"The Battle of Lexington": A Patriotic Ballad by Lemuel Haynes
1985; Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture; Volume: 42; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/1919031
ISSN1933-7698
Autores Tópico(s)Mormonism, Religion, and History
ResumoT TWO manuscripts by Lemuel Haynes, the black New England minister known in the early nineteenth century as a vigorous defender of Congregational orthodoxy, have recently come to light. One of these, a powerful protest against slavery entitled Liberty Further Extended: Or Free thoughts on the illegality of Slave-keeping . . . , was written in I776 and published more than two centuries later, in i983.1 The other, a patriotic ballad on the Battle of Lexington, composed soon after the event, appears here in print for the first time. In addition to deepening our understanding of the author, it significantly amplifies the canon of writings by black Americans and registers afresh their engagement in the public affairs of the Revolutionary era. Born on July i8, I753, to a black father and white mother who abandoned him in infancy, Haynes was raised by a white family in western Massachusetts, where he imbibed piety at home and learned at school to read and write. By law an indentured servant during his nonage, he marked his coming of age and liberation from servitude in I774 by joining the local militia. Though he did not fight at Lexington, he was one of the forty-two minutemen of the town of Granville who were on the march on April 20, I775, as soon as news of the action reached them, and who served for nearly a month alongside other militia units at Roxbury, helping fence in the British troops in Boston.2 It seems probable, though not demonstrable, that the poem was drafted during that month; it may have been revised at that time or later. The likelihood of an early date is
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