31. Pushing Blacks Out of the Patriot Armies, and Into the Arms of the British
Blacks fought for the Patriots in the war’s early battles of Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill. However, when George Washington assumed command, he was appalled to see blacks bearing arms. With slave uprisings a constant fear of slaveholders, the sight of armed blacks was guaranteed to discomfit a plantation owner such as the army’s new commander.
So Washington forbade the recruitment of black soldiers, and eventually purged them from the Continental Army. It was only later, after his forces were drastically reduced by desertions and diseases, that Washington was forced to turn a blind eye to black soldiers. The British thought differently about arming blacks, and sought to turn the rebels’ slaves against them. In November of 1775, Virginia’s British governor, Lord Dunmore, offered slaves their freedom in exchange for service to the Crown.