Some real history - Bonekicking Slaves

[BAJR Host]

I thought I woyuld check some of the background... to enlighten myself..

quote:African Americans - free, slave, and ex-slave - fought side by side with white colonists seeking independence from British domination. GEORGE WASHINGTON, as Commander of the Continental Army, forbade the enlistment of Blacks - free, slave, or ex-slave - during the early stages of the war. He later learned that the Royal Governor of Virginia, John Murray, Earl of Dunmore, was enlisting slaves and indentured servants into the British army with the promise of "freedom to all slaves who would join the King's army." Dunmore's tactic of lifting the ban on Blacks enlisting in the British army led George Washington to change his mind, and, therefore, Blacks later joined the CONTINENTAL ARMED FORCES.

http://www.liu.edu/cwis/cwp/library/aaffsfl.htm#AMREV

quote:Maroons in the Revolutionary period
1775 - 1783

During the Revolutionary War, service with the British provided military training to thousands of black men, many of whom continued to fight after the British departed. A large group of men and women erected twenty-one houses and planted rice fields in a clearing near the Savannah River. The site measured 700 yards long and 120 yards wide, and was protected by a four-foot high log-and-cane barrier on the land side and large fallen logs on the creek side. From this base in the swamps, "Captain Cudjoe" and "Captain Lewis" led an armed group of 100 men who called themselves "the King of England's Soldiers" in bold attacks on plantations and on Georgia state troops.

By 1787, this band of guerrilla fighters posed a serious enough threat that the Georgia legislature sent a force of state troopers to find and destroy the maroon village. Although six maroons were killed and others wounded, most of the people fled into the South Carolina swamps. Heeding the advice of James Jackson, commander of the Georgia militia, the governors of South Carolina and Georgia launched a joint mission against the maroons. Lewis was captured, tried, and hanged. Afterwards, his head was severed and placed on a pole. Despite this brutal warning, numerous instances of guerrilla attacks continued to be reported.

In 1795, a maroon community led by "General of the Swamps" formed near Wilmington, North Carolina. After numerous complaints by whites, a bounty was placed on the General's head, and special hunting parties succeeded in routing the fugitives and killing the General.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2p50.html

So you see... we can learn, from being pedants !

But to tell you the truth .. this is history... not archaeology... though I know it often blurs


"No job worth doing was ever done on time or under budget.."
Khufu

[RedEarth]

[quote]Originally posted by BAJR Host

I thought I woyuld check some of the background... to enlighten myself..

So you see... we can learn, from being pedants !

But to tell you the truth .. this is history... not archaeology... though I know it often blurs

quote]

People can slag the programme off as much as they like but I actually felt like I might have learnt something after last nights episode, assuming it was even vaguely accurate. Having seen your additional info I do now feel like I have learnt something!

[Dirty Dave Lincoln]

I remember reading years ago that a lot of slaves fled south-east into the swamps of Florida and mingled with tribes such as the Seminole,and it took nearly a century of on/of warfare to pacify them. The books I recall are "Bury my heart at Wounded Knee" and "The Trail of Tears"