The Role Of Slavery In The Revolutionary War

In the revolutionary war slaves and their masters played an important role, which led towards the abolishment of slavery. After years, full of tension between the United States and Britain tensions erupted in the war of independence in 1775, which would last till 1783 (Conway,1). “African Americans fought a revolution within a revolution,” as Nash writes (266). This means that while the Americans had their revolution, slaves had their own for their freedom. The change is shown by the number of articles about the abolition of slavery. Before the revolutionary war only a few articles about the abolition of slavery were published. One of the influential was from Thomas Paine, he writes “That some desperate wretches should be willing to steal and
The slaves had several options for freedom, one of them was fighting for the British, the other was fighting for the United States (Nash). While some slaves fought for their own freedom others fought for their masters, as some masters did not want to fight themselves and send slaves in their place. With the revolutionary war coming closer, propaganda for freedom increased. “How can Americans ‘complain so loudly of attempts to enslave them?’ mused Tom Paine in 1775, ‘while they hold so many hundreds of thousands in slavery?’,” (Berlin 100). This shows that some did not understand how the United States could have slaves, while continuously complaining about being enslaved themselves. If one does not want to enslaved, one should also understand that one should not have slaves. However, the revolutionary war became the turning point in the fight for abolition, due to the division between the north and the south of the United States, which was caused by the slaves who were allowed to fight in the revolutionary war, either on British or American side, and the slave-owners who let them
Due to the increased number of free slaves, the United States now had to deal with a large number of people of color outside slavery. This increase in the number of free people of color meant that they would have to integrated in the society of the United States. These free men went on fighting for the abolition of freedom and were supported by many white people in the north. As the war caused a division in the thought of slavery between the north and the south, yet divisions let to eventually to the abolition of slavery. The division was cause by the fact that in the south were more plantations than in the north, which led to more need for slaves in the south. So, while there were less places in the north were slaves could work in the south there was an almost equal number of slaves as whites (Boyer). Even though the southerners were aware that slavery could not last forever they wanted to hold on to the institution of slavery as long as possible. This division between north and south meant that there was a difference of opinions in the United States, which would mean that eventually one opinion would have to be chosen as continuing with two different path would cause conflict in the country. While the south wanted to keep the slavery, the fight for the freedom of slaves ran into a shortage of young men, who often create new situations. This led to the