19. Fighting In the Ethiopian Regiment
Luckily, Titus Cornelius escaped one day after Virginia’s governor, Lord Dunmore, had issued a proclamation offering freedom to all slaves who escaped their American masters to serve the British. So Titus made his way to Virginia, where the new freedman changed his name to Tye.
He settled in Williamsburg, Virginia, and initially made a living doing odd jobs. Eventually, Tye enlisted in Lord Dunmore’s Ethiopian Regiment, and took to his new life underarms like a fish to water. The fortunes of war eventually returned him to New Jersey, and he ended up in Monmouth County, where he had been born and enslaved, as an armed fighter in British service. There, he would eventually earn his place in history as Colonel Tye.