Confederate "Heritage" Month 2023, April 7: The Dunmore Proclamation and Black Americans in the American Revolution

The 1619 Project of 2019¹ drove Republicans to ranting and raving about “critical race theory” and assorted related topics. But it doesn’t take a whole lot to get Republicans politicians and publicists to focus on their perennially favorite bogeyman, Scary Black People.

But the 1619 Project also drew serious criticism from leading historians. Including Victoria Bynum, James McPherson, James Oakes, Sean Wilentz, and Gordon Wood, who wrote a joint letter to the New York Times criticizing its analytical perspective and also asking for designated factual errors to be corrected. (It was published in the New York Times Magazine.)

After the Times‘ editor Jake Silverstein basically brushed off their criticisms, 12 other historians produced their own letter.²

I’m going to look at some of the historians’ critiques of the 1619 Project in later posts, as well as this one.

Historian Leslie Harris in 2020 discussed the 1619 Project’s argument that preserving slavery was a central motivating force behind the American Revolution. Harris writes that she also had problems with the project’s presentation of the practice of slavery in Colonial times, “but the Revolutionary War statement made me especially anxious.”³

The idea behind that argument was that slaveowners feared that Great Britain was on the verge of abolishing slavery in its American colonies. This contention rests heavily on the evaluation of two events: the Somerset decision in British courts in 1772 and Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation in 1775. (The original 1619 project does not invoke the Somerset decision.⁴)

Karl Nickerson Llewellyn writes of the first:

A widespread legendary view that [William Murry, Earl of] Mansfield abolished slavery in England with one judicial decision, while it took a civil war in the United States, is unfounded. As a property-minded man of commerce, Mansfield sought, with all of his high tactical powers, to avoid any slavery issue. Even his judgment in the so-called Somersett case (1772), involving the slave James Somersett, who was bought in Virginia and attempted to run away after arriving in London, decided only that an escaping slave could not be forcibly removed from England for retributive punishment in a colony.⁵

It's a real stretch to argue that the Somerset case was any kind of significant influence on pushing the American colonies toward independence.

John Hope Franklin and Alfred Mose, Jr., discuss Dunmore’s Proclamation in the sections of their book, “Slavery and the Revolutionary Philosophy” and ”Blacks Fighting for American Independence.”⁶ Lord Dunmore was then British governor of Colonial Virginia. That proclamation did make a big impression on the independence leaders and Colonial slaveowners even though it came after armed hostilities had already begun.

The armed conflict of the American Revolution began in early 1775. Franklin and Mose, write:

As early as the battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775, blacks took up arms against the British, and their presence at subsequent battles in the spring and summer of that eventful year is an important part of the military history of the struggle.

The person generally considered the first martyr of the American Revolution is Crispus Attucks, a escaped Black slaves who led the patriots in Boston in 1770 to attack British soldiers in what became known as the Boston Massacre, a key event in the process leading to open revolution.

Attucks's martyrdom is significant not as the first life to be offered in the struggle against England. lndeed, there ensued almost five years of peace during which time it appeared as though Samuel Adams and his group would not get their war after all. The significance of Attucks's death lies in the dramatic connection that it pointed out between the colonists' struggle against England and the status of blacks in America. Here was a fugitive slave who, with bis bare hands, was willing to resist England to the point of giving his life. lt was a remarkable thing, the colonists reasoned, to have their fight for freedom waged by one who was not as free as they.

In May 1775, the Committee on Safety---commonly known as the Hancock and Warren Committee-took up the matter of the use of blacks in the armed forces and came to the significant conclusion that only freemen should be used since the use of slaves would be "inconsistent with the principles that are to be supported." It is doubtful that this policy was adhered to, for evidently slaves, as well as free blacks, fought in the Battle of Bunker Hill. [my emphasis]

Later the rules were changed. After George Washington took command of the army, the rule became that Black men would not be allowed to enlist as soldiers.

Thus, the new army under George Washington had settled the question of the black soldier by deciding not to permit any black, slave or free , to enlist. There is no indication that the policy would have been changed had not the British made a political move that harassed the feeble Continental army almost as much as a significant military maneuver. On November 7, 1775, Lord Dunmore, the governor of Virginia, issued a proclamation that caused immediate concern among the patriots. In part, he said, "I do hereby ... declare all indentured servants, Negroes, or others (appertaining to rebels) free, that are able and willing to bear arms, they joining his Majesty's troops, as soon as may be, for the more speedily reducing this Colony to a proper dignity." [By “dignity,” Dunmore meant submission.]

General Washington and other Virginian slaveowners were alarmed by this proclamation. How many slaves were actually recruited by the British is a matter of dispute. “How effective the British were in utilizing this manpower is not at all clear. Here and there, such as at Ft. Cornwallis, there are accounts of blacks serving in the British army.”

Hope and Mose argue:

The presence of British troops in America and the war itsclf bad an unsettling effect on slavery in general. Slaves ran away in large numbers even if they had no intention of reaching the British lines. …

The British bid for blacks during the war had the effect of liberalizing the policy of the colonists toward them. Not only did Washington order the enlistment of some free blacks, but most of the states, either by specific legislation or merely by a reversal of policy, began to enlist both slaves and free blacks. In 1776 a New York law permitted the Substitution of blacks for whites who had been drafted. In the same year Virginia went so far as to permit free mulattoes to serve as drummers, fifers, and pioneers, and in the following year Virginia merely required that all blacks who enlisted should furnish a certificate of freedom secured from a justice of the peace. ln 1778 both Rhode Island and Massachusetts permitted slaves to serve as soldiers. In the same year North Carolina, in legislating against fugitive slaves, made it clear that the penalties under the law were not to be applied to liberated slaves in the service of North Carolina or the United States. [my emphasis]

The Dunmore Proclamation was significant in inspiring and providing an escape from slavery for many and encouraging slaves’ desires for freedom. But it’s another step to argue as the 1619 Project does that this was a prime motive among whites for engaging in the American Revolution. After all, the proclamation came after the armed revolt of the colonists was already under way.

Hope and Mose also note the significance of the American cause of independence for abolitionist aspirations:

Black patriots saw clearly the implications for their own future in their fight against England. They wanted human freedom as well as political independence. Even before Abigail Adams pointed to the inconsistency of fighting for independence while adhering to slavery, blacks spoke out. As early as 1766 they were seeking their freedom in the courts and legislatures. In January 1773 a group of "many slaves" asked the general court of Massachusetts to liberate them "from a State of Slavery." In 1774 a group of blacks expressed their astonishment that the colonists could seek independence from Britain yet give no consideration to the slaves' pleas for freedom. Blacks made literally scores of such representations and, in so doing, contributed significantly to broadening the ideology of the struggle to. include at least some human freedom as well as political independence. The fact remained, as Edmund Morgan has observed, that to a large degree "Americans bought their independence with slave labor." It was yet to be seen if human freedom in general was as dear to them as political independence.

John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore

1. The 1619 Project. Wikipedia 03/31/2023. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_1619_Project> (Accessed 2023-27-03).

2. Twelve Scholars Critique the 1619 Project and the New York Times Magazine Editor. History News Network 01/26/2020. https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/174140 (Accessed 2023-27-03).

3. Harris, Leslie (2020): I Helped Fact-Check the 1619 Project. The Times Ignored Me. Politico Magazine 03/06/2020. <https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/06/1619-project-new-york-times-mistake-122248> (Accessed: 2020-10-12).

4. Barbara Alice Mann makes an enthusiastic case for the Somerset decision, aka, the Manfield decision, in Though the Heavens Should Fall: The Mansfield Decision (1772). Johansen, Bruce E. & Akande, Adebowale (eds.), Get Your Knee Off Our Necks: From Slavery to Black Lives Matter, 2022, 313-325. Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

5. Llewellyn, Karl Nickerson (2023): William Murray, 1st earl of Mansfield: English jurist. Britannica Online 03/16/2023. <https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Murray-1st-Earl-of-Mansfield#ref206621> (Accessed: 2023-27-03).

6. Franklin, John Hope and Alfred Mose, Jr., Alfred (2003): From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans (Eighth Edition), 280-291. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.