As we celebrate the 4th of July this month, it’s worth noting that there’s another historical battle being fought… over the the story of the American Revolution.
Some claim that the American Revolution was fought over slavery. I examine this argument and find the evidence lacking.
Even for critics who claim the Constitution was a slavery document, I cited sources saying that this document, forged in regional compromise, contained all of the necessary tools to dismantle slavery, as history later demonstrated.
In the argument for those who think the American Revolution was not fought for freedom, but to preserve slavery, the key piece of evidence for this came from the 1775 Dunmore Proclamation. This is where the Royal Governor of Virginia promised freedom to any slave who fled their plantation and joined the British Army.
Supporters of this view of linking slavery to the American Revolution claim:
‘Not the taxes and the tea, not the shots at Lexington and Concord, not the siege of Boston; rather, it was this act, Dunmore’s offer of freedom to slaves, that tipped the scales in favor of American independence.’ And yet how many contemporary Americans have ever even heard of it? Enslaved people at the time certainly knew about it. During the Revolution, thousands sought freedom by taking refuge with British forces.
Missing from this analysis is the fact that John Murray, the Earl of Dunmore, was himself a slaveholder. Experts debate whether even “thousands” showed up, indicating the number may have been much closer to 800. At any rate, after smallpox and military defeat, Dunmore left Virginia with only 300 former slaves.
I also discovered that the Dunmore Proclamation was made on November 7, 1775, and published a week later, months after the battles of Lexington and Concord, and after George Washington began the Siege of Boston in the Summer of 1775. Dunmore’s Proclamation, which was well after these events, could not have been responsible for an American Revolution already in full swing. Moreover, Americans offered slaves from British loyalists the same deal (and some of their own slaves), to leave their plantations and join the United States forces.
When the Americans won their independence, the Royal Navy helped escort the Loyalists and thousands of their slaves to the remaining colonies under British control, curious behavior for these so-called abolitionists.
Other critics of the American Revolution point to something known as “The Somerset Declaration,” based on the Somerset v. Steuart (sometimes referred to as Stewart) case, which supporters claim ended slavery in England and Wales (legal experts argue that the ruling was far narrower). It did not free the slaves in the British colonies, which wouldn’t occur for another sixty years. Moreover, Britain took the side of the Confederacy during the Civil War, as the English sought the South’s cheaper goods made with slave labor, making it hard to assign noble values to the British on the subject of slavery.
As for the Constitution, while John C. Calhoun may have thought the Constitution protected slavery, Frederick Douglass had a different view of the Founding Fathers’ document, seeing it as a tool to fight slavery. The North proved him right, using the Constitution to abolish slavery.
My other research on the Civil War found that it was overwhelmingly fought over slavery. That’s not what the evidence shows for the American Revolution.