January 7, 2013 • 22 mins
James Armistead was a slave in Virginia, but got his master's approval to enlist when the Revolutionary War came. Armistead worked as a spy, and his story is one of many free and enslaved African-Americans who fought in the Revolutionary War.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Sary Dowdy and I'm Delina chuk Reboarding and Blena.
We've covered a lot of spy stories in the past
year or so. We have, there's no coincidence, mostly thanks
(00:22):
to you. I love the war spies. I do spies
in general. You do. They always make first fun stories,
they really do. And and there are another popular listener
quest of ours. But today we're going to venture into
the very murky territory of Revolutionary war spies, and specifically
we're going to focus on the story of James Armistead Lafayette,
(00:43):
who was an enslaved Virginia man who worked for the
market Lafayette, who spied on Benedict Arnold, and who even
gained the trust of General Lord Cornwallace. So if that
all adds up correctly, he's a double agent circa Sight one,
which is a pretty impressive feat. But since Armistead's life
(01:04):
story or the details that are available are just a
little bit, then we'll also be talking more about more
general espionage during the American Revolution. George Washington as a
spy master for example, and since Armistead was a slave,
we're also going to talk about the place of African
American slaves and freemen in the Revolution. Yes, we're gonna
(01:24):
be covering a lot of ground today, but before we
get to that, it's important to note that even though
an African American man occupies one of the most notable
spots in the early American Revolution Christmas Attics, of course,
the first person shot by the British, and the Boston
massacre of seventeen seventy, there are really a lot of
misassumptions about the position of African Americans in general in
(01:47):
the Revolution, according to noelby Poier, for example, in the
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, many people assume that African American soldiers
were segregated into all black units, if they existed at all,
or worked only as laborers and servants. But that wasn't
the case at all. No state militias and the Continental
(02:09):
Army were integrated. Despite attempts to the contrary. Manpower just
simply demanded it. African Americans also made invaluable spies, both
for the rebels and for the British. They could, for example,
work as orderlies, picking up private conversations and privileged information
in the process, and they could also act as local guides,
(02:30):
which gave them freedom of movement and the ability to
pass on information. So two important jobs there that also
double his spy pretty easily. Um. We'll talk more about
the offers made by each side toward enslaved able bodied
men in general, but for now, it's just enough to
say that both American and British officers would have had
(02:51):
full reason to believe that an enslaved man like Armistead
was on their side, so there wouldn't be an issue
of is he double crossing us? He should be passionately
for one side or the other. Um. And that's because
the Americans figured this. They would assume that of us,
an enslaved man like this might be fighting for his
country's freedom, might be fighting for the home he knew,
(03:12):
while the British would assume that he was fighting for
his own personal freedom. And again we're going to get
more into the details on that later, but before we
do that, some some information in Armistead's life. Yes, he
was born in New Kent, Virginia, likely in seventeen forty eight,
but perhaps as latest seventeen sixty. According to some sources,
(03:34):
his master was William Armistead, and James worked as a
field hand on a tobacco plantation. In seventeen eighty one,
his master gave him permission to join the Continental Army,
and he was soon teamed up with the Marquis de Lafayette,
the famous French hero of the Revolution and a close
friend of General George Washington. And with Lafayette as his handler,
(03:54):
Armstead poses an escaped slave and entered the camp of
turncoat Benedict Arnold, who we all know well, where he
worked as a guide and as an order link. So
that was his his start as a spy, passing on
information to Lafayette. And uh, it's even suggested that he
might have had other orderlies working under him, you know,
(04:16):
so he wasn't the only spy in the camp. That
he had other African American men who would pass on
information to the spy manager by master. Yes, and and
I get that that information onto Lafayette eventually, though, Armistead
was posted close enough to the camp of General Lord Cornwallace,
and that was of course a big bump and the
sort of information he was receiving, and he also managed
(04:39):
to gain Cornwallace's trust and became one of his agents,
making Armistead at this point a double agent. So he
was on the one hand getting information from the British
and informing Lafayette. On the other he was feeding the
British inaccurate information that Lafayette was giving him reporting back
on British movement. So you know, just the circle of
(05:02):
information and misinformation going on. The biggest perk of being
a double agent, though, was that freedom of movement that
we mentioned earlier. According to Madison Gray and Time Magazine,
it was during one of these trips that Armistead discovered
that ten thousand British troops were headed to Yorktown, and
this was information that eventually got passed on to General Washington,
(05:23):
and Yorktown was of course the turning point of the war.
It came after a joint French American attack on British
held New York failed, and when Congress was bankrupt and
enlistments were flagging after years of war, so things looked
pretty bleak at this time for the for the revolutionary cause,
But in part because of this intelligence from Armistead, Washington
(05:45):
and Continental soldiers plus four thousand French soldiers began heading
towards Yorktown to meet Cornwallis's men, and along the way,
of course, that a French fleet cut off the British
fleet's attempt to rescue Cornwallis's arm, leaving them stranded. And
we're not going to go into the whole history of
Yorktown here, but um, the siege began September one and
(06:08):
ultimately ended with Cornwallis's surrender a few weeks later, and
sometime after that the end of the war. Uh. There's
a quote in the in the Gray article that Dablina
mentioned from rex Ellis, who's the vice president of Colonial
Williamsburg's Historic Area, and he really emphasized the full importance
of Armistead's part in this victory and said quote, if
(06:31):
he had not given the information that he gave at
the strategic time he did, they would not have had
the intelligence to create the blockade that ended the war. So,
I mean certainly speaks for for Armistead's work. Um. An
interesting side note here, though, especially since Armistead was a
double agent and so clearly helped pivotal, yeah, pivotal point
(06:56):
in the war. General Washington was not always a fan
of double agents, even though he has a bit of
a reputation as a spy master. Yes, Washington is pretty
well known for running the Culper spy ring in New
York City and for employee Sir James Jay's secret recipe
for invisible ink and his sensitive correspondence. But he was
uncomfortable with the haphazard nature of the game of of
(07:20):
using double agent, and just the spy game in general.
You know, different spies working for different people, untrained agents
passing on rumors and gossip as real intelligent Yeah, he
wanted spies to be centralized under his control. He did.
He wanted everything to be nice and orderly, as you
would expect Washington would. Fortunately, according to Edward Langle in
(07:41):
Military History, Washington's officers were willing to disobey his orders
and set up their own networks. It was one of
these that finally turned George Washington onto the value of
using a double agent. A former captain in a New
York regiment, Elijah Hunter, who posed as a Tory, infiltrated
General Sir Henry Clinton's camp and was asked in turn
(08:01):
to spy for the British. So when Hunter's handler first
started passing on information to Washington, the General expressed his
general distrust of double agents, which we just talked about.
He said, quote, their situation obliges them to trim a
good deal in order to keep well with both sides,
and the less they have it in their power to
(08:22):
do us mischief, the better, especially if we consider that
the enemy can purchase their fidelity at a higher price
than we can. Okay, that's an astute point to to make,
something to be aware of. Fortunately, though, at least um
for Washington's general trust of double agents, Hunter didn't blow it.
He didn't do any mischief like Washington was concerned about,
(08:44):
became a valuable double agent, and uh sort of opened
Washington up for a little bit of a more decentralized
sort of spy network, something that would allow him to
welcome this information he was getting from Armistead. Later down
the line back to armistead story, though, you would expect
that after his work for Lafayette, after the spectacular turn
(09:06):
as a double agent, his vital service to the war
effort would be recognized with at the very least his freedom,
But that was not the case. After the war, he
returned to his master, returned to to Virginia. The Virginia Plantation,
where he had worked and was still a slave. But
(09:28):
here's another interesting side note about Washington. Washington, despite his
growing interest in integrated troops during the war, was very
much four slaves returning to their masters after the fight
was over and not slipping away during the hubbub. But
telling Lee, Washington accepted the fact that this might not happen,
(09:48):
They might not return to their masters. He even acknowledged
that some of his own slaves who had left during
the fight would probably not come back, save for quote
an inclination to return. I read a little bit about
this and Kelly and Loos's a History of African Americans
to eighteen eighty, and it's almost as though, or the
way they presented it, it's almost as though George Washington,
(10:10):
the property owner, would prefer to have his property, his
human property, restored to him. But George Washington, the rebel,
understood that his slaves might not be willing to see
themselves as property anymore, especially after this dramatic war that
had happened in the name of civil liberty. So this
is just to give some some background that this is
(10:31):
happening all over the New Country at this point. Whether
slaves are going to return after the chaos of the war,
and UH, I think it's pretty remarkable that Armistead did
choose to do that. Uh. Nevertheless, though his friends didn't
forget him, so he didn't return to This is not
a sad ending for his story. At least he didn't
(10:53):
return to slavery and and live this obscure life. Uh.
Fortunately to his master also supported his eventual manu mission.
But in seventeen eighty seven, Armistead was finally granted his
freedom by the state of Virginia, thanks in part to
a strong letter of recommendation from Lafayette, who noted that
(11:13):
he was quote entitled to every reward his situation could
admit of. Armistead ended up living out his days in Virginia, farming, marrying,
and eventually having children. After his emancipation, he also took
on Lafayette's name and they met one more time, and
it was during Lafayette's eighteen twenty four final visit to
(11:35):
the US Lafayette spotted him in a crowd and came
over to embrace him. Armistead Lafayette died in eighteen thirty
or eighteen thirty two, depending on what source you read. Yeah, so,
like I said, a pretty good end to to that story.
But I think the biggest question hanging over it, and
I just hinted it this a minute ago, is why
(11:56):
why did he do it? You know, why did he
fight in the first place? Why after his service did
he return to slavery? Willingly? And uh? I really enjoyed
listening to a podcast on the Colonial Williamsburg SITEY have
a lot on on Armiston, hosted by Richard Josie, who
actually interprets Armstead and Williamsburg, I mean like in character, uh,
(12:17):
he he portrays him. And he said that those were
the two most common questions that visitors to to Williamsburg
asked him. And he said that his answer to the
first question, why did Armistead fight in the first place,
his country, and his answer to the second why did
he return is his family sense of place. Um. Of course,
(12:39):
we can't be sure what motivated Armistead in either of those,
but we can't sort of take a look at the
options that were available to able bodied slaves and free
blacks in the rebel colonies at the time of the
American Revolution, and while the options were certainly better during
the Revolution than they had been previously, they were still
pretty bleak. The outside of the war, slaves would have
(13:01):
been as aware as anyone of the philosophy behind the revolution,
and they could have certainly hoped for that the benefits
of liberty might extend to them a little bit. Plus,
anyone slave or not can have a connection, I guess,
in an investment in home where they live, where they
were born. Consequently, there was a strong early support for
(13:22):
the war among black slaves and freeman, with men like
Peter Salem, who was in Massachusetts slave freed so that
he could fight. He saw action in Lexington and it conquered.
Or Salem Poor was another freeman who fought at Bunker Hill,
And thanks to a decent, although illegal tradition of sound
black participation in New England militious, the early Continental Army
(13:45):
actually counted a fair number of black soldiers among its ranks.
But if it hadn't been for the eventual manpower shortages
later in the war that Dablina mentioned earlier, plus a
pretty bold move on the part of the British, it's
likely up black participation in the army would have been
pretty limited. Because actually, when when George Washington became commander
(14:07):
in chief of the Continental Army. He even banned the
future enlistment of black men, free or otherwise, and in
the southern colonies with black populations out numbering white populations. Uh,
folks were always a little bit leery of anything that
could stir up possible slave rebellions and insurrections. And we've talked,
we've covered quite a few slave rebellions, I think on
(14:27):
the podcast, so most of you probably have a good
background on on those fears that that people had during
the Revolutionary War and after. True in this case, though,
it took a seventeen proclamation from the Royal Governor of Virginia,
Lord done More to really shake things up. He promised
freedom to the slaves of rebel masters if they joined
(14:49):
the British. That plus the simple need for states to
fill Continental Army recruitment quotas with basically anyone they could get,
was enough for the rules to start being overlooked. Rhode Island,
for example, even authorized slave enlistment in seventeen seventy eight,
And of course too many slaves saw Dunmore's offer as
an opportunity. I mean that that's why it was such
(15:10):
a problem for the Patriot side. If you're going to
be turning away men who can just go sign up
with the British. Uh, that's probably a bad move. But yeah,
many slaves saw Dunmore's offer as a chance out of slavery.
According to Kelly and Lewis, again, up to twenty thousand
African Americans served the British during the war, which was
(15:31):
a number way higher than I was expecting to see. Uh.
The stix were raised, though, so it didn't just become
an issue of if you serve a rebel master, you
can possibly get your freedom if you fight for the British.
In seventeen seventy nine, Sir Henry Clinton, who was the
Commander in chief of British forces in America, issued a
proclamation that any blacks captured with Patriot forces would be
(15:55):
sold for a profit. So now, if you are deciding
to throw in your luck with the Patriot cause and
you're caught, you're just going to be sold again. And
that actually gives a pretty good indication that Lord Dunmore's
earlier offer freedom shouldn't be taken as a human rights gesture.
It was debated in Great Britain as possibly shameful. In
(16:15):
so much as it could turn slaves on their masters.
Some even feared that it would create general rebellion. After all,
from their point of view, they thought, what's to keep
slaves of loyalist masters from leaving a freedom if freedom
is a state. Yeah, that's the most obvious point to me.
If if you're considering neighboring plantations, for example, in the
(16:36):
slaves on one plantation belonged to a rebel master and
they can go fight the British, the slaves on the
next plantation are supposed to stay there and still be slaves.
That seems like a rebellion could easily start that way.
Of course, the British didn't want to end slavery or
encourage revolution that would disrupt the labor structure of their
(16:56):
American and Caribbean colonies. And for slaves tempted, but a
promise of freedom redcoat service often meant poor rations and clothing,
backbreaking work, death from camp diseases. Yeah, so it really done.
More's proclamation should be seen as something is a way
to increase enlistment rather than a statement on slavery. But um,
(17:16):
with with all of these problems, to consider your threats
of enslavement sale backbreaking labor from all sides. It's not
too surprising that many slaves didn't join either side, you know.
They they simply tried to stay out of the fight,
stay at home, or take the opportunity to just leave too,
(17:38):
and there's all this chaos happening. Another remarkable statistic from
from the book I mentioned earlier, up to one third
of Georgia's slave population just left during the Revolutionary War.
Some slaves joined guerrilla units, some formed interracial bands that
capitalized on the chaos that was going on, and some
(18:00):
just lived in the wilderness. So people finding a finding
a third way here essentially. Um but I found it.
I was glad to learn more about armistead story. And
he's one who listeners have suggested in the past as
a great example of a double agent. But because his
biography is so difficult to to flesh out many details
(18:22):
on and we found that before with some of these spies,
by the very nature of flying, there's often not a
great record left behind. Um But I think it's a
good thing because we got to learn more about what
the options were for African American slaved and free during
(18:43):
the American Revolution. It was really interesting to learn about
it from this perspective, since we're so focused, especially where
we live, and on the Civil War and the history
of the Civil War and the role of African Americans
slaves in that. So this was something different. Yes, and
and um I enjoyed it too, for the very reason
I just mentioned that we have covered so many slave
(19:05):
rebellions and possible uprisings. I thought it was neat to
learn about one where it didn't happen, but people were
so concerned that it could. Uh. So again, a fun
one to research, and thank you guys who suggested James
Armstead in the first place. But before we move on
to our later show segment, I thought we'd include a
(19:27):
quote from Abigail Adams to her husband John Adams. UM.
It just seemed fitting to a lot of times, it's
hard to reconcile the um philosophy behind the American Revolution
to what happened in the next decades leading out to
the Civil War. UM, but it's important to note that
(19:47):
some people realize that that philosophy didn't always reconcile with
what was happening. Abigail Adams wrote, quote, I wish most
sincerely there was not a slave in the Province. It
always appeared a most equitous scheme to me to fight
ourselves for what we are daily robbing and plundering from
those who have as good a right to freedom as
(20:07):
we have. Um. So fortunately we can say, at least
in James Armistead's case, that he did get his freedom
through his revolutionary war servant. M all right, we have
some listener mail today, Sarah, We do have some listener mail.
It is from Jared and he was writing in reference
(20:28):
to our Johnstown flood episode. He wrote, today I had
the pleasure of listening to the Johnstown Flood podcast. It
just so happens that I work in the shadow of
the stone bridge that stopped the debris and water during
the flood. Every day I got the honor of driving
under the bridge. After several years of this, one forgets
how many suffered and perished on that spot. Thank you
(20:51):
for the somber reminder. And Jared also attached a picture
of the bridge that he took, so we got to
see ourselves. It's always need to hear from people who
live in the places where we're talking about. Yeah. Often
they have just a photo to offer, as Jared did,
or they have another aspect of the story to offer
(21:12):
that we didn't include, So thank you Jared for sending
that along. We appreciate all the emails that you guys
send us and all the notes that you send us
on social media. If you'd like to do that, we
are at History Podcast at Discovery dot com. We're also
on Facebook and you can find us on Twitter at
missing History. And if you want to learn a little
bit more about the Revolutionary War, we do have an
(21:34):
image gallery on the subject. You can beat in color
the Revolutionary War Pictures Gallery and find that by searching
our homepage at www dot how stuff works dot com
for more on this and thousands of other topics because
at how stuff works dot com and the NAP
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Sary Dowdy and I'm Delina chuk Reboarding and Blena.
We've covered a lot of spy stories in the past
year or so. We have, there's no coincidence, mostly thanks
(00:22):
to you. I love the war spies. I do spies
in general. You do. They always make first fun stories,
they really do. And and there are another popular listener
quest of ours. But today we're going to venture into
the very murky territory of Revolutionary war spies, and specifically
we're going to focus on the story of James Armistead Lafayette,
(00:43):
who was an enslaved Virginia man who worked for the
market Lafayette, who spied on Benedict Arnold, and who even
gained the trust of General Lord Cornwallace. So if that
all adds up correctly, he's a double agent circa Sight one,
which is a pretty impressive feat. But since Armistead's life
(01:04):
story or the details that are available are just a
little bit, then we'll also be talking more about more
general espionage during the American Revolution. George Washington as a
spy master for example, and since Armistead was a slave,
we're also going to talk about the place of African
American slaves and freemen in the Revolution. Yes, we're gonna
(01:24):
be covering a lot of ground today, but before we
get to that, it's important to note that even though
an African American man occupies one of the most notable
spots in the early American Revolution Christmas Attics, of course,
the first person shot by the British, and the Boston
massacre of seventeen seventy, there are really a lot of
misassumptions about the position of African Americans in general in
(01:47):
the Revolution, according to noelby Poier, for example, in the
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, many people assume that African American soldiers
were segregated into all black units, if they existed at all,
or worked only as laborers and servants. But that wasn't
the case at all. No state militias and the Continental
(02:09):
Army were integrated. Despite attempts to the contrary. Manpower just
simply demanded it. African Americans also made invaluable spies, both
for the rebels and for the British. They could, for example,
work as orderlies, picking up private conversations and privileged information
in the process, and they could also act as local guides,
(02:30):
which gave them freedom of movement and the ability to
pass on information. So two important jobs there that also
double his spy pretty easily. Um. We'll talk more about
the offers made by each side toward enslaved able bodied
men in general, but for now, it's just enough to
say that both American and British officers would have had
(02:51):
full reason to believe that an enslaved man like Armistead
was on their side, so there wouldn't be an issue
of is he double crossing us? He should be passionately
for one side or the other. Um. And that's because
the Americans figured this. They would assume that of us,
an enslaved man like this might be fighting for his
country's freedom, might be fighting for the home he knew,
(03:12):
while the British would assume that he was fighting for
his own personal freedom. And again we're going to get
more into the details on that later, but before we
do that, some some information in Armistead's life. Yes, he
was born in New Kent, Virginia, likely in seventeen forty eight,
but perhaps as latest seventeen sixty. According to some sources,
(03:34):
his master was William Armistead, and James worked as a
field hand on a tobacco plantation. In seventeen eighty one,
his master gave him permission to join the Continental Army,
and he was soon teamed up with the Marquis de Lafayette,
the famous French hero of the Revolution and a close
friend of General George Washington. And with Lafayette as his handler,
(03:54):
Armstead poses an escaped slave and entered the camp of
turncoat Benedict Arnold, who we all know well, where he
worked as a guide and as an order link. So
that was his his start as a spy, passing on
information to Lafayette. And uh, it's even suggested that he
might have had other orderlies working under him, you know,
(04:16):
so he wasn't the only spy in the camp. That
he had other African American men who would pass on
information to the spy manager by master. Yes, and and
I get that that information onto Lafayette eventually, though, Armistead
was posted close enough to the camp of General Lord Cornwallace,
and that was of course a big bump and the
sort of information he was receiving, and he also managed
(04:39):
to gain Cornwallace's trust and became one of his agents,
making Armistead at this point a double agent. So he
was on the one hand getting information from the British
and informing Lafayette. On the other he was feeding the
British inaccurate information that Lafayette was giving him reporting back
on British movement. So you know, just the circle of
(05:02):
information and misinformation going on. The biggest perk of being
a double agent, though, was that freedom of movement that
we mentioned earlier. According to Madison Gray and Time Magazine,
it was during one of these trips that Armistead discovered
that ten thousand British troops were headed to Yorktown, and
this was information that eventually got passed on to General Washington,
(05:23):
and Yorktown was of course the turning point of the war.
It came after a joint French American attack on British
held New York failed, and when Congress was bankrupt and
enlistments were flagging after years of war, so things looked
pretty bleak at this time for the for the revolutionary cause,
But in part because of this intelligence from Armistead, Washington
(05:45):
and Continental soldiers plus four thousand French soldiers began heading
towards Yorktown to meet Cornwallis's men, and along the way,
of course, that a French fleet cut off the British
fleet's attempt to rescue Cornwallis's arm, leaving them stranded. And
we're not going to go into the whole history of
Yorktown here, but um, the siege began September one and
(06:08):
ultimately ended with Cornwallis's surrender a few weeks later, and
sometime after that the end of the war. Uh. There's
a quote in the in the Gray article that Dablina
mentioned from rex Ellis, who's the vice president of Colonial
Williamsburg's Historic Area, and he really emphasized the full importance
of Armistead's part in this victory and said quote, if
(06:31):
he had not given the information that he gave at
the strategic time he did, they would not have had
the intelligence to create the blockade that ended the war. So,
I mean certainly speaks for for Armistead's work. Um. An
interesting side note here, though, especially since Armistead was a
double agent and so clearly helped pivotal, yeah, pivotal point
(06:56):
in the war. General Washington was not always a fan
of double agents, even though he has a bit of
a reputation as a spy master. Yes, Washington is pretty
well known for running the Culper spy ring in New
York City and for employee Sir James Jay's secret recipe
for invisible ink and his sensitive correspondence. But he was
uncomfortable with the haphazard nature of the game of of
(07:20):
using double agent, and just the spy game in general.
You know, different spies working for different people, untrained agents
passing on rumors and gossip as real intelligent Yeah, he
wanted spies to be centralized under his control. He did.
He wanted everything to be nice and orderly, as you
would expect Washington would. Fortunately, according to Edward Langle in
(07:41):
Military History, Washington's officers were willing to disobey his orders
and set up their own networks. It was one of
these that finally turned George Washington onto the value of
using a double agent. A former captain in a New
York regiment, Elijah Hunter, who posed as a Tory, infiltrated
General Sir Henry Clinton's camp and was asked in turn
(08:01):
to spy for the British. So when Hunter's handler first
started passing on information to Washington, the General expressed his
general distrust of double agents, which we just talked about.
He said, quote, their situation obliges them to trim a
good deal in order to keep well with both sides,
and the less they have it in their power to
(08:22):
do us mischief, the better, especially if we consider that
the enemy can purchase their fidelity at a higher price
than we can. Okay, that's an astute point to to make,
something to be aware of. Fortunately, though, at least um
for Washington's general trust of double agents, Hunter didn't blow it.
He didn't do any mischief like Washington was concerned about,
(08:44):
became a valuable double agent, and uh sort of opened
Washington up for a little bit of a more decentralized
sort of spy network, something that would allow him to
welcome this information he was getting from Armistead. Later down
the line back to armistead story, though, you would expect
that after his work for Lafayette, after the spectacular turn
(09:06):
as a double agent, his vital service to the war
effort would be recognized with at the very least his freedom,
But that was not the case. After the war, he
returned to his master, returned to to Virginia. The Virginia Plantation,
where he had worked and was still a slave. But
(09:28):
here's another interesting side note about Washington. Washington, despite his
growing interest in integrated troops during the war, was very
much four slaves returning to their masters after the fight
was over and not slipping away during the hubbub. But
telling Lee, Washington accepted the fact that this might not happen,
(09:48):
They might not return to their masters. He even acknowledged
that some of his own slaves who had left during
the fight would probably not come back, save for quote
an inclination to return. I read a little bit about
this and Kelly and Loos's a History of African Americans
to eighteen eighty, and it's almost as though, or the
way they presented it, it's almost as though George Washington,
(10:10):
the property owner, would prefer to have his property, his
human property, restored to him. But George Washington, the rebel,
understood that his slaves might not be willing to see
themselves as property anymore, especially after this dramatic war that
had happened in the name of civil liberty. So this
is just to give some some background that this is
(10:31):
happening all over the New Country at this point. Whether
slaves are going to return after the chaos of the war,
and UH, I think it's pretty remarkable that Armistead did
choose to do that. Uh. Nevertheless, though his friends didn't
forget him, so he didn't return to This is not
a sad ending for his story. At least he didn't
(10:53):
return to slavery and and live this obscure life. Uh.
Fortunately to his master also supported his eventual manu mission.
But in seventeen eighty seven, Armistead was finally granted his
freedom by the state of Virginia, thanks in part to
a strong letter of recommendation from Lafayette, who noted that
(11:13):
he was quote entitled to every reward his situation could
admit of. Armistead ended up living out his days in Virginia, farming, marrying,
and eventually having children. After his emancipation, he also took
on Lafayette's name and they met one more time, and
it was during Lafayette's eighteen twenty four final visit to
(11:35):
the US Lafayette spotted him in a crowd and came
over to embrace him. Armistead Lafayette died in eighteen thirty
or eighteen thirty two, depending on what source you read. Yeah, so,
like I said, a pretty good end to to that story.
But I think the biggest question hanging over it, and
I just hinted it this a minute ago, is why
(11:56):
why did he do it? You know, why did he
fight in the first place? Why after his service did
he return to slavery? Willingly? And uh? I really enjoyed
listening to a podcast on the Colonial Williamsburg SITEY have
a lot on on Armiston, hosted by Richard Josie, who
actually interprets Armstead and Williamsburg, I mean like in character, uh,
(12:17):
he he portrays him. And he said that those were
the two most common questions that visitors to to Williamsburg
asked him. And he said that his answer to the
first question, why did Armistead fight in the first place,
his country, and his answer to the second why did
he return is his family sense of place. Um. Of course,
(12:39):
we can't be sure what motivated Armistead in either of those,
but we can't sort of take a look at the
options that were available to able bodied slaves and free
blacks in the rebel colonies at the time of the
American Revolution, and while the options were certainly better during
the Revolution than they had been previously, they were still
pretty bleak. The outside of the war, slaves would have
(13:01):
been as aware as anyone of the philosophy behind the revolution,
and they could have certainly hoped for that the benefits
of liberty might extend to them a little bit. Plus,
anyone slave or not can have a connection, I guess,
in an investment in home where they live, where they
were born. Consequently, there was a strong early support for
(13:22):
the war among black slaves and freeman, with men like
Peter Salem, who was in Massachusetts slave freed so that
he could fight. He saw action in Lexington and it conquered.
Or Salem Poor was another freeman who fought at Bunker Hill,
And thanks to a decent, although illegal tradition of sound
black participation in New England militious, the early Continental Army
(13:45):
actually counted a fair number of black soldiers among its ranks.
But if it hadn't been for the eventual manpower shortages
later in the war that Dablina mentioned earlier, plus a
pretty bold move on the part of the British, it's
likely up black participation in the army would have been
pretty limited. Because actually, when when George Washington became commander
(14:07):
in chief of the Continental Army. He even banned the
future enlistment of black men, free or otherwise, and in
the southern colonies with black populations out numbering white populations. Uh,
folks were always a little bit leery of anything that
could stir up possible slave rebellions and insurrections. And we've talked,
we've covered quite a few slave rebellions, I think on
(14:27):
the podcast, so most of you probably have a good
background on on those fears that that people had during
the Revolutionary War and after. True in this case, though,
it took a seventeen proclamation from the Royal Governor of Virginia,
Lord done More to really shake things up. He promised
freedom to the slaves of rebel masters if they joined
(14:49):
the British. That plus the simple need for states to
fill Continental Army recruitment quotas with basically anyone they could get,
was enough for the rules to start being overlooked. Rhode Island,
for example, even authorized slave enlistment in seventeen seventy eight,
And of course too many slaves saw Dunmore's offer as
an opportunity. I mean that that's why it was such
(15:10):
a problem for the Patriot side. If you're going to
be turning away men who can just go sign up
with the British. Uh, that's probably a bad move. But yeah,
many slaves saw Dunmore's offer as a chance out of slavery.
According to Kelly and Lewis, again, up to twenty thousand
African Americans served the British during the war, which was
(15:31):
a number way higher than I was expecting to see. Uh.
The stix were raised, though, so it didn't just become
an issue of if you serve a rebel master, you
can possibly get your freedom if you fight for the British.
In seventeen seventy nine, Sir Henry Clinton, who was the
Commander in chief of British forces in America, issued a
proclamation that any blacks captured with Patriot forces would be
(15:55):
sold for a profit. So now, if you are deciding
to throw in your luck with the Patriot cause and
you're caught, you're just going to be sold again. And
that actually gives a pretty good indication that Lord Dunmore's
earlier offer freedom shouldn't be taken as a human rights gesture.
It was debated in Great Britain as possibly shameful. In
(16:15):
so much as it could turn slaves on their masters.
Some even feared that it would create general rebellion. After all,
from their point of view, they thought, what's to keep
slaves of loyalist masters from leaving a freedom if freedom
is a state. Yeah, that's the most obvious point to me.
If if you're considering neighboring plantations, for example, in the
(16:36):
slaves on one plantation belonged to a rebel master and
they can go fight the British, the slaves on the
next plantation are supposed to stay there and still be slaves.
That seems like a rebellion could easily start that way.
Of course, the British didn't want to end slavery or
encourage revolution that would disrupt the labor structure of their
(16:56):
American and Caribbean colonies. And for slaves tempted, but a
promise of freedom redcoat service often meant poor rations and clothing,
backbreaking work, death from camp diseases. Yeah, so it really done.
More's proclamation should be seen as something is a way
to increase enlistment rather than a statement on slavery. But um,
(17:16):
with with all of these problems, to consider your threats
of enslavement sale backbreaking labor from all sides. It's not
too surprising that many slaves didn't join either side, you know.
They they simply tried to stay out of the fight,
stay at home, or take the opportunity to just leave too,
(17:38):
and there's all this chaos happening. Another remarkable statistic from
from the book I mentioned earlier, up to one third
of Georgia's slave population just left during the Revolutionary War.
Some slaves joined guerrilla units, some formed interracial bands that
capitalized on the chaos that was going on, and some
(18:00):
just lived in the wilderness. So people finding a finding
a third way here essentially. Um but I found it.
I was glad to learn more about armistead story. And
he's one who listeners have suggested in the past as
a great example of a double agent. But because his
biography is so difficult to to flesh out many details
(18:22):
on and we found that before with some of these spies,
by the very nature of flying, there's often not a
great record left behind. Um But I think it's a
good thing because we got to learn more about what
the options were for African American slaved and free during
(18:43):
the American Revolution. It was really interesting to learn about
it from this perspective, since we're so focused, especially where
we live, and on the Civil War and the history
of the Civil War and the role of African Americans
slaves in that. So this was something different. Yes, and
and um I enjoyed it too, for the very reason
I just mentioned that we have covered so many slave
(19:05):
rebellions and possible uprisings. I thought it was neat to
learn about one where it didn't happen, but people were
so concerned that it could. Uh. So again, a fun
one to research, and thank you guys who suggested James
Armstead in the first place. But before we move on
to our later show segment, I thought we'd include a
(19:27):
quote from Abigail Adams to her husband John Adams. UM.
It just seemed fitting to a lot of times, it's
hard to reconcile the um philosophy behind the American Revolution
to what happened in the next decades leading out to
the Civil War. UM, but it's important to note that
(19:47):
some people realize that that philosophy didn't always reconcile with
what was happening. Abigail Adams wrote, quote, I wish most
sincerely there was not a slave in the Province. It
always appeared a most equitous scheme to me to fight
ourselves for what we are daily robbing and plundering from
those who have as good a right to freedom as
(20:07):
we have. Um. So fortunately we can say, at least
in James Armistead's case, that he did get his freedom
through his revolutionary war servant. M all right, we have
some listener mail today, Sarah, We do have some listener mail.
It is from Jared and he was writing in reference
(20:28):
to our Johnstown flood episode. He wrote, today I had
the pleasure of listening to the Johnstown Flood podcast. It
just so happens that I work in the shadow of
the stone bridge that stopped the debris and water during
the flood. Every day I got the honor of driving
under the bridge. After several years of this, one forgets
how many suffered and perished on that spot. Thank you
(20:51):
for the somber reminder. And Jared also attached a picture
of the bridge that he took, so we got to
see ourselves. It's always need to hear from people who
live in the places where we're talking about. Yeah. Often
they have just a photo to offer, as Jared did,
or they have another aspect of the story to offer
(21:12):
that we didn't include, So thank you Jared for sending
that along. We appreciate all the emails that you guys
send us and all the notes that you send us
on social media. If you'd like to do that, we
are at History Podcast at Discovery dot com. We're also
on Facebook and you can find us on Twitter at
missing History. And if you want to learn a little
bit more about the Revolutionary War, we do have an
(21:34):
image gallery on the subject. You can beat in color
the Revolutionary War Pictures Gallery and find that by searching
our homepage at www dot how stuff works dot com
for more on this and thousands of other topics because
at how stuff works dot com and the NAP
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