African-Americans and America’s War for Independence -- by Guy Higgins

When I was a boy in school (and admittedly that was a LONG time ago), I always loved history — particularly military history.  But probably my favorite was the American Revolution.  The idea of a small group of farmers and shopkeepers taking on the world’s most powerful nation, far away England, to gain their freedom fascinated me and I have continued my interest in the Revolution until today.  But, of course, what I was taught way back then was that White Colonists fought the Revolution because all Blacks were slaves.  This, and the following articles in this series, is the story of my discovery about the truth of the American Revolution!

As I became older, I became a Revolutionary War reenactor.  An expensive hobby because you have to dress as a Revolutionary soldier and I, fool that I am, became a British Grenadier — you know the ones with the Bearskin Caps and the Redcoats!  I was living in NYC then and most weekends I was out with my reenactment unit refighting the battles to defend the right of the King to rule over America.  We were VERY serious about this, traveling from Quebec, Canada, to Charleston, SC, to reenact.  It was also a lot of fun, but facing facts — most people that I knew back then (including my wife) thought that I was NUTS!  However, I noticed that very, very few of the reenactors were African-Americans (times and names change) but this was in accord with my “knowledge” of the Revolution.

But even later I found that this was WRONG!  African-Americans were a very important part of America’s War for Independence and the Revolutionary Army was America’s first fully integrated army (and, unfortunately, its last for almost 165 years).  More on this in my next article.