W&M ScholarWorks Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects 2000 Black Pilots, Patriots, and Pirates: African-American Participation in the Virginia State and British Navies during the Revolutionary War in Virginia Kolby Bilal College of William & Mary - Arts & Sciences Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd Part of the African History Commons, European History Commons, Military History Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Bilal, Kolby, "Black Pilots, Patriots, and Pirates: African-American Participation in the Virginia State and British Navies during the Revolutionary War in Virginia" (2000). Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects. Paper 1539626268. https://dx.doi.org/doi:10.21220/s2-4hv4-ds79 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects at W&M ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects by an authorized administrator of W&M ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. BLACK PILOTS, PATRIOTS, AND PIRATES African-American Participation in the Virginia State and British Navies During the Revolutionary War in Virginia A Thesis Presented to The Faculty of the Department of History The College of William and Mary in Virginia In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts by Kolby Bilal 2000 APPROVAL SHEET This thesis is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts by Bilal Approved, April 2000 James Axtell John Sel f U J Ronald Schecter For Michael and all of the other African American navy veterans who preceded him honor, courage, and dignity TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS v ABSTRACT vi INTRODUCTION 2 CHAPTER I 11 CHAPTER II 29 CONCLUSION 39 BIBLIOGRAPHY 43 VITA 47 iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to express my appreciation to Professor James Axtell, under whose guidance this thesis was prepared, for his attempts to make me a better writer. In addition, I am quite grateful for Professor John Selby’s suggestion that I look at African- American participation in the Virginia State Navy and the Royal Navy instead of at black soldiers and sailors in the Virginia forces, as I had initially planned. I would also like to thank Ronald Schecter for his fresh perspective as well as for the enthusiasm that he exhibited toward this project. Sincere thanks to Michael Bilal, Tawana Jackson, Claytee White, and my mother, Kathleen Wragg for their patience, constant encouragement, and frequent admonitions to “just do it.” v ABSTRACT Many slaves who served in the Virginia State Navy during the Revolutionary War were pilots before the Revolution and subsequently enjoyed a greater degree of freedom than the average field slave, which made the black pilots more prone to lend their skills to the Virginia patriot cause. Even if these black pilots were not freed by their masters at the end of hostilities, they would still be granted a respite from hard labor in the tobacco fields and possess a greater degree of mobility than allowed most other slave laborers. In addition, some free blacks probably served the American cause in order to prove their loyalty and hence win fuller citizenship rights and land. On the other hand, slaves who joined the British naval forces were less likely to have piloting or seafaring skills that were dear to the fledgling Virginia Navy. Although freedom came more swiftly with the British, it arrived at greater peril as those blacks who flocked to British ships were considered runaways, and subject to corporal or capital punishment if recaptured by their owners. Free blacks who joined the Royal Navy were probably motivated by a desire to leave the country, as it quickly became apparent that they would only occupy a quasi-free status in the new nation. vi BLACK PILOTS, PATRIOTS AND PIRATES AFRICAN-AMERICAN PARTICIPATION IN THE VIRGINIA STATE AND BRITISH NAVIES DURING THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR IN VIRGINIA INTRODUCTION To date, scholarship on black participation in the American revolutionary war has focused primarily upon their service in the army, for two reasons. First, black soldiers overwhelmingly outnumbered black seamen in the war.1 Consequently, interpretations of agency, motives, and participation are more numerous and more easily constructed for the former group and scholars have chosen to take advantage of this available information. Data on black seamen in the Revolution are even slimmer. Second, the majority of engagements were fought on land and not at sea. Thus there is a general trend in the scholarship of the Revolution to focus on soldiers rather than sailors, and if seamen are studied, they are likely to be officers and white men. Thus, the story of the black seamen in the revolutionary war has been virtually untold. Although the scope of study on black sailors in the revolutionary war has been limited, certain coastal areas such as Tidewater Virginia offer broader resources on this neglected subject. Information gleaned from a regional analysis yields a wealth of data that can contribute to the understanding of African American agency, motives, and participation in the war. The distinct regional maritime culture shaped African American revolutionary participation in Virginia, with its eighteenth-century Tidewater hub, in an interesting fashion. Although many slaves defected to the British when Lord Dunmore offered freedom to all slaves who would bear arms for the royal cause, African American participation on the side of the rebellious Virginians was still significant, particularly in the State Navy. This was because many slaves who served in the State Navy during the 1 1 Robert E. Greene, Black Defenders of America 1775-1973: A Reference and Pictorial History (Chicago: Johnson Publishing, 1974), pp. 6-23. 3 Revolution were pilots before hostilities erupted and subsequently enjoyed a greater degree of freedom than the average field slave, which made the black pilots more prone to lend their skills to the Virginia patriot cause. Even if these black pilots were not freed by their masters at the close of the conflict, they were still granted a respite from hard labor in the tobacco fields and possessed a greater degree of mobility than allowed most slave laborers. In addition, some free blacks probably served the American cause in order to prove their loyalty and hence to win fuller citizenship rights and land. This is not to say that skilled slave pilots did not join the Britons, but it is more likely that blacks without seafaring skills would become absorbed into the sweeping British forces, primarily Dunmore’s roaming royal fleet. In order to appreciate African Americans’ motivation, participation, and agency as pilots and seamen for both the Americans and the British, it is important to first understand the origins and nature of slavery in pre-Revolutionary Virginia. It was a well- established axiom that the first Africans arrived in Olde Pointe Comfort and later Jamestown aboard a Dutch vessel that had stopped there for sundries in August 1619. It was thought that the Dutch sailors traded approximately twenty Africans for more crucial cargo. However, more recent studies suggest that the 1619 arrivals were taken from the Portuguese shipSan Juan Bautista, which had sailed from Luanda, Angola, on the southwest coast of Africa and was headed for the port of Vera Cruz in Mexico. More than likely, these Africans were war captives, victims of the conflict between the Kingdom of Ndongo and rival groups with whom the Portuguese sided. Most blacks arriving in Virginia from 1619 to circa 1660 were probably from the Angola region. They probably knew how to farm, and were possibly already familiar with Europeans and 4 Christianity. These Africans were originally deemed indentured servants by the colonists and worked similar terms of service as whites occupying the same status, about a period of four to seven years. About one-third of the early African arrivals were able to secure their freedom and acquire their own farms.2 However, shortly after the first Africans arrived in Virginia, the colony began to write legislation concerning black labor. For example, in the records of the judicial proceedings of the governor and council of Virginia on September 17, 1630, the first vestiges of colony-sanctioned racial separation between blacks and whites appears: Hugh Davis to be soundly whipped, before an assembly of Negroes and others for abusing himself to the dishonor of God and shame of Christians by defiling his body in lying with a negro, which fault he is to acknowledge next Sabbath day.4 According to the wording of this announcement, Davis, whom we can assume to be white, was punished not for having sexual relations with a woman, but for having sexual relations with ablack woman. However, the sexual separation of the races, and the colonists’ growing belief in blacks’ inferiority was only the beginning. By 1639, the Virginia colonial administration added a provision that “All persons except negroes to be provided with arms and ammunition or be fined at pleasure of the Governor and Council.”5 That whites would be punished if they didnot own firearms and that blacks would presumably be fined or punished if theydid illustrates the power and importance weapons wielded in colonial Virginia, and more importantly, expresses the marginalization of blacks. Even more 2 “The Angola to Virginia Connection: 1619-1999,” pamphlet, Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, Williamsburg, Virginia. See also, John Thornton, “The African Experience of the ‘20 and Odd Negroes’ Arriving in Virginia in 1619,”The William and Mary Quarterly LV, no. 3 (July, 1998): 421-434. J Sylvia Frey,Water from the Rock: Black Resistance in a Revolutionary (Princeton:Age Princeton University Press, 1991), 14. 4 William W. Hening, ed., The Statutes at Large: Being a Collection of all the Laws o f Virginia, 13 vols.