Paths to Freedom: African Americans and the American Revolution | BRIdge from the Past
Images can help tell the story of major events throughout U.S. History, but sometimes, you must look closely to uncover the hidden stories from the past. In this episode of BRIdge From The Past, Mary explores famous paintings depicting the role of African Americans during the American Revolution. How are African Americans depicted in paintings from this period? What clues are we still missing from their role in the Revolutionary War?
0:00 Hi everybody. Welcome to our new fall season of Bridge from the Past art Across US history. I’m your host, Mary, and this series is all about helping students like you get ahead in your history class by using images as a way to jump back in time. We’re back with our fall season, like I said. So we’ll be coming at you every other
0:20 Thursday with new images that connect to the themes of liberty and inequality. In some way, the Declaration of Independence puts forth the principle that all men are created equal. But at the time of the American Revolution, which is what we’ll be looking at today, thousands of men and women were enslaved throughout the 13 colonies.
0:42 So what roles did African Americans play in the American Revolution? And why is this such an essential part of the story? Let’s jump in. Here is our image that we’re using as our starting point to think about the roles that African Americans played in the American Revolution.
1:04 So, again, as with a text that’s a primary source, the title can actually give you a lot of clues as to what the heck is going on. So the title of our image is Soldiers at the Siege of Yorktown. It’s from 1781. And it’s by this Frenchman, Jean-Baptiste-Antoine DeVerger. First and foremost, this name is amazing.
1:24 I wish I had a French name. But again, just from the title, I can see that this is Yorktown in 1781. So this is the end of the Revolutionary War. And this painting, this is a watercolor sketches by a Frenchman. So at the Siege of Yorktown, I know that’s the end of the fight, and I know that the French were present.
1:45 So this person right here, the artist, this is something that he actually sketched in his notebook. So this probably wasn’t something he intended for lots of people to see. Maybe he was just making notes for himself, or maybe he was artistically inclined and liked to doodle. But this is what he captured, this image of four soldiers at the seat of Yorktown.
2:07 So right off the bat, my eye is drawn to this African American soldier. So he is standing sort of shoulder to shoulder in line with these other soldiers. And they are dressed pretty eclectically. They don’t all have matching uniforms. This guy right here is that sort of like fringe, and his hat doesn’t look like a military style.
2:28 So I’m guessing this might be the American army, but I’m not sure and I don’t know. I’m curious about this individual here. So who is he and why is he there? And he’s armed and he looks like a soldier. So this is giving me some clues, but really more questions than anything else. So let’s jump into a little bit more highlevel context before we can consider
2:53 some of these questions about who this particular soldier might be or what it could tell us about African Americans during the American Revolution. So first of all, if we’re talking about a war, who would assume that people need to choose sides, so could start by fighting for the Continental Army? So this is what I suspect the man in the previous image was doing, but I’m not sure yet.
3:15 Well, it turns out that black soldiers fought for the patriot cause in every major battle of the Revolutionary War. They even fought in the engagements that start the Revolutionary War lexington and conquered in 1775. So from the very beginning of this conflict, black men are alongside American colonists and they’re part of the fight.
3:36 If you even think back to the Boston Massacre, Crispus Atux, a black man was present and part of that conflict and was actually a casualty of that conflict. And it turns out that there was a regiment called the First Rhode Island Regiment that was formed in 1778, and that is who this soldier represents, or he was a part of this regiment.
4:01 So this regiment is super interesting because it was formed by a majority of black soldiers. And the Rhode Island Assembly actually votes that any able-bodied man that is enslaved that joins this regiment will be freed. So you can automatically picture if this is freedom is promised to you by joining
4:25 this fight, then that’s a pretty big enticement for men to join arms here. And other thing I love about the story of the Rhode Island Regiment is that this was the first fully integrated fighting unit in the American Army until 1948, which is kind of incredible.
4:48 So this man, this picture, as I suspected, is depicting the American Army. But you could also a lot of African Americans fought for the British Army. And an example, this would be Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation in 175. So Dunmore was a royal governor of Virginia, and he basically says, if you fight for the British, we’ll give you your freedom. So this only applied in Virginia,
5:10 but it’s printed across newspapers throughout the colonies. So of course many men are going to flee to fight for the British. The last thing I put on here is Team me. So if you think about this, this is a very chaotic time, right when we have the Revolutionary War going on and many men and women are going to use the ensuing chaos to slip out
5:31 and secure their own freedom, which is another important thing to keep in mind. But I’m curious about other stories of African Americans fighting in the American Revolution. So I know I have the First Rhode Island Regiment, but are there other examples of men that specific men and how they contributed to the fighting? So it turns out there are.
5:53 And what I love about this story is that again, he is there. He’s present alongside these major events of the Revolution. It’s just that we don’t really see him or you have to look very carefully to see this man’s story. So what I’m looking at here is a painting of Washington crossing the Delaware from 1819. So this is many years after the fact.
6:13 This is a daring, desperate move by Washington during the war to move his army across a frozen Delaware river. I can see the weather is terrible and the men are sort of chaotic. I can see here’s Washington and his uniform on his horse. I’m assuming these are other officers with him. They’re on horseback. They have similar uniforms.
6:33 But there is a man here kind of in the shadows. And who is this guy, right? So again, he’s there. He’s president. He’s just kind of hard to see this guy right here. It turns out this is an enslaved man named Prince Whipple. And this isn’t the only place that he is depicted in images of the American revolution.
6:55 So I’m going to go forward to another famous image of Washington crossing the Delaware that we actually looked at in a previous season of bridge from the past. This is by Emanuel Leutze. And once again, I can sort of see the eclectic garb of the continental army. And once again, if you look, he’s there. He’s just hard to see unless you know where to look for him.
7:18 I can see an African American man right there with Washington, as with the previous image. And this again is Prince Whipple. And Prince Whipple was an enslaved African American. He was the bodyguard of a brigadier general from New Hampshire named William Whipple. And William Whipple promises prince,
7:38 if you serve with me in this fight, I will give you your freedom. And William Whipple does that. He legally manumits Prince Whipple. And again, I think this is such a fascinating story that it’s not really known. So the stories are there. It’s just that we kind of have to dig to see how African Americans are a part of the story from the very beginning.
8:02 I am going to leave you with these questions. How can paintings offer clues about the roles of African Americans in the American revolution? And what are we still missing? So I talked very briefly about the story of one man, Prince Whipple, and about the Rhode Island Regiment. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg if you think about all the complexity
8:24 and the nuance and what the African American men and women, how they contributed or how they pursued their own freedom during this conflict. That’s all we have time for in today’s episode. But if you have questions, what do you still want to know? What are you curious about? Be sure to leave us a comment like and subscribe to our channel.
8:44 We’ll be back every other Thursday with more images and more ways to think about these big themes and concepts of liberty and equality. Have we achieved these? What work do we still need to do? Where have we fallen short in the past? These are big questions. And the beauty of these images is that it can help us think about these questions. So until next time, everybody take care.
