The African-American And His Majesty’s

8 Pages 1913 Words

of the colonies before the year was complete. In June 1775 General Thomas Gage suggested a solution: "Things are now come to that Crisis, that we must avail ourselves of every resource, even to raise the Negroes, in our cause." Couple the desperate tone of Dunmore’s language, ‘as soon as may be,’ with that of General Gage’s, ‘even to raise the Negroes,’ and one can conclude that the British army, at the end of 1775, was in a critical situation. The logical solution to the British problem was to recruit African-American slaves.
From spring 1775 until the fall of 1776 the rights and status of the black slave in America were closely questioned. The revolution had a great effect on the Negro community during this period. In April 1775 blacks had fought for the Continental Army; three months later, however, Washington had banned blacks from the patriot army; in November Lord Dunmore made his proclamation; and by July 4th, 1776, the passage on slavery had finally been deleted from the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration fought for the freedom of the white American; the rights of the black man were not included in this new revolutionary legislation. It is against this historical background that the African-American became interested in Lord Dunmore’s pledge.
The colonial cry for liberty was often well reasoned and eloquently argued. In 1783 Ezra Stiles surmised the fruitful impact of the American Revolution worldwide. "Great and extensive will be the happy effects of warfare, in which we have been called in providence to fight out, not the liberties of...