This book surveys black military participation in the Americas during the colonial period. The middle third of the book uses British West India regiments, on which the author conducted archival research, as a case study. The first and last thirds broaden the focus to the Americas as a whole, and are based mainly on secondary sources.
The book does have some drawbacks. Its writing and organization are repetitive, with the result that the text is probably 30 percent longer than it needs to be. It quotes excessively from secondary sources; on a couple of occasions, it even quotes secondary sources quoting other secondary sources (pp. 419, 467). And it spends a lot of time arguing points that one would have thought had been amply demonstrated by now; for example, the “humanity” of blacks (their condition of being human) or the importance of other motivations besides purely racial ones in determining black (and white) behavior.
Despite these shortcomings, this book raises important questions and makes some valuable points. Most slaves and free blacks, Peter Voelz finds, when called on by their masters or colonial authorities to take up arms and fight invaders or internal enemies (including other blacks), did so “loyally and effectively” (pp. 31, 36, 88, et al.). They proved especially useful in guerrilla “bush fighting” and in Caribbean campaigns, where their greater resistance to tropical diseases gave them a decided advantage over Europeans. Indeed, they were so effective that colonial governments’ initial reluctance to use black troops faded to the point that, by the late 1700s and early 1800s, Africans and Afro-Americans were providing much of the manpower for the colonial and independence wars of those years. Only in the United States did white reluctance to arm free and slave blacks prevent an American society from making full use of black soldiers.
Voelz therefore contends that blacks were far more likely to fight for their masters than against them, and he offers various additional reasons. For both slaves and free blacks, military service offered opportunities for social and professional advancement. Men denied honor and social standing because of their color were especially receptive to the idea of taking on a corporate identity and prestige symbolized by uniforms, decorations, and arms. As in the present-day United States, the military tended to be the most racially egalitarian institution in colonial society. While militias did not completely escape the discriminatory effects of the New World caste regimes, line units enforced standards of racial equality in pay, rations, medical care, and other relationships that were unheard-of in civilian society. Thus, Voelz concludes, while militaries were conservative, hierarchical institutions dedicated to defending the status quo, they also exerted significant liberalizing pressure on New World race relations and proved to be a means of liberation for many of the Africans and Afro-Americans who served in them.
