For Blacks, There Was No Clear Choice

A black soldier is credited with killing a British major at Bunker Hill.

Once the Treaty of Paris was signed, ending the fighting, the fate of African-Americans would vary as much as their role in the war. Many who fought for the crown fled with the British Army. Some headed to the Caribbean while others left for Nova Scotia, London, or even a new colony in Sierra Leone.

Some who remained began to petition local and state governments for equal rights. "You have a sixth of the total population that is nonwhite," Alexander says. "And these people are starting to hear all this stuff about freedom and wondering why it shouldn't apply to them."

The Revolution did help launch an emancipation movement that would outlaw slavery in the North. But slavery became further entrenched in the South, and many decades would pass before the Declaration of Independence's assertion that "all men are created equal" would be applied universally.