{"id":20788,"date":"2025-11-10T11:29:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T16:29:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/?p=20788"},"modified":"2025-11-10T11:40:37","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T16:40:37","slug":"celebrating-hampton-roads-forgotten-revolution-heroes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/celebrating-hampton-roads-forgotten-revolution-heroes\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating Hampton Roads\u2019 forgotten Revolution heroes"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/h2>\n

Celebrating Hampton Roads\u2019 forgotten Revolution heroes <\/strong><\/h2>\n

By Andrew Lawler
\n<\/strong>November 8, 2025<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The American Revolution all but ended at Yorktown. Far less known is Hampton Roads\u2019 dramatic role at the war\u2019s start, and the brave Black Americans who, 250 years ago this month, risked their lives in the cause of liberty. Their stories will be at the heart of Friday\u2019s symposium \u201cCompeting Freedoms: Hampton Roads at the Start of the American Revolution\u201d at The Slover in downtown Norfolk.<\/p>\n

During the summer of 1775, an enslaved ship\u2019s pilot named Joseph Harris slipped away from his patriot owner in Hampton and sought sanctuary on a Royal Navy ship. Virginia\u2019s royal governor, Lord Dunmore, had abandoned the capital of Williamsburg for Portsmouth\u2019s Gosport shipyard; the vessel was part of a small fleet assembled to counter the growing rebellion.<\/p>\n

The flight of the \u201csmall mulatto man\u201d was a gamble. If caught or returned by the ship\u2019s captain, Harris faced torture, imprisonment, or even execution. But his bold bid for freedom helped turn a regional rebellion in New England into a full-fledged continental war.<\/p>\n

Harris proved his worth in a daring rescue of the HMS Otter\u2019s Captain Matthew Squire during a devastating September hurricane. Furious Hampton patriots demanded the return of \u201cJoseph Harris, the property of a gentleman of our town, and all our other slaves whom you may have on board.\u201d Squire refused. On Oct. 26, after repeated patriot taunts, he led a convoy of Royal Navy tenders crewed by British and Black American sailors \u2014 including Harris \u2014 to Hampton.<\/p>\n

There are conflicting accounts as to who fired the first shot, but the crackle of patriot muskets and the boom of British cannon marked the Revolution\u2019s start south of Massachusetts. The next day, Virginia riflemen beat back a full-fledged attack. During the brief but bloody fight, Harris jumped overboard to save a British lieutenant but managed to escape patriot clutches.<\/p>\n

The victory bolstered patriot confidence while bringing the most important colony into the conflict. \u201cLord Dunmore has commenced hostilities in Virginia,\u201d wrote Thomas Jefferson from Philadelphia. \u201cIt has raised our countrymen into a perfect frenzy.\u201d<\/p>\n

A patriot army of some 1,500 men soon was on the march to crush the Scottish earl\u2019s forces. By then, hundreds of enslaved people had made their way to Gosport seeking liberty, and Dunmore secretly gave some arms and training. On Nov. 15, local militia attacked his multiracial troops in what is now Virginia Beach. The patriots were routed, and an enslaved man wielding only a sword captured the patriot commander \u2014 who also was his owner.<\/p>\n

Impressed, Dunmore published the British Empire\u2019s first emancipation proclamation, freeing any person enslaved or indentured by a patriot in exchange for military service \u2014 and inspiring later proclamations, including President Abraham Lincoln\u2019s more famous 1863 decree.<\/p>\n

The royal governor hastily assembled \u201cLord Dunmore\u2019s Ethiopian Regiment,\u201d the first Black corps in the British Army.<\/p>\n

During the first week of December, they clashed with patriots near Great Bridge in today\u2019s Chesapeake. In the first skirmish, the Black men attacked and scattered the patriots. In the final Dec. 9 battle, however, a British frontal assault failed, opening the way for the patriots to seize Norfolk.<\/p>\n

Thousands of terrified civilians evacuated with the surviving British and loyalist soldiers to ships in Norfolk\u2019s harbor. When patriot snipers in warehouses along the shore shot at anyone on deck, Dunmore ordered the warehouses burned. On Jan. 1, 1776, a naval bombardment provided cover for the British and Black troops to land and set fire to the snipers\u2019 posts.<\/p>\n

In the chaos, patriot officers \u2014 with the approval of their civilian leaders \u2014 ordered their men to burn the entire town, leaving Norfolk an utter ruin. The British were blamed for the war crime which persuaded many wavering Americans to back independence.<\/p>\n

Yet despite Norfolk\u2019s loss, Dunmore continued the fight. In a remarkable moment of interracial cooperation, troops of both colors built and patrolled a base at Hospital Point in Portsmouth. This continued threat was a factor in the unanimous May 1776 vote by Virginia\u2019s patriot leaders backing separation from Britain. They urged the Continental Congress to do the same, breaking the deadlock in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, a smallpox epidemic forced Dunmore to decamp to Gwynn\u2019s Island in Chesapeake Bay, where his depleted forces were defeated five days after the Declaration of Independence was signed. By then, Harris was dead of disease, but his surviving comrades went on to fight for the king in New York.<\/p>\n

Two and a half centuries later, it is time to commemorate these momentous events that took place in Hampton Roads, and to celebrate those who gave their lives to gain liberty \u2014 no matter the color of their skin or coat.<\/p>\n

Andrew Lawler of Asheville, N.C., is the Norfolk-born author of \u201cA Perfect Frenzy.\u201d For more, visit <\/em>andrewlawer.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The American Revolution all but ended at Yorktown. Far less known is Hampton Roads\u2019 dramatic role at the war\u2019s start, and the brave Black Americans who, 250 years ago this month, risked their lives in the cause of liberty. Their stories will be at the heart of Friday\u2019s symposium \u201cCompeting Freedoms: Hampton Roads at the Start of the American Revolution\u201d at The Slover in downtown Norfolk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":20791,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-virginian-pilot"],"yoast_head":"\nThese archaeological findings unlocked the stories of our ancestors \u2022 Andrew Lawler<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Two centuries of excavations have given voice to a past that previously lay mostly hidden. 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