People, Locations, Episodes

Black Loyalist in Colonial America, a story

*Black Loyalists are celebrated on this date in 1775. They were African slaves who sided and fought with the British during the American Revolutionary War. They escaped the enslavement of Patriot masters and served on the Loyalist side because the Crown promised freedom. In November 1775, Lord Dunmore issued the controversial Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation. As […]

Blacks Are Barred From The Continental Army

On this date in 1775, the Continental Congress of the United States issued the order to bar Blacks from the army.

Jean-Pierre Boyer, Haitian Politician born

*Jean-Pierre Boyer was born on this date in 1776. He was a Black soldier and politician. Jean-Pierre Boyer was born in Port-au-Prince and was the mulatto son of a French tailor and an African mother, a former slave from Congo. He was sent to France by his father to become educated. During the French Revolution, he fought […]

John F. Webber, Soldier, and Abolitionist born

*John Webber’s birth is celebrated on this date in 1786. He was a white-American soldier and abolitionist. John Ferdinand Webber was born in Vermont, the son of John Webber and Hannah Morrill.  As a soldier in the War of 1812, he served as a private in Capt. S. Dickinson’s company. He was in the thirty-first […]

Pedro Camejo, Soldier born

*Pedro Camejo was born on this date in 1790. Also known as Negro Primero (“The First Black”), he was an Afro Venezuelan soldier and abolitionist. Pedro Camejo was born a slave of a Spanish royalist, Vincente Alonzo, in San Juan de Payara. He gained his freedom in 1816 after enlisting in the military to fight in […]

Lorenzo Barcala, Military Commander born

*Lorenzo Barcala was born on this date in 1793. He was an Afro Argentine military commander who participated in the Argentine civil wars on the side of the Unitarian Party. He was one of the few Black soldiers to reach the rank of colonel in that country. The son of slaves from Mendoza, Argentina, he […]

Lawrence Taliaferro, Soldier and Slave Owner born

*Lawrence Taliaferro was born on this date in 1794. He was a white-American Army officer, Indian agent, and enslaver. Lawrence Taliaferro was born at Whitehall Plantation in King George County, Virginia, to James Garnett Taliaferro and his wife Wilhelmina (Wishart) Taliaferro. During the War of 1812, he enlisted at age 18 as a volunteer in […]

Thomas Peters; Canadian Soldier, and Abolitionist born

*This date in 1738 is celebrated as the birth date of Thomas Peters. He was a Black abolitionist and soldier fighting for the British in the American Revolutionary War. He was born in West Africa to the Yoruba tribe, the Egba clan. In 1760, at twenty-two years old, he was captured by slave traders, sold as a […]

Charles Trowbridge, Military Officer born

*Charles Trowbridge was born on this date in 1835. He was a White American soldier, abolitionist, and politician.

Charles Tyler Trowbridge was from Morristown, New Jersey in an area known as Trowbridge Mountain. He was third of seven children born to Elijah Freeman Trowbridge and Temperance Ludlow Muchmore. His family moved to Brooklyn, New York in 1854. In 1857 he married Emeline Haviland Jackson at Freehold, New Jersey. They had one child, Ida Emeline Trowbridge who died in 1858.

Hendrick Arnold, Military Scout, born

This date, 1804, is celebrated as the birth date of Hendrick Arnold, a Black military scout, guide, and spy during the Texas Revolution. Hendrick Arnold emigrated from Mississippi or Kentucky to Texas with his parents, Daniel Arnold, a white man, and Rachel, who was black, in the winter of 1826. The family settled in Stephen […]

Louis Goldsborough, Admiral born

*Louis Goldsborough was born on this date in 1805. He was a white-American rear admiral in the United States Navy noted for his contributions to nautical scientific research.   Louis Malesherbes Goldsborough was born in Washington, D.C., the son of a chief clerk at the United States Department of the Navy. He was appointed midshipman in the United […]

Robert E. Lee, Confederate General born

*Robert E. Lee was born on this date in 1807. He was a white American soldier known for commanding the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in the American Civil War from 1862 until his surrender in 1865.

Cow Tom, Interpreter born

*Cow Tom’s birth, in 1810, is celebrated on this date. He was a Black Creek Native American interpreter.  He was born a slave in Alabama to the Muskogee leader Yargee of the Upper Creeks. As a young man, Tom was known to tend to the cattle of Chief Yargee; thus, the name Cow Tom was […]

The Corps of The Colonial Marines, a story

*The Corps of Colonial Marines began on this date in 1810. It was two British Marine units raised from former Black slaves for service in the Americas. At the behest of Alexander Cochrane, the units were created at two separate points during the wars (Napoleonic Wars and War of 1812). They were later disbanded once […]

John Horse, Black Seminole Soldier born

*The birth of John Horse is celebrated on this date, c. 1812. He was an African and Native American soldier who fought alongside the Seminoles in the Second Seminole War in Florida.   John Horse was from the region called Micanopy in north central Florida. His father was the Seminole trader Charley Cavallo, and his […]