Ethiopian Regiment

Ethiopian Regiment

Soldier from the Ethiopian Regiment
Active 1775–1776
Country  Great Britain
Allegiance  British Army
Branch infantry, dragoons (mounted infantry), labor duty
Type British provincial unit
Role guerilla warfare, maneuver warfare
Size company (250)
Nickname(s) Lord Dunmore's Ethiopian Regiment, Dunmore's Ethiopian Regiment, Royal Ethiopian Regiment
Motto(s) Liberty to Slaves
Engagements

American Revolutionary War

Commanders
Notable
commanders		 Governor Lord Dunmore
Captain Samuel Leslie
Captain Charles Fordyce

The Ethiopian Regiment, also known as Lord Dunmore's Ethiopian Regiment, Dunmore's Ethiopian Regiment, and the Royal Ethiopian Regiment, was the name given to a British colonial military unit organized during the American Revolution by John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore, the last Royal Governor of Virginia. Composed of slaves who had escaped from Patriot masters, it was led by British officers and sergeants. Black Loyalists served throughout the war in guerrilla units, such as the elite Black Brigade. African Americans were also used by both sides, although very rarely as soldiers. The Ethiopian Regiment was the largest African American fighting force in the Revolutionary war.

Context


Military Recruitment, Escape, and Resettlement of African Americans During the Revolution

During the war, tens of thousands of slaves escaped their masters, which had a substantial economic effect on the American South. An estimated 25,000 slaves escaped in South Carolina; 30,000 in Virginia, and almost one quarter of the slave population in Georgia. Slaves also escaped in New England and New York, often joining the British forces occupying New York for freedom.[1] There were about 500,000 slaves in the United States at the time of the Revolutionary war.[2] John Ferling estimates that up to forty thousand slaves escaped their masters during the conflict.[3] While thousands went to the British lines for freedom (the British evacuated nearly 4,000 Black Loyalists to Nova Scotia and other colonies after the war), others took advantage of the wartime confusion to migrate to other areas of the colonies.[4] Great Britain used promises of freedom to exhort slaves to escape. In 1778 an offer of freedom led 1,500 slaves to flee behind enemy lines, which provided a surplus of labor to the British army and weakened the colonists.[5] Because Colonial society at the time was deeply racist, the Colonial Army, and state militias, were very reticent to arm blacks. Virginia took slaves from wealthy planters and offered them as an enlistment incentive.[6] South Carolina, which was so pro-slavery that Thomas Lynch Jr. declared that a tax on slaves would prevent South Carolina from joining the union, was particularly hesitant.[7] South Carolina staunchly opposed arming blacks even when General Benjamin Lincoln encouraged them so do so due to his desperate lack of personnel.[8] The Continental army did not initially accept blacks. George Washington actively did not want them in the ranks.[9] This changed later in the war when the need for troops led to a compromise of this policy.[10] Many southern state militias used slaves to aid in the war effort by forcing them to construct fortifications and attend to other difficult wartime duties. As a general rule, African Americans in the Revolutionary war were often denied the ability to fight for Revolutionary values, were used as a prop by the British, and were often tasked with the most difficult and exhausting labor. They were usually classified as contraband property rather than liberated persons.[11] African Americans traveling with either army were given the least food, and the worst supplies. Many slaves were transported out of the country along with their Loyalist masters.[12] Some African Americans took the opportunity to leave racist Colonial society all together and join or form Maroon communities.[13]

Lord Dunmore's Proclamation

Ray Raphael notes that "in the South in instiution of slavery altered the context of all political acts."[14] Great Britain had abolished slavery in 1772 in the Somerset v Stewart case.[15] On November 14, 1775, Lord Dunmore issued a proclamation decreeing that all slaves could be free if they joined Britain's effort to suppress the rebellion.[16] This decision provoked genuine indignation, outrage, and fury on behalf of many Virginians. Ray Raphael provides an excellent account of the proclamation and the reaction it promoted on page 321.[17] This proclamation provoked fear among whites, and inspired hope in some slaves. It was so unpopular that it helped to congeal opposition to Dunmore, and to the British in general. Lord Dunmore, who was a slaveowner himself,[18] issued his proclamation largely as a political maneuver to instill fear into the hearts of Virginians, and to corrode the economic foundation of Virginian plantation society.[19]

Company formed

Dunmore's proclamation "triggered a mass escape."[20] Just five days after issuing the proclamation, three hundred slaves had abandoned their Revolutionary masters and joined Dunmore's ranks.[21] Although a sizable number of slaves were able to successfully escape and join Lord Dunmore's ranks, they did so at great risk. To serve in Lord Dunmore's slave army, one would have to escape servitude, locate the ranks undetected without the aid of a map, and find a way across water to reach the British ships. Numerous patrols and triggerhappy Colonists made this a very dangerous proposition. Many captured runaways were killed, and others were sold to the West Indies of sent to the lead mines of western Virginia, where they were exposed to dangerous toxins.[22] The governor formed the soldiers he received into the Ethiopian Regiment, also known as Lord Dunmore's Ethiopian Regiment.

Lord Dunmore's Ethiopian Regiment, composed largely of escaped slaves, was probably the first Black Loyalist regiment serving Great Britain during the Revolution. The regiment included many slaves, most notably its most famous member, an escaped slave called Titus, then known as Tye. In later years, he became known as Colonel Tye as an honorary title for his military skills. Private Tye and his comrades believed that they were fighting not just for their own individual freedom but for the freedom of enslaved blacks in North America. Their regimental uniforms were sashes inscribed with the words, "Liberty to Slaves," a slogan which shows their allegiance to their individual cause more than the political aims of the Revolution. Although the soldiers were often deployed to achieve subsidiary tasks, such as foraging, they also saw combat.

Uniforms and Equipment

The soldiers were equipped with supplies that came from ships off to coast of Norfolk, VA. Soldiers did not wear identical uniforms, but they predominantly wore sailor's shirts made of linen or used sails (see above). These shirts were emblazoned with the phrase "Liberty to Slaves." Some wore hats wrapped in red ribbon. Some soldiers, who were competent with muskets, were issued Sea Service Muskets. Others were armed with swords or pikes.[23]

Campaigns

It is unclear exactly when, and how often, the Ethiopian Regiment saw action. Their first military action may have taken place at the Battle of Kemp's Landing, in November, 1775. The Earl of Dunmore defeated the rebellious colonial militia. Two of its colonels were captured. One colonel was taken by one of his former slaves. The black regiment in British service was a symbol of hope for Americans of African descent. Forming such a force was controversial at the time. Its performance offered African Americans the opportunity to fight for their freedom, as well as combat the commonly held notion that African Americans were not valiant and brave. Their effectiveness as military force speaks to this.

In December, 1775, the Queen's Own Loyal Virginia Regiment, the Ethiopian Regiment, and the 14th Regiment of Foot occupied Norfolk, Virginia, and Dunmore established his headquarters there. Virginia's Committee of Safety ordered Colonel William Woodford in command of 500 Virginia rebels to Norfolk to oppose Dunmore. His men and others gathered at one end of a key bridge (at Great Bridge), on a causeway that connected the mainland to the port of Norfolk. Dunmore's forces, including some of the Ethiopians, had constructed Fort Murray at the other end of the bridge, and Colonel Woodford entrenched on his side of Great Bridge. Woodford sent a black man to Dunmore as a double agent with false news of Woodford's strength (he was to report they had only 300 men.) The spy further said the force were "green" recruits who would be easily frightened off.

Captain Samuel Leslie ordered Captain Charles Fordyce to lead 120 men of the 14th Foot down the causeway to attack the rebel position. The Ethiopian Regiment stood ready on Great Bridge supported by British cannon. Rebel sentries, notably the William Flora, slowed the British advance with "buck and ball". Alerted by the noise of battle, the rebels manned the breastwork. The Revolutionaries did not fire, and waited until the British were close. Emboldened by the lack of an all-out assault, the British rushed forward. "The day is ours!" declared Captain Fordyce.

Silence was followed by gunfire. The Americans cut down Fordyce and 12 privates. Of the wounded, two were former slaves who belonged to the Ethiopian Regiment: James Sanderson was wounded in the forearm; and Cesar was wounded in the thigh. Woodford marched some of his men through the swamps and attacked the Ethiopian Regiment's flank, forcing them back in confusion. The revolutionaries seized two British cannon, and the British retreated back into their fort. In the following days, the British evacuated the fort and then Norfolk, which was then occupied by revolutionary forces including Woodford and his men.

Titus Cornelius "Colonel Tye"

Main article: Colonel Tye

Titus was a slave who had run away from his master in Monmouth County, New Jersey before Lord Dunmore's proclamation of emancipation to slaves of rebels who would join his ranks. He heard of Lord Dunmore's proclamation, and went to Virginia to enlist in Dunmore's Ethiopian Regiment.

Dunmore's Ethiopian Regiment was formed under white officers and noncommissioneds, although it is probable that some of the black recruits later became sergeants. (The British military commissioned no black officers during the 18th or 19th centuries.)

Nothing is known of Tye's activities, until he returned to New Jersey. He took part in the Battle of Monmouth in June 1778, and for the next two year was the Black Loyalist, guerrilla leader, known as, "Colonel" Tye. He led his so called Black Brigade, which served with the Loyalist Queen's Rangers in defending British-held New York in the winter of 1779. Tye led numerous raids in Monmouth County, New Jersey, disrupting American supply lines, capturing rebel officers, and killing suspected Patriot leaders. He died in 1780 of tetanus from a bullet wound in his last raid.

Smallpox epidemic

Dunmore hoped to make a regiment composed of indentured servants and slaves by promising them freedom after the war. Unfortunately, "Smallpox interfered with Lord Dunmore's plan. The disease killed off most of the Ethiopian Regiment before it could demonstrate its military abilities."[24]Smallpox, a highly contagious and deadly disease, broke out and critically weakened the Ethiopian Regiment's ability to fight, during the war. In February, 1776, smallpox infected the Ethiopian camp, near Portsmouth, in the Virginia Colony. By May, almost three hundred had died. It was a sordid scene. One person nearby noted that, "On our arrival, we ... were struck with horrour at the number of dead bodies, in a state of putrefaction, strewed all the way from their battery to Cherry-Point, about two miles in length, without a shovelful of earth upon them." [25] This catastrophic disaster nearly decimated the force, which was poorly organized, small in size, and inadequately equipped to begin with. Lord Dunmore's plan had turned out to be a disaster.

Regiment disbanded

Dunmore's defeat was the first significant engagement of the American Revolutionary War in the South. Dunmore disbanded the Ethiopian Regiment in 1776, although many of its members likely served as Black Pioneers during the occupation of New York. The band was never particularly influential in the Revolutionary War on the battlefield, and it was an unqualified disaster in many regards. The Regiment is nonetheless important because it explains African American participation during the Revolutionary war, and the reaction to its existence tells us a great deal about prevailing attitudes during the Revolutionary period, despite the purported, and oft mentioned, Revolutionary ideals of equality and freedom.

Legacy

The Ethiopian Regiment has received very little attention in contemporary History curricula, as well as American popular culture. A short play, De Daughter of De Regiment: An Ethiopian Burlesque emerged in 1903. The non-historical work is reminiscent of Africian American Trickster tales, which were common stories shared among slaves in the South whose freedoms in the racist Plantation economy were extremely limited in the slave era. The play, which aims to impart its moral message through a conflict between two African American military officers (a captain and a lieutenant who are trying to court a Colonel's daughter. The Lieutenant, who enjoys the affection of the Colonel's daughter, is frustrated by the Captain, who is making unwelcome advances towards the Colonel's daughter. Because of his superior rank, he is initially unable to make the Captain leave the bench where he is harassing the Colonel's daughter. He contrives a plan. The Lieutenant creates a false order for the Colonel to follow, and spends time with his lover while the Captain is distracted. When the Captain learns he has been duped, he goes to the Colonel to have him punished. The Colonel calls for the Lieutenant, and considers punishing him, but his daughter pleads him not to. This leads him to knowingly accept the Lieutenant's untrue explanation for the order. This story shows the Lieutenant's cleverness, but is not based in any historical fact. There is no evidence to show that any of these characters ever existed, although it is a plausible situation. Further, the characters are all presented as members of the union Army.[26] There is no evidence that this play was prominent or influential, but it's discussion of the Regiment is one of very few modern references outside the discipline of history. There are not enough searches on Google Trends to provide the data necessary to produce a graph [27] Although it is the most significant African American fighting force from the Revolutionary War, it is largely non present in American popular knowledge.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Kolchin
  2. ↑ Raphael, 311
  3. ↑ Ferling, 232
  4. ↑ Kolchin
  5. ↑ Ferling, 238
  6. ↑ Ferling, 229
  7. ↑ Ferling, 232
  8. ↑ Ferling, 255
  9. ↑ Ferling, 249
  10. ↑ Ferling, 249
  11. ↑ Raphael, 332
  12. ↑ Ferling, 232
  13. ↑ Raphael, 335
  14. ↑ Raphael, 310
  15. ↑ Ferling, 232
  16. ↑ Raphael, 320
  17. ↑ Raphael, 321
  18. ↑ Raphael, 335
  19. ↑ Raphael, 335
  20. ↑ Raphael 324
  21. ↑ Raphael 324
  22. ↑ Raphael,326
  23. ↑ Chartrand, Google Books copy not paginated. Search "slaves" to find page.
  24. ↑ Mann, 199
  25. ↑ The Virginia Gazette, July 29, 1776 quoted in Fenn, 5
  26. ↑ Estep
  27. ↑ Data source: Google Trends. https://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=Ethiopian%20Regient

Works Cited

Google Books copy is not paginated. See section A2

Pages 46, 52, 309–10, 316, 321–7,331–2, 335, 342, 355, 358, 385, 397

Further reading

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