The Escape of Black Women during the American Revolution

In 1961, Morgan State University historian Dr. Benjamin Quarles published the now classic study The Negro in the American Revolution, which became the definitive account of the role African Americans played in the War for Independence. As the historical profession marks the sixtieth anniversary of Dr. Quarles’s book and the upcoming sestercentennial of the Declaration of Independence, it is important to examine an often neglected aspect of the Revolutionary period: the escape of African American women who self-emancipated during the Revolutionary War. Including enslaved women in the story of American freedom does not simply add to what we know, it transforms our understanding of this period. Black women’s freedom was intertwined with the movement for American independence, and African American women followed the military conflict and were powerfully influenced by its outcome. The pronouncements of Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation on November 7, 1775, and the Philipsburg Proclamation on June 30, 1779, promising freedom to enslaved people who would aid and assist the loyalists in the fight against the Continentals, led to the escape of thousands of enslaved women, men, and children. In fact, one-third of fugitives were enslaved women, according to historian Gary Nash.[1]

Enslaved women’s desire for freedom did not originate with the American Revolution. However, the Revolution amplified their quest for freedom. Enslaved women’s desire for freedom for themselves and their children propelled them to flee slavery during the Revolutionary War, a time when lack of oversight and the presence of British troops created opportunities for them to invoke the same philosophical arguments for liberty that White revolutionaries made in their own fierce struggle against oppression. Women sought refuge with the British because they recognized that their best chances for freedom resided with a British victory. In fact, forty percent of those who fled after the Philipsburg Proclamation were women. Women not only fled with family members, but also in groups without established kinship relations.

African Americans placed great emphasis on the rhetoric of the Revolution, particularly the right to life and liberty as espoused first by John Locke and later by Thomas Jefferson. Enlightenment rationalism was a powerful antislavery force that led to the first major challenge to American slavery. Thousands of enslaved men and women took advantage of the turmoil caused by the American Revolution to escape slavery, including those enslaved by Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. Motherhood and love of family often served as the impetus for enslaved women to escape. These women had as much incentive to run away as men did, and perhaps even more since they endured physical, sexual, and psychological abuse.

Women’s flight was prompted by efforts to protect their bodies against the violence and exploitation that was an everyday feature of their lived experience as well as to protect their children from the harmful effects of slavery. The average age of a self-emancipated woman was twenty-two; women between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five predominate in runaway slave advertisements. Girls as young as thirteen escaped independently, and women as old as sixty-two escaped with their daughters and families. Women also ran away pregnant.

The stories of Margaret and Jenny reveal the precariousness of their lives and their resolve for freedom. Margaret escaped slavery twice in Baltimore, Maryland, first in 1770 and again in 1773. In her first escape, she wore men’s clothing and sought to conceal her identity by masquerading as a waiting boy to John Chambers, an escaped English convict servant. Margaret sought to escape by passing as both White and male, performing fugitivity in a way that Ellen Craft, another escaped slave, would do decades later.

Margaret’s actions indicate that she knew her “soul value.” According to historian Daina Ramey Berry, “soul value” refers to “an intangible marker that often defied monetization yet spoke to the spirit and soul” of who she was as a human being. Soul value “represented the self-worth of enslaved people.”[2] For some, like Margaret, this meant that she would not comply with slavery. The escape of Margaret and other bondwomen during the Revolutionary era constituted a major refutation of slavery. The American Revolution, which inspired enslaved and free African Americans to claim greater rights for themselves, created both psychological and physical freedom for those who “pretended to be free” or who simply fled to create their own liberty. Women ran away more frequently during the Revolutionary era than at any time before or after the war due to the breakdown of oversight and state authority. In addition to Margaret, Sarah, a pregnant woman who changed her name to Rachel, ran away with her six-year-old son, Bob. Rachel’s husband had joined the British army, and she intended to pass as a free woman.

Similarly, Jenny, eight months pregnant, ran away in September 1776 with her two-year-old daughter, Winney, from Monk’s Neck near Petersburg, Virginia. She and her daughter were described as “well dressed” by their enslaver. Jenny, who had been aware of Dunmore’s Proclamation, likely spent months planning her escape. Her enslaver noted that she would attempt to pass as a free woman and was likely headed to Richmond, Virginia, which had a large free Black population.

The ideals embodied in the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal and have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness resonated with enslaved women like Rachel, who used the rhetoric of the Revolution to claim their right to freedom. Women heard about these ideals by listening to the conversations of their enslavers as well as through the slave grapevine that carried news from plantation to plantation and from city to city. The American Revolution brought into sharp focus the paradox of slavery and freedom. African American women contributed mightily to the story of American independence. They, too, believed in the independence of the individual. They valued in the most fundamental way what Thomas Jefferson and others would identify as inalienable rights.

The Revolution affirmed the idea that freedom was a universal birthright. Black women seized upon every opportunity to undermine the system of slavery through flight. Also of significance during this period were the leading theoreticians of the Revolution such as James Otis, Isaac Skillman, and Anthony Benezet who argued that enslaved people had every right to rebel against the system and that there could never be legal title in the ownership of another human being.

There were regional variations and similarities in the flight of enslaved women during the Revolution. Women who escaped from South Carolina and Georgia sought to escape to Florida, where for half a century the Spanish provided freedom and refuge for escaped slaves who reached St. Augustine. They also found refuge with British troops following the Southern Campaign of 1779. In Virginia and Maryland, enslaved women sought to reach Philadelphia, which was under the control of British forces in September 1777, as well as other northern destinations. In the northern and New England colonies, women sought to reach British forces during the early campaigns of the war and also endeavored to reach New York City. In each of these regions, fugitive women also sought to pass as free women.

Instead of viewing Black women at the margins of the American Revolution and abolitionism, it is imperative to see Black women as visible participants and self-determined figures who put their lives on the line for freedom. Black women have placed their lives on the line throughout history as evidenced by escapes from slavery, petitions to courts for freedom, written testimonies of racial violence, and organized protests. Black women, in fact, played an integral role in the expansion of abolitionism during the American Revolution. According to historian Patrick Rael, abolition in the United States occurred in two waves.[3] The American Revolution triggered the first wave and led to the abolition of slavery in the North. The second “radical” wave began with the development of immediate abolitionism enunciated by William Lloyd Garrison in 1831 and lasted until the end of the Civil War.

Karen Cook Bell is Associate Professor of History at Bowie State University and author of Running from Bondage: Enslaved Women and Their Remarkable Fight for Freedom in Revolutionary America (Cambridge University Press, 2021). Follow her on Twitter at @kbphd08.