This ship was a Pennsylvanian privateer commanded by Capt. Born free in Philadelphia in 1766, James Forten joined the crew of Royal Louis in 1781. In American Patriots: The Story of Blacks in the Military from the Revolution to Desert Storm, Gail Buckley documents the amazing story of James Forten. Detailed records of black Sailors' service are scarce, but their stories are an important part of naval history and heritage as a group that fought on the seas for a country that denied them basic rights. These ships provided more opportunities for advancement and rewards than the Continental Navy. However, the Continental Navy was relatively small, and black Sailors served in even greater numbers aboard state naval vessels and privateers. Army report on the African American military experience, higher percentages of black men served in the naval forces than the land forces, since the Continental Navy did not restrict their service like the army and militias did. Despite slavery and British offers of freedom, thousands of black patriots served on American vessels during the American Revolution. Kelly Miller, a premier black intellectual at the turn of the 20 th-century, penned these words in 1919 to describe the patriotism of free and enslaved black Sailors during the Revolutionary War. British gold and promises of personal freedom served as futile incentives among the Negroes of the American Navy for them, the proud consciousness of duty well done served as a constant monitor and nerved their strong black arms when thundering shot and shell menaced the future of the country and, although African slavery was still a recognized legal institution and constituted the basic fabric of the great food productive industry of the nation, it was the Negro's trusted devotion to duty which ever guided him in the nation's darkest hours of peril and menace.
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