owing the erection of the greatest part of the
fortifications raised for the protection of our
country; some of which, particularly Fort
Moultrie, gave at that early period of the inexperience and untried valor of our citizens, immortality to American arms: and, in the Northern
States numerous bodies of them were enrolled
into and fought by the sides of the whites, the
battles of the Revolution.”[1]
In 1779 in the war between Spain and Great Britain, the Spanish Governor of Louisiana, Galvez, had in his army which he led against the British, numbers of blacks and mulattoes who he said “behaved on all occasions with as much valor and generosity as the whites.”[2]
3. The War of 1812
In the War of 1812 the Negro appeared not only as soldier but particularly as sailor and in the dispute concerning the impressment of American sailors which was one of the causes of the war, Negro sailors repeatedly figured as seized by England and claimed as American citizens by America for whose rights the nation was apparently ready to go to war. For instance, on the
