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In 1776, the Founders’ promise of “all men are created equal” remained distant for many. Trace the heroic stories of the enslaved and freed Black Americans who fought to define democracy and their liberty through the Revolutionary War.
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00:02One of the challenges of studying and seeking to understand the stories and the histories
00:10of enslaved and free black people in the 18th and 19th centuries is a problem of sources.
00:17How do we reconstruct the lives of people whose lives and stories were considered unimportant
00:27of acknowledgement, considered unimportant to historical documentation?
00:33How do we take people who were not even fully considered human and try to reconstruct their lives?
00:42What is fortunate is that we do have little tidbits that we are able to use to draw upon
00:49to learn more about their lives.
00:52And from those little fragments, we are at least able to salvage something about them
00:58that then we can fully render from that the story and the life of a person who changed
01:06the course of the history of this country.
01:12The unanimous declaration of the 13 United States of America.
01:16We hold these truths to be self-evident.
01:20That all men are created equal.
01:22That they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.
01:26That among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
01:30That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just power
01:36from the consent of the governed.
01:39Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people
01:45to alter or to abolish it.
01:48And to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing
01:53its power in such form as to them shall seem most likely to affect their safety and happiness.
01:59But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces
02:06a design to reduce them under absolute despotism.
02:10It is their right.
02:11It is their duty to throw of such government and to provide new guards for their future security.
02:20The words and the message of the American Revolution and the Declaration of Independence continue
02:27to inspire the world today.
02:29America, of course, is an unfinished project.
02:32We know this.
02:33We still have people who do not have their rights.
02:36But the possibility, the framework for getting those rights is still there.
02:50Who remembers our conversation yesterday about the Declaration of Independence?
02:55Britain wanted to take over America and the United States didn't want that, so they wanted independence.
03:02Yes. And what does independence mean, Max?
03:07It says, we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.
03:14That is an awesome remembering.
03:16And does anybody else want to take a crack at what does that really mean?
03:22That we have something that other people can't take away?
03:27Absolutely right.
03:28There are some things that you are entitled to.
03:33Rights.
03:37The American Revolution does a lot of things.
03:39It obviously creates a new nation, but it also creates portals for advocacy for Black people.
03:46Hearing that everyone's supposed to be free and equal, but then looking at our situation and saying,
03:51does that not apply to me too?
03:53We have to then think,
03:56what's the disconnect between the drafting and the living of these particular words?
04:04The Declaration of Independence, we read it now, is a kind of an optimistic statement.
04:07But in many ways, it's a very pessimistic statement that we have to be independent because we're
04:13under threat from so many different directions.
04:181776 is really the culmination of more than a decade of effort on the part of the colonists to
04:25explain their grievances to the king and also to articulate principles for how they wanted to
04:30organize their lives.
04:31There were many different voices and streams that came together.
04:36Most of the guys who wrote and signed the Declaration of Independence did not see it
04:42as a freedom document. For instance, it never says anything bad about the idea of monarchy.
04:47For them, it was not an equality document. It was an independence document. They are all about
04:53creating free and independent states.
04:57White revolutionaries began to call themselves slaves of King George and talking to Sicily about
05:01liberty and freedom.
05:04I am not so sure the founders really meant we believe these truths to be self-evident for everyone.
05:12We believe them for ourselves because we are feeling the weight and the pressure
05:16of what we believe is our own kind of enslavement or our own bondage.
05:24Regardless of whom you're talking about in terms of familiar names, whether it's George Washington or
05:29Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, they share a commitment to American liberty and a commitment
05:35to slave holding.
05:37What we forget sometimes is that the basis of these words assumes full personhood. And so if you do not
05:43assume that someone is fully human, fully person, then you're not even thinking about them. I don't
05:50think that they were even considering slaves when they wrote this because they couldn't see their full humanity.
05:56The Declaration of Independence doesn't create new beliefs or ideals among black people,
06:03but it does create a sense that there's an opportunity here that we've not had before.
06:10We hold these truths to be self-evident. All men are created equal. There's no mention of ethnicity,
06:17there's no mention of race, there's no mention of who it applies to and who it doesn't.
06:23Black people were not loyal to a cause, they were loyal to the principle and ideas of freedom.
06:28They didn't care who gave them that freedom or who arranged for them to have that freedom.
06:33It is part of this enduring journey that has defined not only the life of African Americans
06:46in this country, but actually has defined what this country is really all about.
06:59It's a paradox, I think, for African Americans that there were two different paths to freedom,
07:04one potentially through self-government in the American experiment, and the other through the British.
07:09When the Declaration of Independence is authored and certainly lived out,
07:15black people fought for their inclusion in the country, even at times when the country
07:21wouldn't necessarily want them there.
07:25The stories of Mombet, Skipwith, James Lafayette, Harry Washington, these people are exceptional,
07:36but they're also representative. They provide us with a window into a much, much larger world
07:44of black embrace of revolutionary ideals and action about that. So all of these people,
07:51in their own lives, demonstrate to us the important power, influence, and action of the American
08:01Revolution and the Declaration of Independence.
08:08When I think about what life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness means with a godlike
08:14James Lafayette, it's complicated.
08:19My name is James. I'm owned by a man by the name of William Armistead.
08:24Living history interpretation is a whole other beast because you have to understand the foundations
08:34of the period in which you're interpreting. When I say we hold these truths to be self-evident,
08:38that all men are created equal, that they are endowed but they are created with certain unalienable
08:40rights that among these are what?
08:43Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
08:45Nearly everybody sitting here knew it, didn't they? And even back then, we knew it.
08:50When I started here 17 years ago, I almost quit. So much of what I deal with daily as a
08:57black man
08:58in America, I saw it being codified in the documents of colonial era America and I got depressed.
09:03I'm owned by some of the very same men that are fighting for that document.
09:07So I knew that I couldn't trust the American side.
09:10But you're giving a voice to people who might not have had a voice during the time
09:13that they were alive. And you're finally making sure that they're heard.
09:20For the enslaved, there isn't a side that is truly working for you. Neither side is saying slavery
09:27is wrong. So I had to figure out the why. Why did James decide to join the American cause and
09:35not the British cause?
09:40He was born into enslavement in 1748. He ends up meeting the Marquis de Lafayette,
09:48who had come from France to fight the Revolutionary War. The Marquis de Lafayette was a very young Frenchman.
09:58In 1777, he became a major general under General George Washington at 19 and was one of the most
10:05successful generals of the war. The Marquis de Lafayette managed spies, one of whom was James Lafayette.
10:13And the deal was, you spy for the American side, and then after the war, you'll get free.
10:21James posed as a person who supported the British side, spying on the Americans. But he was actually
10:29on the American side, spying on the British and providing really valuable information.
10:38The stakes that an enslaved individual would have been dealing with as a spy, the dangers,
10:47the worries of being compromised, the worries of death. But those worries are the worries that
10:53the average enslaved person has every single day.
11:00Virginia represents ground zero for the American empire. Six of the first 10 presidents, Virginians,
11:09among them Thomas Jefferson, who so eloquently penned lofty words.
11:14All men are created with certain unalienable rights, among them life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.
11:22But life was not afforded to black people. Liberty was not afforded to black people. And the pursuit
11:29of happiness was a distant dream. There is no linear path to freedom. So how to deal with that? Well,
11:37you can live a life of slavery, try to work out the best deal within that, or you can, as
11:42people often
11:43did run away. This is the golden age of Virginia, because this is when the big plantation houses are
11:56built. This is when families like the Jeffersons and the Washingtons consolidate their wealth. And
12:01it's all based on the backs of enslaved people. And it's so prosperous. Virginia is the largest and
12:10richest colony. And by 1770, nearly 40 percent of Virginia's population is black. One in four
12:19blacks in America are said to be able to retrace their roots to the rivers in the Richmond region.
12:31We are on what we consider to be sacred land. This is the future site of the Skipwith Roper cottage.
12:42This
12:42is a reconstruction project so that we can honor the legacy of Abraham Payton Skipwith, one of the first
12:48home owners in what would become Jackson Ward. Skipwith has direct connection to some of the founding
12:56fathers. And through that connection, he was able to amass the level of knowledge, know-how, and finance
13:03to be able to purchase a plot of land in what would become Jackson Ward, not only as the first
13:10black
13:10resident, but one of the first residents period. Jackson Ward is one of those spaces that's been
13:17celebrated for its black entrepreneurial spirit. It was once known as Black Wall Street, the Harlem of the
13:24South. There is just a boom of black entrepreneurship. When we think about this idea of generational wealth,
13:33what it means for us to have this land and for us to be gifted this land, something that actually
13:37has
13:37real tangible value means a great deal. Abraham Payton Skipwith is a black man whose life we can retrace to
13:521767.
13:54He was enslaved by a family known as the Amblers in Williamsburg, Virginia. Jacqueline Ambler worked for
14:02Thomas Jefferson. He was part of his council. He served as the collector of debts in the Williamsburg area.
14:10The house that we're interviewing in was owned by the daughter of Rebecca and Jacqueline Ambler,
14:15and she was married to John Marshall, who is on the Supreme Court.
14:20So Skipwith was enslaved by some of the country's most celebrated dignitaries at the time.
14:28In 1775, there is this document by the daughter of Jacqueline and Rebecca, and she is writing an account of
14:37watching her parents in conversation. They have heard of people throwing chests of tea in the water
14:45up north, not realizing that they're describing the Boston Tea Party. They're talking about liberty and
14:50freedom in juxtaposition of being oppressed by the mother country. And starting to describe that they
14:57have no clue would be the American Revolution. What's so perplexing about the document is that the very
15:04first sentence is, surely Abram knows to bring me my tea. So while you're talking about these concepts of
15:10freedom and liberty and being oppressed, you're actively oppressing someone in your parlor.
15:16Around 1782, Jacqueline and Rebecca sell him to a gentleman named Thomas Bentley. Thomas Bentley is
15:24known as an explorer. And so when he was exploring, he left Skipwith in charge of his affairs. He worked
15:32as
15:32a clerk in the store. This is a man who is enslaved, but also running stores on behalf of people
15:40directly
15:40connected to the founding fathers. In places like Richmond, you have an increasing number of both
15:49enslaved and legally free Black people who are actually being intentionally trained for the purpose
15:57of advancing the institution of slavery. And they are now becoming blacksmiths, tailors, shipbuilders, and
16:04navigators. Abraham Skipwith represents a very different experience from most other enslaved people
16:18at the time, in the sense that in order to serve his own interests, his enslaver is willing to let
16:26him
16:26learn to read and write. Skipwith applies for his legislative petition for freedom in 1785. How does he
16:35even know how to get in touch with them? How does this enslaved man even know how to send a
16:39letter?
16:40Black people were very aware of the law and of their status. They were the unseen servants in the room
16:50who heard everything, understood everything, and communicated that information to others. That always
16:57created fear in white society. What dawned on me is that we can sometimes be trained around the white gaze,
17:08where when we see a narrative, we see the white object as the center. When he was serving tea, he
17:16was getting
17:17the tea. And he was able to realize these concepts of freedom and liberty and business and to develop an
17:24acumen to know how to file for a legislative petition a couple of years later.
17:31Legislative petitions in the Commonwealth of Virginia, as with other colonies, were a way that black people
17:37could petition for their freedom or have a white male petition on their behalf. Some were successful,
17:47some work. Much of the good, the bad, and the ugly that has made America America began here. Skipwith is
17:55a
17:56part of that grand legacy.
18:011775 is the height of the political crisis before the war begins. It's the moment in which the 13 colonies
18:11are having a fallout with the British government. 1775 is the year of Lexington and Concord,
18:18the shot heard around the world. It's the year in which a political crisis turns to war.
18:28Politics got very hot in Virginia in the fall of 1775.
18:33As long as Virginia was a colony, it was a world of hierarchy. Power flowed down from kings and
18:40parliaments and royal appointed governors.
18:44The king appointed governors for all of the royally chartered colonies. The colonies had different forms
18:50of administrative structure. The governor would translate British policy to the American context.
18:57The British keep adding more and more constraints and taxes on white Americans.
19:03When parliament and the king, for example, passed new taxes, it was the job of the governor to enforce
19:09those taxes. John Murray had the title of Lord Dunmore, the last world governor of Virginia. He was
19:16appointed by parliament and by the crown. What he was looking for was young men who would fight
19:20on the side of the British. Most British troops are located in Boston. British ships are in Boston.
19:27So he really has to make his own fighting force. He has to create his own homegrown group of people
19:33to battle the Patriots. And there's one obvious candidate.
19:38Kemp's landing battle in November 1775. Black forces fighting against the Patriots and the British win.
19:45This is exactly what the Patriots have always feared. The English look upon this and they say,
19:52these people are going to be good soldiers.
19:57Virginia had the largest slave population in all the colonies. Lord Dunmore saw an opportunity.
20:04But he decided, after winning a battle at Kemp's Landing, that it was time to offer them freedom
20:10in exchange for their service. He needed soldiers, but he also had to promise them something to get them to
20:16fight.
20:19November 7th of 1775, Dunmore put out to the world, he is going to declare martial law
20:27and provide freedom to indentured servants and Negroes appertaining to rebels.
20:35It's very clear that people were thinking about freedom, articulating it, understanding its value.
20:42The only people making that offer of freedom south of the Potomac River, that is Virginia on down,
20:48were the British. There's a sense in which the Revolutionary War, among many other things,
20:56was an involuntary black civil war, meaning that there were blacks fighting on both sides.
21:04If you're a black American, you've got additional factors to weigh in. Black Americans are alert to
21:11every kind of opportunity and are taking whatever they can find. A lot of them would just run away,
21:17just escape, and I'll calculate which side I'm on when I have to.
21:22There's a debate among historians about what to call the African Americans who joined the British,
21:27and some have said for a long time, black loyalists. Well, they weren't really loyal to the British,
21:32and they weren't loyal to the Americans. They were loyal to the principle of the rights of man.
21:39They were embroiling themselves in this white conflict in hopes of attaining freedom for themselves.
21:46So large numbers of men, women, and children begin to show up behind British lines.
21:51They come from all over the colony and actually as far away as Massachusetts.
21:55We're talking about hundreds and maybe even thousands of people who began to leave their
22:00plantations in the hope of finding freedom.
22:04Enslaved people literally knocked on the door of the governor's palace in Williamsburg and said,
22:10we will bear arms on behalf of the king and help him put down the Patriot Rebellion. All we want
22:18in
22:18return is our freedom. Young men brought with them their wives, their children, their parents.
22:23Dunmore set out to make soldiers as quickly as he could and created Lord Dunmore's Ethiopian Regiment.
22:31This is the first black regiment in the British army in history. He gave these men red coats, he gave
22:36them
22:36training, taught them how to fire guns, how to use their muskets and pretty quickly he had a fighting
22:42force ready to take on the Patriots. Black people have been running away since they were brought to
22:49this land. But for the first time in Virginia's history, you have a chance to actually run directly
22:56to something. There are numerous black people who fled from prominent founding families.
23:02Probably the most important one is Harry Washington, formerly a slave of George Washington.
23:10He was born around 1740, somewhere near the Gambia River region. In 1763, George Washington bought
23:17him at an estate sale and rechristened him Harry. George Washington puts him to work in the
23:23great dismal swamp where he does really arduous labor for years, then brings him to Mount Vernon.
23:31He runs away. George Washington placed ads and they captured Harry. Washington was a very shrewd
23:40manager and would have had the option of selling him farther south. And so the fact that he kept Harry
23:45indicated that Harry was a very valuable field hand. It's kind of common for people to run away
23:52be caught and be returned. So even though Harry Washington runs away, this is a guy who's working
23:59on a plantation in Virginia that the freedom idea is intrinsic to his being. The freedom idea is
24:06something that's part of his soul and he's not going to give that up. From 1775 through 1782, George
24:17Washington is busy with the Continental Army. The fate of his estate is very much in question.
24:26When the political crisis emerges and Governor Dunmore decides that he's going to offer freedom
24:34to enslaved men and women owned by rebels who are willing to come to British lines, Harry Washington
24:40escapes. He joins Dunmore and he ends up assisting the fight on the British side all throughout the war.
24:47Harry was going to work hard and die young if he stayed at Mount Vernon and so leaving with the
24:52British became his best option. George Washington is fighting for freedom while at the same time he
25:02is holding hundreds of people in bondage including Harry Washington. Harry Washington is deeply committed
25:11to freedom. This is actually something they have in common. But George Washington believes in it for
25:16himself, not for Harry. Harry managed to flee to the British, taking up arms against his former owner.
25:27There are gambles on top of gambles for somebody like Harry. Nobody knew who was going to win. So choosing
25:35the winning side for a war that's going to run six or seven years, you don't know when you escape
25:41to
25:42Dunmore's boats that he's going to keep his promises or that he's not going to turn around and sell you
25:48into
25:48to enslavement. Harry rose to the rank of corporal in the British army. There are examples of enslaved
25:59people who are using the spirit, the language, the ideology of the American Revolution, of the
26:08Declaration of Independence, and they're all leveraging it to gain their freedom. They're all using very
26:15different strategies. The title of this book is Mumbet's Declaration of Independence. Mumbet lived in the late 1700s,
26:35but a lot of documents about this woman's life were written by people that were not her.
26:43She couldn't read or write. Amaya. Why can't she read and write? Because she was enslaved.
26:54There's not a lot that we know about the origins of Mumbet. We do know that she ended up in
27:01the home of
27:02Colonel John Ashley and Hannah Ashley. The question of the relationship between the Declaration of
27:09Independence, the Revolution, and the trajectory of enslavement is immensely complicated. In the South,
27:17the question of emancipation was just off the table because of the economic dependence on the plantation
27:22economy. And so that locked the South in. So in the North, they actually moved relatively quickly to the
27:29idea that enslavement itself was a violation of basic rights and should be ended. Mumbet lives in
27:36Massachusetts. Massachusetts is one of the first states to establish gradual emancipation. Their
27:42constitution declares, you know, that all people are equal and we're free. And so Mumbet knows about
27:48this. And at the same time, she's living with a master, John Ashley, who denies this to her.
27:53So in Massachusetts, the fall of slavery is directly related to the American Revolution.
28:01The Sheffield Resolves, written in 1773 by Colonel Ashley, Theodore Sedgwick, and others. It was their
28:10response to the atrocities that they felt they were experiencing by the British Empire, saying,
28:15we are all free and equal and we should not be under the tyranny of the British Empire.
28:21Later, the Declaration of Independence and the Massachusetts Constitution picks up some of that
28:27same language. So in this home, as Mumbet is working, she is hearing the Sheffield Resolves being formed.
28:36She is living her life as a slave. We tend to associate Massachusetts with freedom. The Boston Massacre,
28:45the Boston Tea Party, the heart and soul of the American Revolution. And that is certainly true
28:52as a practical matter. But at precisely the same time, Massachusetts is also the heart and soul of
29:01slavery in the North. Northeastern slavery was looked at as a kinder slavery. You were not being
29:10brutalized in the same type of way. But nonetheless, you were still not free.
29:18The Colonel's wife, Mrs. Ashley, owned the sharpest tongue in town. Does anybody know what that means?
29:27Yeah. That they aren't as kind as other people? Like, kind of mean?
29:34Hannah Ashley had a reputation for being a particularly violent mistress.
29:42At some point, there's another slave known as Lizzie. We are unsure of whether Lizzie is Mumbet's
29:48daughter, her sister. One day, Hannah goes to attack Lizzie. Hannah tried to hit her with a hot shovel.
29:57Mumbet puts her arms up to protect Lizzie. And as a result of it, received a cut that she bore
30:06the
30:06scarves of for the remainder of her life. This is when she decides enough is enough. And so directly
30:13after that event, she goes over to Sedgwick's house and asks him to help her sue for her freedom.
30:20Massachusetts courts were the only courts at the time of the revolution that were allowing enslaved men
30:29and women to bring their cases before the court to make the case that they had a right to freedom.
30:38Theodore Sedgwick eventually decides they're going to represent Bette, which is an interesting thing,
30:43given that he had a great relationship with Colonel John Ashley. He had actually helped form the Sheffield
30:49Resolves in their home.
30:53It's hard to imagine her position working for somebody as an enslaved person and then litigating
30:59against them at the same time. Her courage, I think, just is evident from her actions themselves.
31:07There was a lot of fights within the courts. There was a lot of stalling to keep Bette from seeing
31:12her day in court.
31:17Mumbette is an ordinary woman. I mean, she's extraordinary in the fact that what she does,
31:23but her actual position in society is pretty ordinary. She's not a soldier. Lafayette is.
31:29He is a highly skilled military practitioner. And these are the kind of people who are promised
31:35their freedom by their masters. But he's someone who works for both sides.
31:42James is at these important timeframes of the war, 1781 in particular. He wanted to contribute to the
31:50war on the side of the Patriots. But he saw the avenue because of the fact that there were so
31:57many
31:57Black refugees with the British in a way that he can spy by mingling with them. He's right there with
32:05them. He's right next to Lord Cornwallis, working for him.
32:12James Lafayette got work as an aide to the British commander-in-chief in the South named Cornwallis.
32:20What Cornwallis didn't know was that he was listening in on Cornwallis' conversation
32:26and then transmitting the gist of those conversations back to the Marquis de Lafayette,
32:32who was on the American side.
32:35James helped to bring that intelligence to the Americans that the British were heading to Yorktown
32:39in the first place. That, in many ways, made it possible for General Washington, when he made it
32:46in secret to Virginia to surround the British and to, in essence, prevent them from being resupplied.
32:56For that reason and many others, the Americans and French were able to force the British to surrender at Yorktown.
33:04In essence, that siege of Yorktown ended the war. That's partly because of the contributions
33:11of James Lafayette.
33:20His deal with the Marquis de Lafayette was,
33:24I will spy for you, and then when the war's over, I get free. But he was not freed.
33:30After the war, the Marquis de Lafayette went back to France and assumed that that promise
33:37would be kept, but it wasn't.
33:38I was sent back to slavery, sent back to Master William for six more years.
33:46So what changed? The Marquis de Lafayette.
33:49The Marquis de Lafayette came back to Virginia in 1784. And James went to him and said,
33:55you know, they never did free me. The Marquis de Lafayette was furious at that
33:59and finally got the Virginia legislature to free James Lafayette in 1787, so six years after the war.
34:09For him, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, even though he might not have actually known those
34:14words and the way that they were professed. But in how he lived his life and the choices that he
34:20made,
34:21it shows that for him, he believed in the cause, even if it meant that he wouldn't actually free
34:28himself from bondage until almost a decade after his service.
34:41Unbelievably, the Americans are victorious and the war comes to an end.
34:47But now the country finds itself with a whole new set of challenges.
34:53What kind of a country are they going to build? In their founding documents, they implied,
35:02at a minimum, that they are committed to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for everyone.
35:09But the question becomes, who, who did they actually mean? Who is included in the brotherhood
35:17of man that they are imagining?
35:23When the United States defeated Britain and secured its independence, one of the pressing questions
35:31is what will happen to those enslaved men and women who ran away during the course of the war
35:39and got their freedom by going to British lines?
35:43Harry Washington was evacuated back to New York City, which was still under British control. He
35:48brought with them his fiancee, a South Carolina runaway named Sarah Jones. At the same moment,
35:54American and British negotiators were hammering out AFP's treaty. They would write into the treaty
36:00that when the British left, they could not take with them any Negroes or American property.
36:07Harry Washington, who got away and who tasted freedom for all those years, and now you're going
36:14to be dragged back into slavery. George Washington arranged meetings with Guy Carlton, the commander-in-chief
36:23on the British side, and Washington said, I know you have slaves that belong to me.
36:29You knew Harry was there. And according to this article, you cannot take them with you.
36:34And Carlton says, they're gone. Gone, you say? He says, Washington is astonished and appalled.
36:42Carlton simply would not back down. He thought it would be dishonorable for Britain having made
36:48promises in 75 and 79 to black Americans. The British government could have gone back on its promises,
36:57and that it did not says something about the kinds of ties that were forged during the war.
37:07And that's not the same thing as believing in racial equality, nor is it the same thing as believing that
37:13slavery should be overthrown. The commanders like Guy Carlton who made these decisions were not abolitionists.
37:21They wanted to keep the word to the specific people that they had made promises to.
37:28The governor had made these proclamations in the king's name, and so therefore to go back on that,
37:35that would be highly dishonorable to the king. So he's not going to do that.
37:39And so they list all of these people with the idea that later on there may be some compensation.
37:45So the final agreement was that he would allow for a very detailed accounting of everybody
37:49under his jurisdiction called the Book of Negroes.
37:52The Book of Negroes is an administrative document, but what it records are the individual initiatives
38:01to secure freedom. But it's also one of these very rare instances where we get the names of all of
38:08the people who had made a decision to flee the world that they had known and to take a chance
38:15to
38:15pursue a better life outside of the United States.
38:20It gives us a real picture of who was on the British side during the revolution. And there's Harry
38:25Washington, listed as a stout fellow owned previously by General George Washington.
38:31In the summer of 1783, Harry, with about 300 people, he sailed out of New York Harbor to Nova Scotia,
38:39and their story is bittersweet. Everything there went wrong. 3,000 black refugees arrive in Nova
38:46Scotia, and white Canadians didn't want them. They build a church, and Canadians literally tear it
38:52down. They build a house, and white sailors tear down the house. The British had the idea of getting
38:59land in West Africa in setting up what became the colony of Sierra Leone.
39:05The sort of charity colony plays to settle black loyalists.
39:09And so they jumped at an opportunity to return to the West African coast.
39:18So enslaved people are exploring all different types of avenues to gain their freedom. And one of the
39:26ways is through voluntary manumission. When such strategies fail, they would turn to legislative
39:34petitions or legislative appeals, where they would use the court system and file a petition appealing for
39:42their freedom.
39:45One of the things that we do know is that when Skip Witt files his legislative petition,
39:50he makes sure to say, I am not the unfortunate characteristic of a slave.
39:55Those who were his witnesses for his legislative testimony, it includes Benjamin Harrison,
40:00who was one of the founding fathers and signers of the Declaration of Independence.
40:04When I think about Skip Witt's proximity to not only the people who helped develop the United
40:11States of America as an institution, but those who would vouch for him. And in 1789,
40:18he purchases his freedom, and he builds this three-level, gambrel-roofed cottage.
40:24And he's able to not only purchase his own freedom, but the freedom of his wife and his granddaughter.
40:29He was not able to purchase the freedom of his direct children, but he was able to establish a legacy.
40:38Skip Witt was part of a whole line of free Blacks who understood that purchasing property, establishing
40:48your business, and establishing a legacy of inheritance for your children and their children's children's
40:57was an important avenue to agency and to protecting your loved ones.
41:04And you would see a lot of free Blacks who, if they had the capability, if they had the money,
41:11they purchased a lot of property.
41:22In 1797, he writes this will.
41:25In the name of God, amen. I, Abraham Skipwith, of the county of Henrico, being sick and weak in body,
41:34but of sound mind, memory, and understanding, do make my last will and testament in manner and form following.
41:42I leave to my beloved wife, Chloe Skipwith. It's the beloved for me.
41:47The house wherein I now live, which stands on the street, a road together with 30 yards of ground
41:53on front, beginning at the west corner of Mr. Isaac Judah's lot.
41:57Skipwith passes down the home to his family members. He really understood the value of what it meant to
42:05have a piece of property that you could pass down, how it could be leveraged, and he was one of
42:09the
42:09first Black people, if not the first, in the state of Virginia to be able to do so.
42:13I give to my son Samuel Jurette his choice of 10 suits of my wearing apparel, my silver watch,
42:20a gold brooch, and my silver knee buckles.
42:24And he has things that you just would never hear of a Black person having. He had gold and silver,
42:31a gun. I mean, a gun unapologetically exercising his second amendment. Beyond the gun, it's the horse
42:38and buggy. I cannot even imagine a Black man riding around in a horse and buggy not in service
42:44to an enslaver. It disrupts everything I've ever heard of what it was like to be Black in the 1700s.
42:50And the residue of my wearing apparel after my son Samuel has made his choices, I give to Benjamin
42:57Skipwith, who at present is the property of Mr. Thomas Reynolds of Gloucester County.
43:04He goes in and out of realizing the American dream and then has to end the sentence, but
43:13you're still the property of someone else. It's like a dream deferred a little bit when you think
43:22about it. Because when he died, all of his family still wasn't free.
43:32A story like that lets us know how deep and powerful the legacy of slavery was and how ultimately
43:41it was impossible to fully escape the cruelty of enslavement. Because even when you gained your
43:49own freedom, you knew you were leaving other people behind. On the other hand, you have someone
43:56like Mumbet. If not for the precedent that her case sets, slavery in Massachusetts probably would have
44:05died a very different death.
44:08You wouldn't find a story like Mumbet in the other colonies.
44:13Mumbet is able to bring her case before the Massachusetts court in part because of their
44:20Constitution of 1780, which essentially takes the words of the Declaration of Independence and enshrines
44:26them into the institution, the fundamental laws of Massachusetts itself.
44:31Her suit is based upon very careful reading of the Massachusetts Constitution. She knows that this
44:38is the law and that she has rights under it. Sedgwick's argument in court was that the second
44:45Massachusetts had ratified the Constitution. They'd also essentially abolished slavery in the state.
44:55There's a straight line from the choices made in the Declaration of Independence to the lawsuit
45:01that Mumbet is able to bring. What is Mumbet arguing? That she should be free if the Constitution says so.
45:10And why does the Constitution matter? Why can she use that as an argument?
45:16Because they clearly said that every person is born to be free and should be free. And she is a
45:27person.
45:30And the result of her lawsuit is that slavery comes to an end in Massachusetts.
45:36And, of course, she wins her freedom.
45:39Slavery ended in Massachusetts not because the whites of Massachusetts decided they wanted to end
45:46slavery, but because Mumbet decided to file a lawsuit. The idea that an all-white male jury made this
45:55decision that would literally change kind of the landscape of their community and their lives.
46:02She changes her name. She becomes known as Elizabeth Freeman. And she lives the rest of her life as a
46:09free,
46:10emancipated person who has the ability to move and to make choices about her own life and her own destiny.
46:20She was a midwife. She could cook. She was the person you kind of came to if you needed a
46:26bomb or a sow.
46:29And in 1790, married a black veteran. Elizabeth Freeman, we'll call her that now. A woman who
46:37was enslaved, who could not read or write, who just because of her bravery and her willingness to step
46:43out for the sake of herself and others, was able to carve out a life that was one of the
46:49pursuit of life,
46:50liberty, and happiness.
47:00What words come to your mind when you think about Elizabeth Freeman's life? You will notice different
47:07things about the same story. That's what history is all about. Did you choose to draw her
47:16in any time period? After she was free.
47:20After she was free. Why did you choose to draw her then? Uh, because she was happy.
47:30Mumbet creates a blueprint. Her case ends slavery in Massachusetts.
47:36Harriet Washington returns to Africa after years living in North America.
47:44In Sierra Leone, black loyalists were hoping to establish a new home where they could have freedom,
47:51liberty, security, autonomy, property, all the rights that they had been denied in North America.
48:00The colony of Sierra Leone was designed to make money. The colony demanded that before land title
48:05could be given to people like Harry they pay.
48:09The British said, well, we're gonna have to tax our black colonists in Sierra Leone.
48:14They were barely making any sort of living.
48:18There ends up being a rebellion against British rule.
48:22Former black loyalists who get accused of having sort of carried with them American political
48:28principles to Sierra Leone. Harry Washington became the leader of a new tax revolt.
48:37The British brought in, uh, redcoats and Jamaican maroons and put down the rebellion.
48:42Harry was last seen about the age of 60. He'd been exiled. He was walking up to the coast,
48:47probably heading back toward the Gambia, which is where he was sold out of.
48:52And that's when Harry vanishes from history.
49:10Jackson Ward is foundational to this city and indeed its story is foundational to this country.
49:17We decided that for America 250 we wanted to tell the truth about this country through a more holistic and
49:23honest lens.
49:25I desire to be buried in a plain and decent manner on my own lot, my grave.
49:34In the 1950s, Federal Route 1 was the main artery from Maine to Florida.
49:41Because we had had a growth in the auto industry, Route 1 was just too small to accommodate
49:47that many motor vehicles. And so the Federal Highways Act expanded Route 1 and made expressways.
49:55Through every city that Interstate 95 traversed, it went through the Black neighborhood.
50:06The first public cemetery for Black people in Richmond wasn't established until 1799.
50:11So if he made this will in 1797, he is practicing the custom of being buried at your home.
50:18And so when I think about where his body now rests, I think it's very telling that as we think
50:28about
50:29what Interstate 95 took, it was bodies along with people's belongings.
50:38So the house was sold for $25. It was placed on a flatbed and it was dislocated to the former
50:44tobacco
50:44plantation for the Secretary of War for the Confederate Army. And it sits there to this day.
50:52Our work right now is to ensure that he can rest in peace by reconstructing his cottage as a historic
50:58site for America 250.
51:02While it's an absolute blessing that Skipwood's home was not destroyed, I read his will with a
51:10level of heartbreak over the reality of what happened, but also with a heart full of gratitude
51:17for having the opportunity to be able to bring that property back to its rightful place and unearth
51:23this legacy that is so deeply important to not only Virginia, but the nation.
51:30We are setting a precedent for the nation of reclaiming property that was stolen from its
51:38ancestral home by returning Mr. Skipwood's cottage. And so once again,
51:46Virginia will set the lamp and blaze the trail.
51:54I hope that it can be a restorative, but also a reconciliation of sorts through his story,
52:00because it was complicated as is Americua, as is Virginia, and definitely as is Richmond.
52:20I want to open up today in the spirit and words of Abraham Payton Skipwood, in the name of God,
52:27amen.
52:30It all started with one really simple question. Who is Jackson Ward named after? In search of the actual
52:36namesake, we came to realize who was named in honor and to create legacy for one of the fathers of
52:43the
52:43Confederacy. And we knew that one of the things we had to do was rededicate the street names to the
52:48black legacy holders. Throughout Jackson Ward, that's where we came across Abraham Payton Skipwood.
52:54Today, we commemorate 250 years of the ideal upon which this country was founded.
53:01That all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with the inalienable rights of life,
53:07liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We remember those who it took a lot longer to see just a little
53:15bit of that promise come true. If anybody were to ask me what did we hope that you all walk
53:23away with today,
53:23I think it's the fact that the founding generation included black people, of means, of fortitude.
53:31And so we hope that Skipwood is a disruption to the model that we've been told about what it meant
53:36to be black and American during the American Revolution. Two, three.
53:48We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their
53:56creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
54:04Lots of people think of the Declaration of Independence as kind of an exclamation point
54:09that launches the revolution. It's actually much bigger than that. What it really does is
54:17let people who are fighting for freedom, it lets them coalesce their efforts. So yes, it's a turning
54:24point from maybe revolution to definitely having a revolution, but it's also the point that we start
54:30to get the crystallization of the abolition movement to end slavery and even the beginning of conversations
54:37about women's rights. Basic human moral equality is where the Declaration begins and it gives us
54:46this incredibly powerful picture of what it means for humans to live together.
54:51the Declaration of Independence
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