By: AH1 Tom
We are familiar with many prominent individuals who made a difference during the Revolution and the American War for Independence, such as John Adams, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Captain John Parker, and Captain Issac Davis. However, the list of lesser-known people who made a difference is even longer. This month we will look at a few of those remarkable patriots.
Crispus Attucks
On March 5th, 1770, Crispus Attucks was one of five colonists killed in what is now known as the Boston Massacre. Attucks is believed to have been born sometime around 1723 in the vicinity of Framingham, Massachusetts. His father was an enslaved African and his mother was a native woman who was a member of the Wampanoag tribe. Attucks seems to have spent most of his early life enslaved by a man named William Browne in Framingham. But when he was 27, Attucks ran away.
After his escape, Attucks made his way to Boston, where according to the New England Historical Society, he became a sailor, one of the few trades open to a non-white person. Attucks worked on whaling ships, and when he wasn’t at sea, he found work as a rope-maker. On the night that he died, Attucks had just returned from the Bahamas and was on his way to North Carolina. Competition from the influx of troops threatened to depress the wages of American workers such as Attucks. Additionally, as an experienced seaman, Attucks faced the danger of being seized by one of the British press gangs that Parliament authorized to forcibly draft sailors into the Royal Navy. His ire toward the British was intense.
On that fateful day in March, Attucks was at the front of the mob that went to confront the British soldiers. One of the musket balls that hit Attucks didn’t do much damage, but the other, which tore an inch-wide hole in his chest, inflicted lethal injuries. A contemporary newspaper account described the shot as “goring the right side of his lungs, and a great part of the liver most horribly.”
In death, Attucks was afforded honors that no person of color probably had ever received before in America. Samuel Adams organized a procession to transport Attucks’ casket to Boston’s Faneuil Hall, where Attucks lay in state for three days before the victims’ public funeral. According to historians William Bruce Wheeler and Lorri Glover, an estimated 10,000 to 12,000 people joined in the procession that carried the caskets of Attucks and the other victims to the graveyard.
As civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote in 1964, Black schoolchildren “know that the first American to shed blood in the revolution that freed his country from British oppression was a Black seaman named Crispus Attucks.” Today, schools and public parks are named after Attucks, and his face has appeared on a commemorative silver dollar.
Sarah Osborn Benjamin
In the hard winter of 1780, a woman then known as Sarah was working in the house of John Willis when she met her future husband, Aaron Osborn. They married that same winter month of 1780, in the blacksmith’s house. But, rather than a honeymoon, Aaron discovered he would be returning to the war. He wanted Sarah to come with him, but Sarah initially declined. However, after learning that Aaron would be serving in the Commissary Guard and that she would be given sleigh, horseback, and wagons to ride on, Sarah begrudgingly agreed.
During the battle of Yorktown, American soldiers set up their camps about a mile away from the city. From there, they dug entrenchments all the way to the battle site, relentlessly bombarded by enemy artillery. On a misty, cool night, Sarah noticed many men in the trenches throwing up their food.
Smartly, Sarah determined that they were vomiting due to a lack of time to cook. She knew that these men were overworked, overexerted, underpaid, exhausted, dehydrated, and starved, and she wasn’t going to take it. She gathered a coalition of women camp followers, and together they prepared food for the soldiers- they cooked beef, baked bread, and made hot coffee that they could regularly bring to the trenches.
On one fateful trip, Sarah met the large and imposing figure of none other than General George Washington. The General had asked if she was afraid of the cannonballs, to which she boldly answered, “No, the bullets would not cheat the gallows… and it would not do for the men to fight and starve too.”
As the final surrender occurred at Yorktown, numerous men began to cheer, and “the drums continued beating and all at once the officers hurra’d and swung their hats.” Sarah asked them, “What is the matter now?” One replied, “Are not you soldier enough to know what it means?” Sarah answered “No,” and the man replied, “The British have surrendered!”
Although she was not an actual soldier, Sarah had earned the respect of the men of the Continental Army who saw her as not only competent but nearly their peer as a fellow “soldier” at their side. Many years after the war was over, Congress had failed to “make ends meet,” and the Revolutionary soldiers had received little to no money during and after their military service. Sarah, like with many other things, was not going to take it. And so, at the ripe age of 81 years old, Sarah took it upon herself to present her case to the courts.
On November 20th, 1837, the now Sarah Benjamin (after marrying her third husband, John) personally appeared before the court of Wayne County, Pennsylvania, and explained why she should be able to collect her and her former husband’s pension for their work during the war, starting with the hard winter of 1780. She was awarded Aaron’s pension and given one on her behalf as well. Sarah’s story, while often overlooked (similarly to other women’s stories of the revolution) was a prominent part of the war.
James Armistead Lafayette
Born into slavery to owner William Armistead around December 10, 1748, in New Kent, Virginia. In 1781, James Armistead volunteered to join the U.S. Army in order to fight for the American Revolution. His master granted him permission to join the revolutionary cause, and the American Continental Army stationed Armistead to serve under the Marquis de Lafayette, the commander of allied French forces.
Lafayette employed Armistead as a spy, with the hopes of gathering intelligence in regard to enemy movements. Posing as a runaway enslaved man, Armistead quickly infiltrated British forces via Benedict Arnold’s camp. While he first took on menial tasks, his vast knowledge of the terrain was useful to both Arnold and Cornwallis for British intelligence during the war. So they assigned him the task of spying on the colonies.
Armistead’s work as a double agent made traveling between the camps easier, as he didn’t stand out as a peculiar presence on either side. It also made collecting information on British forces less dangerous—as long as he wasn’t caught. Able to travel freely between both British and American camps, Armistead could easily relay information to Lafayette about British plans.
Using the details of Armistead’s reports, Lafayette and General George Washington were able to prevent the British from sending 10,000 reinforcements to Yorktown, Virginia. The American and French blockade surprised British forces and crippled their military. As a result of Lafayette and Washington’s victory in Yorktown, the British officially surrendered on Oct. 19, 1781.
Despite his critical actions, Armistead returned to William Armistead after the war to continue his life as a slave. He was not eligible for emancipation under the Act of 1783 for slave-soldiers, because he was considered a slave-spy, and had to petition the Virginia legislature for his emancipation. The Marquis de Lafayette assisted him by writing a recommendation for his freedom, which was granted in 1787. In gratitude, Armistead adopted Lafayette’s surname.
After receiving his freedom, he moved nine miles south of New Kent, bought 40 acres of land, and began farming. He later married, raised a large family, and was granted a $40 annual pension by the Virginia legislature for his services during the American Revolution. He lived as a farmer in Virginia until his death on August 9, 1830.