Building Knowledge Together: Follow along as we take notes together.

For Blacks, what mattered most was . As the Revolutionary War spread, those in bondage sided with whichever army promised them personal . The British actively slaves belonging to Patriot masters and, consequently, more blacks fought for the Crown. For example, Lord Dunmore, the Governor of Virginia, promised freedom to any slaves owned by Patriot masters who would join the Loyalist forces. An estimated African Americans escaped, died, or were killed during the American Revolution.

Pictured on the left, Barzillai Lew was a African American who fought in the Battle of Bunker Hill. Like other freemen in the , he chose the Patriot side, in contrast to southerners who tended to favor the British side.

The first major fighting to take place in the American Revolution was the Battle of Lexington, fought on April 19, 1775. This battle is also easily remembered because of the famous , New England soldiers from Massachusetts who were ready for battle within a minute's notice. History rarely, if ever, mentons the fact that men were also members of the famous Minutemen!

Lemuel , for example, was the son of a Black father and white mother. Deserted by his mother and brought up by Deacon David Ross, Haynes developed a strong interest in the [church] and began to write sermons or religious speeches as an adult. Although the call to bear arms for the American Revolutionary cause interrupted his preparation for the ministry, he would go on to become the Black minister of a church with a white congregation after the war. Haynes would serve as a pastor in Vermont and New York until his death in 1833.