THE REVOLUTION’S UNFINISHED PROMISE

During the Revolutionary era, slavery existed throughout what are today Bucks, Hunterdon, and Mercer counties. Enslaved Black men, women, and children lived and worked on farms, at ferries, in taverns, and in River Towns households throughout the Delaware Valley. Following Pennsylvania’s Gradual Abolition Act of 1780, Bucks County recorded 530 enslaved people.

Across New Jersey, historians estimate that roughly 10,000 to 12,000 people were enslaved around the time of the revolution, including substantial numbers in Hunterdon County, which then included parts of modern-day Mercer County.

For African Americans, the revolution carried both hope and contradiction. Thousands of Black men fought for the Patriot cause during the war, some free and others promised freedom in exchange for military service. Historians generally estimate that between 5,000 and 8,000 people of African descent served with the Continental Army, the militias, or at sea during the revolution.

Barring a few units, the Continental Army and states’ militia were integrated forces, with enlisted white Europeans, African Americans, and Native Americans serving side by side.

Many others pursued freedom through the British. Beginning in 1775, British officials promised emancipation to enslaved people who escaped rebel owners and aided the Crown. Historians estimate that between 15,000 and 20,000 African Americans sought refuge with the British during the war, fighting as Loyalists.

At the end of the conflict, thousands evacuated with British forces to Nova Scotia, England, the Caribbean and other parts of the British Empire. The Book of Negroes, compiled in 1783, documented approximately 3,000 Black Loyalists who departed New York under British protection, though historians believe the total number who ultimately left with the British was likely higher. Some who remained in the United States were later forced back into slavery despite earlier British promises of freedom.

The contradiction was embedded in the nation’s founding. Historians generally agree that no fewer than forty of the fifty-six signers of the Declaration of Independence enslaved people at some point in their lives. The same generation that declared that “All men are created equal” included many men who denied freedom to others.

The revolution changed Black life in the River Towns in profound ways. Some African Americans gained freedom through military service, escape, or gradual emancipation laws. Others did not. Families were divided. Names disappeared from the historical record. Entire lives survived only in fragments.

Yet Black residents were present through every part of the revolutionary story in the region. They labored here, worshipped here, marched with armies here, escaped through here, and searched for freedom in a world that often denied it to them.

And the struggle did not end 250 years ago.

For African Americans, Indigenous Americans, women, immigrants and other marginalized groups, the full promise of equality and citizenship would remain unfinished for generations.