themselves from regts." [3]
Records in the Massachusetts State Archives document the presence of black soldiers at Saratoga. Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War, a seventeen volume series published from 1896 through 1908, lists the name and dates of service of thousands of Massachusetts veterans. My review of the first six volumes of the series reveals thirty-two African-American men whose dates of service fall within the period of the Saratoga campaign, including for example Private Silas Accrow, who was "reported a negro" Doubtless there are more in the remaining eleven volumes. [4]
Twenty-seven of these thirty-two, including Accrow, were enlisted in Continental Army regiments. Five served in Massachusetts militia regiments. In some cases a connection to the Saratoga campaign is based on more than dates of service. Thomas Gibbs of Sunderland, listed as "complexion, negro", first served in a militia regiment from August 22nd through November 29, 1777, in a "company raised to reinforce Northern army". [5]
Black troops also did duty as guards over the Convention Army after the march to Cambridge and Charlestown. Neptune Frost, a drummer in Captain John Walton's company with Colonel Eleazer Brooks' regiment of guards, is credited with service from January 14, 1778 to April 3, 1778, "... guarding troops of convention at Charlestown and Cambridge", and later, in a list dated July 27, 1778, as being one of "... the men detached to guard troops of convention to Rutland". [6]
While the search function of the online version of this resource makes it relatively easy to find soldiers who were identified in the terminology of the time as being a "negro", or whose complexion was listed as black, this approach is incomplete. One example is Prince Dunsick (also known as Prince Bailey), who enlisted into Colonel John Bailey's 2nd Massachusetts Regiment. Dunsick (or Bailey) is described in the Massachusetts series simply as having enlisted for three years at age 28, with credit for service from March 27, 1777, to March 27, 1780, including at Valley Forge based on a return dated January 24, 1778. [7]
Dunsick's presence as a black soldier at Saratoga is revealed to us on the National Park Service's website, based on his pension application dated December 13, 1821. In it he shares that: "I Prince Bailey ... enlisted into the army of the United States ... in the regiment commanded by Colonel John Bailey in Genl Learned’s Brigade in the Massachusetts line ... I further testify that ... I am old and quite infirm, am a native of Africa, having been stolen by the Americans before the Revolutionary War, and taken by them from my native land. I served three years in the war of the Revolution; was in both of the Battles at the taking of Burgoyne..."
Accrow, Gibbs, Frost and Dunsick were not the first (or the last) men of African-American heritage to serve in Massachusetts military units - at least in times of war. Three decades earlier, in 1745, Massachusetts troops captured the French fortress at Louisburg, in Nova Scotia. Whites, blacks and Native Americans served and died there together. Chaplain Stephen Williams, from Longmeadow, Massachusetts, recorded the deaths of scores of soldiers, most but not all nameless, including "... a negro of capt; Westons company... a Negro of capt Rhodes company ... Bakers a free Negro of capt: Heustons company...". [8]
Decades later, Governor Nathaniel Banks vetoed a bill to allow blacks to enlist in the Massachusetts militia. The governor’s veto was upheld by the state’s Supreme Judicial Court. The court ruled in 1859 that the Federal government was responsible for “organizing” the militia, and retained the authority to determine the composition of the militia, lest each state should determine differently what constituted “able-bodied” and eligibility to serve. [10]
Another quote on the National Museum of African American History and Culture website, from Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III, of the Smithsonian Institution, speaks to the value of this and all history, "Because it helps us to remember, there is no more powerful force than a people steeped in their history. And there is no higher cause than honoring our struggle and ancestors by remembering."
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