I've pointed out Jefferson's original draft to
BroJoeK in the past.
jeffersondem's excellent reply (post 1,127 on this thread) does too.
PBS published some information about how Lord Dunmore's Proclamation resulted in actions by blacks against American patriots. See: PBS link: Africans in America, Revolutionary War, I excerpt the following:
The Governor of Virginia, whose royal title was Lord Dunmore, on the other hand, sought to disrupt the American cause by promising freedom to any slaves owned by Patriot masters who would join the Loyalist forces. (Runaway slaves belonging to Loyalists were returned to their masters.) Dunmore officially issued his proclamation in November, 1775, and within a month 300 black men had joined his Ethiopian regiment. Probably no more than 800 eventually succeeded in joining Dunmore’s regiment, but his proclamation inspired thousands of runaways to follow behind the British throughout the war.
…
Colonel Tye was perhaps the best-known of the Loyalist black soldiers. As an escaped bondman born in Monmouth County, New Jersey, he wreaked havoc for several years with his guerilla Black Brigade in New York and New Jersey. At one time he commanded 800 men. For most of 1779 and 1780, Tye and his men terrorized his home county – stealing cattle, freeing slaves, and capturing Patriots at will. On September 1, 1780, during the capture of a Patriot captain, Tye was shot through the wrist, and he later died from a fatal infection.
Sounds like “domestic insurrections” to me.
rustbucket:
"Sounds like “domestic insurrections” to me." Not to me, for two reasons:
- The one example you cite, a Colonel Tye, black loyalist soldier, is clearly a military commander with title and up to 800 men.
He was apparently supported by the Brits and given a guerilla mission -- to steal property and capture patriots.
That is not "domestic insurrection".
- But even if we admit that your point is at least arguable, here's what's not: the time frame beginning in 1779 puts Col. Tye three years after the Declaration, and therefore cannot be what the Declaration refers to in the past tense.
So, I'll repeat my argument: there were indeed many "domestic insurrections" beginning long before the Declaration in 1776.
These were not slave revolts, because there were none, but rather uprisings of British loyalists against patriots.
Indeed, the old estimate of loyalist numbers was about 1/3 of whites, or 750,000 a larger number even than America's 700,000 slaves, and the two combined about 1/2 the total population.
Now newer estimates of loyalists are about half that, or 400,000 but still a huge number and as it turned out, more dangerous to the Revolution than slave revolts.
Finally, Lord Dunmore did not offer slaves freedom in exchange for slave revolts, but rather in exchange for military service in the British Army.
The result was thousands of runaway slaves did serve the Brits, but there were no slave revolts -- aka "domestic insurrections" -- in 1776 or later. ![]()