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Billy and James: Choices Facing African Americans during the Revolutionary War

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Uploaded by on Jan 7, 2010

Produced for the Shaping the Constitution Web portal at the Library of Virginia's Digital Collections Web site, Virginiamemory.com:

Tameka Hobbs, historian and educational programs manager, discusses royal governor Lord Dunmore's 1775 proclamation declaring that slaves who had run away from patriot owners to fight for the British Army would be granted their freedom and the choices this proclamation opened for enslaved African Americans during the American Revolution. In particular, she contrasts the situations of James Lafayette, an African American who worked as a spy for the Continental army, and Billy, an African American man who was arrested for fighting with the British against the Americans.

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  • @BrianEDenton The maroon community was involved in the American Revolution by fighting for the British. PBS has an excellent resource, "Africans in America" which talks about Maroons during the American Revolution. There is also a book titled, Water from the Rock: Black Resistance in a Revolutionary Age by S.R. Frey. It has some great information about the enslaved, maroons, and freed people's participation in the Revolutionary War.

  • What role, if any, did the population of the Maroon colony of the Great Dismal Swamp play in the American Revolution? Were they aware of Lord Dunmore's Proclamation? If so, what was their response? Thank you.

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