Free lecture on Aug 26 at Fluvanna County Public Library
By Page H. Gifford
On Wed, Aug. 26, at 6:30 pm, the Fluvanna Historical Society and the Friends of the Fluvanna Library will present ‘The Black Patriots of Central Virginia’ with Dr. Shelley Viola Murphy.
The Black Patriots of Central Virginia were free and enslaved men and women of African descent who supported American independence through military, naval, logistical, financial, or other recognized service. They performed nearly every type of duty necessary to sustain the Revolutionary cause.
“They came from areas including Albemarle, Augusta, Buckingham, Fluvanna, Louisa, Nelson, Orange, Greene, and Rockingham Counties. Because several modern counties did not exist during the Revolution, some individuals appear in records under older jurisdictions such as Amherst or Albemarle,” she said.
“Some enlisted in the Continental Army, Virginia State regiments, or county militias. These roles show why the word Patriot should not be limited to a battlefield soldier,” she said. “The DAR [Daughters of the American Revolution] recognizes numerous forms of qualifying service, including military duty, public service, furnishing supplies, suffering imprisonment, and other documented assistance to the cause of independence.”
They served in many other roles, including guards of British and German prisoners (at the Albemarle Barracks), wagoners and teamsters, watermen, boatmen, and sailors, blacksmiths, carpenters, and craftsmen, guides, spies, road construction, building, and everything else from musicians to cooks. They were also prisoners of war or civilians held by British forces.
Women were also considered patriots and served as nurses, cooks, couriers, and spies.
“They 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.” Some even disguised themselves as men.
For Black men, military service could create an opportunity for freedom, but it did not guarantee it. Their service also placed them in a contradictory position: they wore uniforms, carried weapons, marched beside other soldiers and risked death for a nation founded on liberty while their own legal and civil rights remained restricted.
“Free Black men could use their service to strengthen their standing as veterans, establish residence and support pension applications, while for enslaved men, service sometimes became the basis for emancipation petitions or legislative action,” Murphy said. “For many Black veterans, military records also became the first documents to record their age, birthplace, physical appearance, occupation, residence, comrades and personal testimony, leaving evidence that allows later generations to recover their identities.”
Some did gain their freedom after the war, but many did not. The outcome depended on the terms of enlistment, the decisions of enslavers, state legislation, court action, and whether a promise of emancipation could be proven.
Even when freedom had been promised, descendants sometimes had to petition years later to enforce the agreement.
“The most accurate conclusion is revolutionary service could become a path to freedom, but service alone did not automatically free an enslaved soldier. The result must be established individually through military, court, legislative, probate, and manumission records.”
When Black men served as enlisted soldiers, their military duties were often the same as those performed by white soldiers. They marched, drilled, carried weapons, guarded prisoners, endured disease and hunger, built fortifications, participated in campaigns, and faced injury, capture, and death.
The major differences were generally not in the work itself but in the conditions surrounding it. Black servicemen were more likely to face questions about whether they were legally eligible to enlist, identification by racial labels rather than complete family information, unequal pay, difficulties collecting wages, obstacles to securing pensions, disputed promises of emancipation, and postwar racial restrictions despite honorable military service.
Murphy points to Black patriot Johnson Smith as an example of how similar the actual duties could be. As a guard, Smith escorted prisoners, marched between military posts, served during the Yorktown campaign, suffered a gunshot wound, and remained on duty after Cornwallis’s surrender — responsibilities comparable to those of white guardsmen in the same regiment.
After the Revolution, Black veterans returned to a society that celebrated independence without extending equal citizenship to them.
Some received federal or Virginia state pensions, bounty land, arrears of pay, or other benefits; others did not. Some returned to Central Virginia, married, farmed, purchased land, raised children, and became part of established free Black communities. Others moved westward into Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, or other developing regions.
“Many veterans experienced poverty, disability, old age, or dependence on relatives. Some applied for pensions decades after their service because they could no longer support themselves,” she said. “Others left no pension application, either because they died before broader pension laws were enacted, could not prove their service, lacked witnesses, or did not know how to navigate the application process.”
Their families also faced increasing restrictions on free people of color. Laws governing movement, registration, employment, weapons, voting, and residence became more restrictive in nineteenth-century Virginia. Thus, honorable service did not protect Black veterans or their descendants from racial discrimination.
“Receipt of a pension was not automatic proof that the applicant had been treated equally. Many claims were delayed, rejected, or required repeated testimony. Some veterans sold or assigned bounty-land warrants because they lacked the money or ability to relocate and develop the land.”
Murphy is a professional genealogist and adjunct professor who teaches at Averett University, the Midwest African American Genealogy Institute, the International Society for British Genealogy & Family History, and other genealogical education programs. Much of her work focuses on researching and reconstructing African American family histories from records that are often scattered across multiple archives and jurisdictions.
That same approach informs her forthcoming book, Finally Remembered, which places Black patriots within their Central Virginia communities and traces their military service, families, migrations, and postwar lives.
“No single source normally tells the complete story,” Murphy said. “The profiles in Finally Remembered were developed by placing these records together — asking not only whether someone served, but also who that person was, where that individual lived, what freedom meant to them and what became of the family afterward.”
Murphy’s work is part of a broader effort to recover Black participation in the Revolution. The Daughters of the American Revolution’s Forgotten Patriots project and Patriots of Color database have brought thousands of names into wider public view, while Sons of the American Revolution chapters and other lineage organizations have also documented Black patriots. The Society of the First African Families of English America has similarly traced early African-descended families and their connections to colonial and Revolutionary America.
“Rather than treating Black Patriots as an anonymous group, the book restores their names, occupations, families, military experiences, migrations, and postwar struggles,” she said. “Their stories should not be presented as an addition to regular American history. They are American history.”
