for example, forty whites and forty blacks under Blucke attacked the salt works at Forked River and raided nearby homes. These black troops continued operations until 1783 when the Black Brigade became the last British unit to evacuate New York.90
The attacks of Colonel Tye and the black guerrilla fighters from Refugeetown instilled genuine fear among white slaveholders throughout New Jersey and destabilized the racial order. They wondered that if Tye could be so destructive against his former owners, how their slaves would act if they gained freedom. While the destructive impact of the war definitely slowed the path toward abolition, the fear of black revolt and the images of black violence against whites caused many to question if abolitionism, making steady progress in Pennsylvania and New England, was right for New Jersey. Fear of the consequences of abolition, the violence MacWhorter saw in Newark, and the attacks Colonel Tye executed in Monmouth helped stymie efforts to extend the Revolution’s rhetoric of freedom to those still held in bondage.
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As opposed to the promises of the king’s army, service with Continental forces never guaranteed freedom since Americans hoped to reinforce the institution, not destroy it by freeing too many slaves. New Jersey, like most states, did not allow slaves or freed blacks to join the militia, thereby reinforcing the state’s existing racial boundaries. George Washington purged his army of all blacks only five days after Lord Dunmore’s 1775 proclamation, fearing that the enlistment of blacks would “render slavery more irksome to those who remain in it” because black troops might lead an uncontrollable liberation movement. In a society that continually dreaded slave revolt, Washington’s call for limitations on black enlistment seemed logical and comforting to many whites who feared armed slaves.91
By early 1776, however, Washington faced a manpower shortage and began to allow free blacks and slaves to serve, most notably in Rhode Island. Washington himself remained hesitant about their enlistment, especially in South Carolina and Georgia. The lack of strong support from Washington led both states to use slaves not as soldiers but as bounties. In the last four years of the war especially, South Carolinians used slaves as an enlistment bonus for white soldiers. However, South Carolina general and politician John Laurens believed that even this generous bounty would prove futile as most eligible men had already joined the military.92 Instead, James Madison pondered if it would be more expedient “to liberate and make soldiers at once of the blacks themselves” since enlisting blacks would “certainly be more consonant to the principles of liberty which ought never to be lost sight of in a contest for liberty.”93
In some commanders’ minds, black troops had an important role to play in the American military: as foils against black British troops. In New Jersey, for example, Governor Livingston asked Washington in 1777 that if nothing else could restrain the barbarity of the British who ravaged the state the preceding year, “it may not be improper to let loose upon them a few of General Stephen’s tawny Yagers, the only Americans that can match them in their bloody work.” The men Livingston referred to, black soldiers serving in Major General Adam Stephen’s Virginia brigade, could, in Livingston’s opinion, fight the black British troops on their own terms because of their perceived inherent barbarity.94 In the same way, General Anthony Wayne advocated in 1782 that Georgia enlist black troops as “a matter of necessity,” since the British had actively recruited a black corps in Charleston and Savannah.95 The 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
