North Carolina: African Americans

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4:29

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Some 500 men of color, free and enslaved, served the Patriot cause in North Carolina's state service. Thomas Peters, enslaved in Wilmington, sought out the British in 1776, served as sergeant in the Black Pioneers unit, and after the war helped establish the Sierra Leone Company when promised land and rights in Nova Scotia were denied. John Chavis, a free man of color born in North Carolina, served in the Continental Army, became a Presbyterian minister, and ran a school in Raleigh serving both Black and White students until post–Nat Turner laws stripped him of those rights, at which point he wrote to a senator that as "a free born American and a Revolutionary soldier" he should not be "thrown entirely out of scale of notice." Ned Griffin was promised freedom for a year of Continental Army service but was instead sold by his enslaver. The General Assembly later freed him by law in 1784. The free community of Harlow in Carteret County contributed 14 men to the Patriot cause—a reminder that not all people of color who fought in the Revolutionary War were, or had ever been, enslaved.

Interviewees

Sally Bloom
- Curator of Distance Education, North Carolina Museum of History

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