While every schoolchild in America has heard of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Marquis de Lafayette little is known of the African-American contribution to the American Revolution.
William Cooper Nell, a nineteenth century abolitionist, wished to reexamine our understanding of this famous war and highlight to the world the black soldiers who fought and died for the cause of American Independence.
In this fascinating work he uncovers intriguing stories such as that of Crispus Attucks who is considered the first casualty of the American Revolution.
Nell exposes how in each state, from Massachusetts to Florida, African-Americans were active participants in the Revolution.
Harriet Beecher Stowe, in the introduction to Nell’s work, perfectly expresses the value of services given by African-Americans: “we are to reflect upon them as far more magnanimous, because rendered to a nation which did not acknowledge them as citizens and equals, and in whose interests and prosperity they had less at stake. It was not for their own land they fought, not even for a land which had adopted them, but for a land which had enslaved them, and whose laws, even in freedom, oftener oppressed than protected. Bravery, under such circumstances, has a peculiar beauty and merit.”
Nell’s work is a brilliant reassessment of history and wonderfully explains the contributions of African-Americans to the War of Independence.
Jessie Carney Smith in her book Black First also explains that this work deserves acknowledgement in its own right because it was “the first substantial historical work by a black man in America.”
William Cooper Nell was an African-American abolitionist, author and civil servant of Boston. He worked tirelessly at the outbreak of the American Civil War to get black soldiers accepted into the Union Army. He died in 1874 at the age of 58. His most famous work The Colored Patriots of the American Revolution was first published in 1855.
