A Black Resistance Leader in New Jersey
Tye returned to New Jersey armed and eager to fight. In his first combat experience, the Battle of Monmouth, June 28th, 1778, Tye captured a Patriot captain of the Monmouth militia, and returned with his captive to British held New York City. Having grown up in Monmouth County, Tye had intimate knowledge of the local geography. That made him well-suited to the guerrilla warfare that wracked the region. While the Redcoats and the Continental Army fought each other in pitched battles, a nasty civil was simultaneously being fought between Loyalist and Patriot militias and armed bands throughout much of the colonies. Such guerrilla warfare was intense in New Jersey, a border region between the British stronghold in New York, and the Patriot capital in Philadelphia.
In Monmouth County, things got particularly vicious when Patriot vigilantes began to hang Loyalists and confiscate their property. That prompted William Franklin, New Jersey’s Loyalist governor despite being Benjamin Franklin’s son, to sponsor Loyalists in fighting fire with fire. In July, 1779, Tye led a racially integrated Loyalist guerrilla group in a daring raid on Shrewsbury, NJ, in Patriot territory. They captured dozens of cattle, horses, as well as two prominent local Patriots. Tye and his men eventually set up a base that they named Refugeetown in Sandy Hook, at the northern end of the Jersey Shore. From there, they conducted nighttime raids that targeted prominent and wealthy local Patriots, particularly slaveholders.