Settlers - San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center

slavemasters was apparent to many. Fearing this disruption
of the concentration camp culture of the plantations-and
fearing even more the dangers of arming
masses of Afrikans-many settlers preferred to lose to
their British kith and kin rather than tamper with slavery.
But that choice was no longer fully theirs to make, as the
genie was part-way out of the bottle.
On Dec. 31, 1775, Gen. Washington ordered the
enlistment of Afrikans into the Continental Army, with
the promise of freedom at the end of the war. Many settlers
sent their slaves into the army to take their place. One
Hessian mercenary officer with the British said: "The
Negro can take the field instead of the master; and
therefore, no regiment is to be seen in which there are not
Negroes in abundance ..." Over 5,000 Afrikans served in
the Patriot military, making up a large proportion of the
most experienced troops (settlers usually served for only
short enlistments-90 days duty being the most common
term-while slaves served until the war's end or death).(24)
For oppressed peoples the price of the war was
paid in blood. ~fiikancasualties were heavy (one-half of
the Afrikans who served with the British in Virginia died in
an epidemic).(25) And the Indian nations allied to the
Crown suffered greatly as the tide of battle turned against
their side. The same was true of many Afrikans captured in
British defeats. Some were sold to the West Indies and
others were executed. A similar heavy fate fell on those
recaptured while making their way to British lines. The settler
mass community organizations, such as the infamous
"Committees of Correspondence" in New York and
Massachusetts, played the same role up North that the
Slave Patrols played in the South, of checking and arresting
rebellious Afrikans.(26)
Even those who had allied with the victorious settlers
did not necessarily find themselves winning anything.
Many Afrikans were disarmed and put back into chains at
the war's end, despite solemn settler promises. John Hancock,
President of the Continental Congress, may have
presented Afrikan U.S. troops with a banner - which
praised them as "The Bucks of America" - but that
didn't help Afrikans such as Captain Mark Starlin. He was
the first Afrikan captain in the Amerikan naval forces, and
had won many honors for his near-suicidal night raids on
the British fleet (which is why the settlers let him and his
all-Afrikan crew sail alone). But as soon as the war ended,
his master simply reclaimed him. Starlin spent the rest of
his life as a slave. He, ironically enough, is known to
historians as an exceptionally dedicated "patriot", superloyal
to the new settler nation.(27)
What was primary for the Afrikan masses was a
strategic relationship with the British Empire against settler
Amerika. To use an Old European power against the
Euro-Amerikan settlers-who were the nearest and most
immediate enemy-was just common sense to many.
65,000 Afrikans joined the British forces-over ten for
every one enlisted in the Continental U.S. ranks.(28) As
Lenin said in discussing the national question: "The
masses vote with their feet". And in this case they voted
against Amerika.
Secondarily, on an individual level Afrikans served
with various forces in return for release from slavery.
There was no real "political unity" or larger allegiance involved,
just a quid pro quo. On the European sides as well,
obviously. If the British and Patriot sides could have pursued
their conflict without freeing any slaves or disrupting
the slave system, they each gladly would have done so. Just
as the slave enlistments in Bacon's Rebellion demonstrated
only the temporary and tactical nature of alliances between
oppressed and oppressor forces, so the alignment of forces
in the settler War of Independence only proved that the national
patriotic struggle of Euro-Amerikans was opposite
to the basic interests and political desires of the oppressed.
Even in the ruins of British defeat, the soundness
of this viewpoint was born out in practice. While the
jubilant Patriots watched the defeated British army
evacuate New York City in 1783, some 4,000 Afrikans
swarmed aboard the departing ships to escape Amerika.
Another 4,000 Afrikans escaped with the British from
Savannah, 6,000 from Charleston, and 5,000 escaped
aboard British ships prior to the surrender. (29) Did these
brothers and sisters "lose" the war-compared to those
still in chains on the plantations?
Others chose neither to leave nor submit. All during
the war Indian and Afrikan guerrillas struck at the settlers.
In one case, three hundred Afrikan ex-slaves fought
an extended guerrilla campaign against the planters in both
Georgia and South Carolina. Originally allied to the
British forces, they continued their independent campaign
long after the British defeat. They were not overcome until
1786, when their secret fort at Bear Creek was discovered
and overwhelmed. This was but one front in the true
democratic struggle against Amerika.