In 1775, the United States waged the War of Independence when 13 British colonies on the east coast of North America took up arms to gain freedom from Britain.
In this war of independence, there were also figures from black skins, they were black slave soldiers in North America. However, hundreds of the black soldiers who took part in the battle fought not as enemies of Britain, but as friends of Britain.
They were wearing "ethiopians" (ethiopian for blacks) with straps written "Liberty for Slaves" written on them. Determined to fight for freedom, the black soldiers raised the anti-flag against their former masters, the North American Independence Coalition.
Their reason for going to war was the British proclamation of slave emancipation, which predates Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of Slavery a hundred years earlier.
Slaves who support colonial wealth
In 1619, the first black Africans came to the Colony of Virginia on the east coast of North America, and they came more than a decade later than the white colonists.
By the end of the 18th century, when the Revolutionary War broke out, Virginia was the largest and most prosperous of the 13 colonies, with nearly half of its 500,000 inhabitants black.
Most blacks were forced to work in the tobacco fields. The tobacco fields created much of Virginia's wealth, which sustained large farmers, including leaders of the Revolutionary War, such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.
With a burst of gunfire in Lexington, the thirteen north American colonies raised flags against the British, and George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and others led the Continental Army against the British.
On the British side, the leader of these independence armies was John Murray, Earl of Danmore, a Scottish nobleman who had served as the British governor of the Virginia colony.
In April 1775, after the Continental Army clashed with the British in the Colony of Massachusetts, Sir Danmore came up with a plan to arm the Natives and Blacks with weapons in order to quell the growing insurrection in his colony. When word of the plan spread, white men, who were usually troubled by slave rebellions, raised their guard.
Sir Danmore saw that the plan was leaking and temporarily retracted the idea. By June 1775, as the war continued to turn against the British, Sir Danmore left Williamsburg, where the mansion was located, and took refuge with his family on a British naval warship docked off the coast of Norfolk. After this, large numbers of people of African descent, including slaves and freemen, gathered like dog skin plasters in the port city of Norfolk at the southern tip of the Chesapeake Bay.
In the face of these African-americans, the British also began to twist their minds, they immediately gave the African-americans weapons, and sent them to attack the large farms of the Independence Army overnight, destroying their food and supplies.
It was as if Pandora's box had been opened, and the black slaves with weapons no longer obeyed the orders of the British army, but scattered and fled, either running or using hand rowing or sailing.
The Virginia Gazette wrote that Norfolk was "full of slaves and ready to rebel as soon as their leaders sent a signal." That instructor was Sir Danmore.
Sir Danmore
The first emancipation proclamation on the North American continent
On November 14, Sir Danmore sent the British and a handful of black soldiers to a place called Camps Landing. In the skirmish that followed, the bravery of British and black soldiers forced hundreds of Continentals to flee.
The British soldiers and the black soldiers performed very well in this battle, and they defeated the Continental Independence Army. In this battle, a proclamation that influenced future generations was also born, that is, the first declaration of slave emancipation on the North American continent.
Before entering the village of Camps Landing, Sir Danmore, who also saw the defection of some black soldiers, read out a proclamation guaranteeing the freedom of all black servants and slaves in Virginia who were "willing and able to carry weapons", calling on them to "join His Majesty's army as soon as possible". Enslaved negroes were to gather under the military banner of the King of England.
Danmo's original intention may have been to stabilize the hearts and minds of the army, but his proclamation inadvertently changed history, and the earliest emancipation proclamation predates the later Lincoln.
However, Sir Danmore's manifesto looked perfect, but he ignored an important issue, namely, the power of the farmers, who were forced to return to their masters after the Battle of Camps Landing.
As a result, the newly formed Ethiopian company soon grew to about 200 men. Although each of them received weapons, they received little military training.
African slaves fled the Continental Army and sought refuge from the British
Declaration of "Great Contribution to American Independence."
The first and only battle of the Ethiopian company took place at the Battle of the Bridge on 9 December. Nearly half of the British soldiers were black in the battle. However, unlike the previous small battles in the camps landing village, this large-scale bridge battle was finally won by the continental coalition army. The survivors of the Devastated Ethiopian Company and the British Army retreated to Norfolk.
After the Continental Army approached the city of Norfolk, refugees and fugitive blacks who supported Britain scrambled to board British warships anchored in the harbor. On January 1, 1776, the British set fire to the streets to prevent Norfolk from becoming a stronghold of the Continental Army.
During this period, news of Sir Damma's previous Emancipation Proclamation also spread, and at least 1,000 Africans considered slaves came from across the colonies of Virginia and Maryland on foot or by boat to seek the Governor's protection. The news further provoked the anger of the White Independence Army against Britain.
Harvard historian Gilles Lepper pointed out that Danmo's action, which promised slave freedom, contributed more to American independence than the Lexington gunshots that led to the Revolutionary War.
Danmo's Emancipation Proclamation
British knights who were praised by virginia slaves as liberators
Soon, typhus and smallpox spread on crowded British ships. So the blacks who suffered the most were the cold, hunger, and inadequate sanitation. By March, the death toll had risen to more than 150. Sir Danmore wrote that the disease "took the lives of an incredible number, especially black people".
After the continent was occupied by the Continental Army, Danmo's fleet desperately searched for a landing site along the Chesapeake Bay, but ultimately found nothing. The more than 100 ships that Sir Danmo called "floating cities" would be shelled by Continental Army artillery if they got too close to the coast, and the despair on board grew deeper and deeper.
Sir Danmore later wrote in his diary: "Every night we throw one or two, or even more, dead people into the sea. There is not a ship in the fleet that does not do this. Once a personal friend of Washington's, Sir Danmore is now ridiculed as a tyrant by the whites of the Continental Army and praised as a liberator by virginia slaves.
With no British reinforcements arriving, in August the British fleet was forced to disintegrate and set sail for British positions in New York and Florida. In this way, the first black company in North America came to an end. Some of the freed slaves continued to fight for the British in New York, and most later settled in Nova Scotia, Canada.
epilogue
The tide of history is irreversible, and the search for liberation of the thirteen north American colonies was the trend at that time. After the independence of the United States, the Ethiopian company was disbanded, and the African-American black people returned to the bondage life they had before, but there was already a little hope in their hearts, that is, the hope of seeking independence, seeking freedom.
"They endured cold, mud, hunger, thirst, disease and poverty, and had to fight a huge number of enemies without training." Charles Carey, a historian who studied the Ethiopian Company, wrote. "Their sacrifice proves that 'it is better to die, no matter how painful, than to be bound to live.'" ”