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History Battle of Black Race for Liberty and Justice

Khalid Elhassan May 12, 2020 34 min

Deacons for Defense - Deacons for Defense and Justice — Black demonstrators arriving in Franklinton, Louisiana, after a two day march from Bogalusa. Face 2 Face Africa

19. Fighting In the Ethiopian Regiment

A member of the Ethiopian Regiment, which fought for the British during the American Revolution. Wikimedia

Luckily, Titus Cornelius escaped one day after Virginia’s governor, Lord Dunmore, had issued a proclamation offering freedom to all slaves who escaped their American masters to serve the British. So Titus made his way to Virginia, where the new freedman changed his name to Tye.

He settled in Williamsburg, Virginia, and initially made a living doing odd jobs. Eventually, Tye enlisted in Lord Dunmore’s Ethiopian Regiment, and took to his new life underarms like a fish to water. The fortunes of war eventually returned him to New Jersey, and he ended up in Monmouth County, where he had been born and enslaved, as an armed fighter in British service. There, he would eventually earn his place in history as Colonel Tye.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.