Project Aims To Identify Blacks Who Fought In U.S. Revolutionary War

By The Associated Press

Thousands of Black men fought in George Washington’s army during the Revolutionary War, or American War of Independence, yet their contributions rarely appear in modern history books.

Harvard University professor Compatriot Henry Louis Gates Jr. and the Sons of the American Revolution are hoping to change that with an ambitious project to identify those soldiers and their descendants.

“My first goal with this project is to enhance the awareness of the American public of the role of African-Americans in the struggle for freedom in this country,” said Gates, director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard.

“Plus, my concern is that there are many people walking around, like me, who had no idea that I had an ancestor who fought in the Revolution,” he said.

Gates was inspired to begin the project after he learned he had a relative who fought in the Revolution during filming of a documentary series, “African American Lives,” which used DNA testing and genealogical research to investigate the ancestry of notable Black Americans.

The project, funded by Harvard and the Sons of the American Revolution, will identify Blacks believed to have fought in the war and encourage their descendants to come forward.

Joseph W. Dooley, the chairman of the Sons of the American Revolution’s membership committee, said he wants to identify as many people as possible who contributed to the war. He envisions future projects tracking the contributions of women and Native Americans.

The descendants will be eligible to apply for membership in the Sons of the American Revolution or the Daughters of the American Revolution – organizations devoted to service and genealogy for people who can trace their lineage to soldiers who fought in the war.

Of nearly 27,000 members of Sons of the American Revolution, fewer than 30 are Black, said Jim Randall, executive director and chief executive of the organization. Of 165,000 Daughters of the American Revolution members, only about 30 are Black, Dooley said.

An estimated 5,000 Blacks fought for independence during the Revolutionary War.

“It’s not recognized by most Americans that perhaps as much as 10 percent of George Washington’s troops were Black,” Dooley said. “It’s reasonable to say that the contribution of Blacks in the American Revolution was indispensable.”

Genealogist Jane Ailes, who also traced Gates’ ancestry, plans to look over 80,000 pension applications for Revolutionary War soldiers and compare the names against federal census records, which often contained information on race.

Ailes said she has already identified more than 20 people who may have served in the Revolutionary War, including an escaped slave.

Gates was inducted into the Massachusetts Society of the Sons of the American Revolution in 2006, and several other members of his family have joined similar organizations as well.