Posts Tagged: ‘Colonel Tye’

Black soldiers fought at the early important battles of the war: Lexington, Concord and Bunker Hill. But when Washington took charge of the Continental Army, he decreed that recruitment of black soldiers was at an end, and he later purged the remaining soldiers from his army. It seems the idea of armed blacks was a great enough threat to risk losing a war for.

With this ban, the embattled royal governor of Virginia saw his chance. On Nov. 14, 1775, he issued a proclamation declaring that he’d free any slaves who joined the Loyalists in their fight.

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