Colonel Tye
One of the most famous Black Loyalists was Colonel Tye, a runaway slave who joined the Ethiopian Regiment and led the Black Brigade Partisan Group, a band of guerilla soldiers, which conducted several successful raids against the American Army in New Jersey throughout the war. The New Jersey Gazette reported about one raid led by Colonel Tye on June 9, 1780.

“Tye, with his party of about 20 blacks and whites, took and carried off prisoner, Capt. Barnes. Smock and (Lt.) Gilbert Van Mater. At the same time, (The Partisans) spiked up the iron four pounder at Capt. Smock’s house, but took no ammunition. Two of the artillery horses were also taken. The above mentioned Tye is a Negro, who wears the title of Colonel, and commands a motley crew at Sandy Hook.”
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2p52.html

People & Events:
COLONEL TYE
(1753 – 1780)

Colonel Tye, the most feared and respected guerrilla commander of the Revolution, was one of the many enslaved Africans who escaped and fought for the British.

Known in his youth as Titus, he was one of four young men owned by John Corlies of Shrewsbury, in the eastern part of Monmouth County, New Jersey. Shrewsbury Quakers, under increasing pressure from their Philadelphia-influenced counterparts to the west, finally began to end slavery among themselves in the 1760s. Corlies did not follow the local practice of educating his slaves or of freeing them on their 21st birthdays, and by 1775, he was one of the few remaining Quaker slaveholders in Monmouth County.

In November 1775, the day after Dunmore's Proclamation was issued, 22-year old Titus fled from his cruel, quick-tempered master, joining the flood of Monmouth County blacks who sought refuge with the British as soldiers, sailors and workers. Titus changed his name, gaining notoriety three years later as Captain Tye, the pride of Dunmore's Ethiopian Regiment.

While not formally commissioning black officers, the British army often bestowed titles out of respect, and Tye quickly earned their respect. In his first known military incursion, the June, 1778 Battle of Monmouth (in which not a single black from the county fought for the patriots), Tye captured a captain in the Monmouth militia.

In July, 1779, Tye's band launched a raid on Shrewsbury, and carried away clothing, furniture, horses, cattle, and two of the town's inhabitants. With his "motley crew" of blacks and white refugees known as "cow-boys," Tye continued to attack and plunder patriot homes, using his knowledge of Monmouth County's swamps, rivers and inlets to strike suddenly and disappear quickly. These raids, often aimed at former masters and their friends, were a combination of banditry, reprisal, and commission; Tye and his men were well-paid by the British, sometimes earning five gold guineas.

During the harsh winter of 1779, Tye was among an elite group of twenty-four black Loyalists, known as the Black Brigade, who joined with the Queen's Rangers, a British guerrilla unit, to protect New York City and to conduct raids for food and fuel.

By 1780, Colonel Tye had become an important military force. Within one week in June, he led three actions in Monmouth County. On June 9, Tye and his men murdered Joseph Murray, hated by the Loyalists for his summary execution of captured Tories under a local vigilante law. On June 12, while the British attacked Washington's dwindling troops, Tye and his band launched a daring attack on the home of Barnes Smock, capturing the militia leader and twelve of his men, destroying their cannon, depriving Washington of needed reinforcements, and striking fear into the hearts of local patriots.

In response, Governor Livingston, who had tried two years before to abolish slavery in New Jersey, invoked martial law -- a measure which proved totally ineffective -- even as large numbers of blacks, heartened by news of Tye's feats, fled to British-held New York.

In a series of raids throughout the summer, Tye continued to debilitate and demoralize the patriot forces. In a single day, he and his band captured eight militiamen (including the second in command), plundered their homes, and took them to imprisonment in New York, virtually undetected and without suffering a single casualty.

In September, 1780 Tye led a surprise attack on the home of Captain Josiah Huddy, whom Loyalists had tried to capture for years. Amazingly, Huddy and his friend Lucretia Emmons managed to hold off their attackers for two hours, until the Loyalists flushed them out by setting the house afire. During the battle, Tye was shot in the wrist, and days later, what was thought to be minor wound turned fatal when lockjaw set in.

After Tye's death, Colonel Stephen Blucke of the Black Pioneers replaced him as leader of the raiders, continuing their attacks well after the British defeat at Yorktown. Tye's reputation lived on, among his comrades as well as the Patriots, who argued that the war would have been won much sooner had Tye been enlisted on their side.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2h1.html

“CUDJO” ON THE MONMOUTH BATTLEFIELD
(JUNE 1778)
Cudjo, a Black man owned by Benjamin Coe, claimed to be descended from royal African lineage. He served in the Revolutionary War as a substitute for Coe and fought valiantly at Monmouth Battlefield in June 1778 and, it is believed, on other battlefields as well. When Cudjo returned home, Coe gave him his freedom, a house and an acre of ground on High Street.

The American Revolution:
OLIVER CROMWELL
Cromwell, Oliver, Black, Soldier, WSS:177 NJ. Oliver Cromwell was, for six years and nine months, under the immediate command of General George Washington, whom he loved affectionately. His discharge at the close of the war was in Washington’s own handwriting, of which he was very proud, often speaking of it.

JACOB FRANCIS
Francis, Jacob. Black, Soldier, 2459 NJ. A 21-year-old newly freed New Jersey slave found himself in Massachusetts at the outbreak of war. Francis served over a year in the Massachusetts Line, fighting at Long Island and Trenton. When discharged, he returned to his home in Amwell, New Jersey, and served numerous tours of active duty in the militia until the cessation of hostilities.

The American Revolution:
“CESAR’S STORY” SCOTCH PLAINS BAPTIST CHURCH, SCOTCH, NJ
(1747)
Cesar. Black, Teamster, WSS:860 NJ. A native of Guinea Africa, Cesar was the first documented African in Plainfield. He served as a wagoneer in the Revolutionary War while in his 70s, brought supplies to soldiers at the Blue Hills Fort and encampment. Church records show that Cesar remained a faithful member of the Scotch Plains Baptist Church in Scotch, New Jersey until he died at the age of 104

PETER WILLIAMS
Williams, Peter. Black, Soldier and Wagoneer, RWPF W3638, BLWt 67674-160-55, MD. Peter Williams, an African-American slave living in New York City, was an expert cigar maker, having learned the trade from his owner, a tobacco merchant. Upon occupation of New York by the British, he fled to New Jersey, settling in New Brunswick. There he lived with a Patriot family, met and married his wife Molly, and made his choice for independence. Peter Williams laid the cornerstone for Zion in 1800, and established the first African Methodist Episcopal Church in New York City.

JACOB FRANCIS
A 21-year-old newly freed New Jersey slave found himself in Massachusetts at the outbreak of war. Francis served over a year in the Massachusetts Line, fighting at Long Island and Trenton. When discharged, he returned to his home in Amwell, New Jersey, and served numerous tours of active duty in the militia until the cessation of hostilities.

Select List of Black Revolutionary War Participants, New Jersey

NEW JERSEY AFRICAN-AMERICAN SOLDIERS OF THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR

The following names of New Jersey Black soldiers are compiled from the National Archives list, Nell’s Colored Patriots, Quarles “The Negro in the American Revolution.” and Dann’s “The Revolution Remembered.” Each soldier is identified as a private, unless otherwise noted.

• POMPEY BLACK, 2ND NEW JERSEY
• JAMES CASAR, 1ST NEW JERSEY
• JOHN CASAR, 1ST NEW JERSEY
• JOHN CATO, 4TH NEW JERSEY
• JOHN CEASAR, 4TH NEW JERSEY
• SAMUEL CHARLTON, NEW JERSEY LINE
• OLIVER CROMWELL, 2ND NEW JERSEY
• CUDJO (for his master Benjamin Coe), NEW JERSEY LINE
• NEGRO CUFF (FIFER), 3RD NEW JERSEY
• PETER SALEM
• WILLIAM CUFFEY, 2ND NEW JERSEY
• JACOB FRANCIS, NEW JERSEY MILITIA/COL. PHILLIPS
• CATO JOHNSON SPENCER’S, ADDITIONAL REGIMENT
• JONATHAN CATO, 4TH NEW JERSEY
• DICK NEGRO, 1ST NEW JERSEY
• BLACK PRIME, 2ND NEW JERSEY
• NEGRO SAMBO, 4TH NEW JERSEY
• SAMUEL SUTPHIN, NEW JERSEY LINE
• NEGRO TITUS, 1ST NEW JERSEY
• AMOS TOMSON, 1ST REGT., BURLINGTON
• MILITIA/2ND NEW JERSEY
• PETER WILLIAMS, NEW JERSEY LINE

EDITED BY: RICHARD S. WALLING, 1994