Overall, how would you assess African Americans’ gains and losses during the Revolutionary era? Consider the outcomes for patriots and loyalists, northerners and southerners, and free blacks and slaves. Who benefited the most and the least? What factors were responsible for these results?

The Revolutionary War is a story that almost any American could summarize, no matter their background, and nearly every time it will match the idea that Americans revolted against the British government’s tyrannical rule in order to gain our independence. But this idea centers around the ideas of white, landowning men of the time and forgets the Black Americans, both enslaved and free, and what they may have gained or lost from this war and the changes it brought. Was the Revolution ultimately good or bad for Black Americans at the time, or can an answer to that question even be applied to the entire United States?

The biggest gain that Black Americans saw after the Revolution was in the North of the new United States. In the North, a shift was suddenly becoming apparent. Slavery was losing popularity and, in some states, was even found to be unconstitutional entirely. As a result, gradual emancipation laws began being put into place, allowing many young or newborn children of enslaved parents to be free by a certain age. While not perfect, this was still a huge win for Black Americans in the North, and it is what would lead directly to the abolishment of slavery nearly 100 years later.

There is then what was quite possibly one of the greatest losses of the post-Revolution era for African Americans in the United States. During the war, it had been offered to enslaved black men that, if they fought for the British, they would be guaranteed their freedom after the war. Despite this, after the British defeat, most of the formerly enslaved blacks and their families were to be captured and returned to their masters. This resulted in kidnappings in the street, countless African Americans who only wanted their freedom being killed, and stories of Black Loyalists attempting to swim to and climb aboard the departing British ships for a chance at freedom, only to have their arms hacked at by British swords, leaving them to drown. This was a monumental blow to the efforts of African Americans towards their freedom that particularly hurt those living in the South at the time, but was still felt throughout the new nation. It provided a clear sign that, while this war was fought against tyranny and for liberty, not all men would be considered equal under this new government.

In conclusion, while some ground was gained for African Americans in the new U.S. after the Revolutionary War, there were also vast losses, with many Black Americans being given a taste of freedom only to have it ripped away from them once more. These two examples demonstrate how the fate of African Americans throughout the U.S. would vary depending on their location in it, and that the American adage that ‘all men are created equal’ would not be realized for a long time.

Please note that this essay was written in about 45 minutes the night it was due. For Archival Purposes(TM) I felt it should still be up here.