Quotes About Free Negroes

By the end of the year, however, Washington suddenly reversed this decision. In his general orders of December 30 he announced this: "As the General is informed, that Numbers of Free Negroes are desirous of inlisting, he gives leave to the recruiting Officers, to entertain them, and promises to lay the matter before the Congress, who he doubts not will approve of it.

White resistance to putting African Americans under arms was strongest in areas with the greatest concentrations of slaves. But even in Virginia, the heart of tobacco land, patriots could not ignore the possibilities for exploiting black manpower. More than half the free Negro males of military age in Virginia joined the army, probably for the same reason that freemen from the North enlisted: it was the best or only job available.