The Ragged Road to Abolition. James J. Gigantino II

British interest in recruiting blacks remained high as Lord Dunmore, writing from South Carolina, believed that they would be the “most efficacious, expeditious, cheapest, and certain means of reducing (the patriots) to a proper sense of their duty.” Dunmore claimed that blacks were better suited for service in the warmer southern climate and many in the British ranks believed that using black troops would “strike at the root of all property . . . making the wealth and riches of the enemy the means of bringing them to obedience.” These blacks, according to the report, would “bring the most violent to their senses.”⁹⁶

      In the midst of the British invasion of 1776, open discussion among delegates to the Continental Congress ensued over the possibility of raising a battalion of blacks in New Jersey to serve as a home guard. New Jersey’s Jonathan Dickinson Sergeant sent his plan to raise this regiment to John Adams in August 1776 since he believed the militia could provide only a limited defense. According to him, Congress could enlist blacks and pay slaveholders fifty pounds per slave plus provide an exemption from militia service for those who offered their slaves. Under Sergeant’s plan, slaves’ monthly salary would repay the state for their purchase price. Once the debt was extinguished, the slave would earn his freedom. Sergeant theorized that any slave who committed a crime or engaged in misconduct while a soldier would be returned to slavery, a punishment designed to stymie the three objections he foresaw to his plan. The first, that slaves “generally are cowards,” would be answered easily by suggesting that the idea of “liberty before their eyes as the reward of their valour” will motivate them. Second, Sergeant claimed that his plan would negate the possibility of revolt because the slaves, if they could gain freedom, would work toward that rather than fomenting rebellion. Finally, Sergeant countered the fear many whites had of the presence of large numbers of freed blacks in American society after the war by arguing that ex-slaves could be resettled on western lands because, in his opinion, “there is room enough on this continent for them and us too.”⁹⁷ Adams responded to Sergeant a few days later that “your negro battalion will never do” because “South Carolina would run out of their wits at the least hint of such a measure.” Adams then quietly dropped Sergeant’s plan, fearful of South Carolina’s response.⁹⁸

      Sergeant’s plan, unpopular even among New Jerseyans who feared rebellion, was never adopted by state legislators, nor was any other regulated strategy for the enlistment of slaves or freed blacks. Instead, blacks in the New Jersey militia and Continental Line served in integrated units as teamsters, servants, and in some cases, ordinary enlisted men. Even though some used their Revolutionary experience to acquire freedom, land, or pensions, these men were atypical and did not represent the wider experience of Jersey blacks or any commitment to black freedom. Haphazardly executed, the enlistment of black troops mainly served white interests because slaves could serve as substitutes for their masters. Sketchy military service records reveal that at least twenty-nine blacks served with various New Jersey units, though it is likely that more remain unrecorded. Reports from Hessian soldiers indicate the wide use of black troops in New Jersey. Some, writing about their service in Springfield, remarked that “Negroes, in common with other cattle, are very prolific here.” They claimed that “the negro is sometimes sent to war instead of his youthful owner” and therefore “there is scarcely a regiment in which you shall not find some well-built and hardy fellows” serving as substitutes for whites.⁹⁹

      One of these slaves, Samuel Sutphen of Somerset County, joined the Patriot cause as a substitute for his owner, Casper Berger. His original owner, Barbardus LaGrange, had declared his loyalty to Britain and fled to New York, leaving Sutphen to be confiscated as part of a forfeited loyalist estate. Berger bought Sutphen from the state and offered him freedom if he served as his substitute for the war’s duration. Sutphen agreed and joined the Somerset County Militia and later served in a Cumberland County unit as well. In his 1832 pension application, Sutphen claimed that he fought at the Battle of Long Island and served on garrison duty at several locations in New Jersey that winter. In January 1777, he fought at Princeton with Washington, engaged in several skirmishes in summer and fall 1777 around the Millstone River, and, by 1778, marched to Monmouth where he narrowly missed the battle with the British. Sutphen then joined the expedition to Fort Stanwix, New York, where he and his unit pursued Britain’s Indian allies as far north as Buffalo. On his return south, Hessians and British Highlanders ambushed his company in Westchester County, where a bullet drove his pants button into his right leg just above the ankle. Waylaid because of his injury for almost three months, Sutphen returned to Readington and served until 1780. However, upon his discharge, Berger reneged on his promise of freedom and sold him to Peter Ten Eyck. Ten Eyck then sold him to John Duryea, who then sold him to Peter Sutphen. By 1805, Samuel Sutphen finally achieved legal freedom only by purchasing himself, not due to his revolutionary service.¹⁰⁰

      Sutphen, eighty-five when he applied for a federal pension, managed to secure numerous letters of support from prominent Somerset whites who believed, as supporter William Gaston claimed, that Sutphen was “highly meritorious of a pension” because he “ably and nobly performed” his duties as a soldier. The federal government, however, rejected his claim, explaining in an 1833 letter “that being a slave originally,” Sutphen “was not bound to serve in the militia and the circumstances of each tour of actual service (were) not . . . stated as was required.” In a continuing debate on the status of his claim, the Pension Office in 1834 and 1835 maintained that his service against the Indians remained “very doubtful” and that he most likely had not served a full six months as required by the pension law. In an unlikely show of support to a black veteran, the Frelinghuysen family, a powerful Jersey political dynasty, intervened and petitioned the state legislature to support Sutphen. In response, the state granted Sutphen a pension for the last five years of his life.¹⁰¹

      Though rare, other New Jersey blacks managed to negotiate for freedom, pensions, and land in exchange for their participation in the Patriot cause. John Ceasar from Sussex County, for example, a private in the Fourth New Jersey, joined the army in December 1776 and served in multiple units before his discharge in May 1783. In a 1780 muster roll, his unit recorded that Ceasar had received a western land grant that he augmented in 1800 with another. Similarly, Oliver Cromwell of Burlington County joined the Second New Jersey Regiment in 1777 at age twenty-six. He served at the Battle of Short Hills among other engagements and was discharged in June 1783. For at least part of his service, Cromwell belonged to the same regiment as another young African American, Thomas Case, who served for nine months in Phillips’ Company, Second New Jersey Regiment, from 1778 to 1779. For his service, Cromwell received a land grant in 1791 and successfully applied for a pension of ninety-six dollars a year in 1820 at age sixty-seven. In his application, Cromwell claimed that after his military service, he became a “common laborer . . . but from age” he could no longer “get a livelihood.” He listed approximately ten dollars in property and reported that he needed to care for his twenty-five-year-old infirm daughter and two young sons, ages twelve and ten. Cromwell continued to collect that pension until he died in 1852, just two months short of his hundredth birthday.¹⁰²

      Unlike the cases of Sutphen and Cromwell, most records list only the most basic information about blacks who fought with the patriots. Negro Stephen, for example, joined the Second Regiment of Continental Dragoons in December 1781 as a private, while Negro Pomp, a teamster in charge of a four-horse wagon, served in Trenton in 1780. Negro Jack, Negro Cezar, Negro Dick, and Negro Will all did the same, but no additional information survives to tell more than their names and occupations within the army. With limited records available, it remains incredibly difficult to reconstruct the lives of these enslaved and formerly enslaved African Americans in Continental service. However, as New Jersey, like most other states, never actively recruited black soldiers or promised freedom in exchange for military service, it stands likely that most of these enslaved men returned, like Samuel Sutphen, to their masters as slaves.¹⁰³

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      In addition to fears of slave revolt and economic devastation, anxiety over a sizeable loyalist population led the state to reinforce slavery by confiscating and selling loyalist property. The revolutionary government in Trenton demanded that residents take loyalty oaths to affirm their standing within the new American body politic. Those who refused became targets of both ridicule and violence, leading thousands of New Jerseyans to flee to British