30. “Freedom”
British Freedom’s choice of name proclaims something startling, that runs counter to the widely accepted narrative of the American Revolution. To wit, that it was clear just who were the good guys and who were the bad guys, and that there were well-defined lines separating those fighting for liberty from those fighting for tyranny. In that narrative, the Patriots fought for freedom, while the British fought to oppress those yearning to be free.
It is a flawed narrative when examined from a contemporary black perspective. In the Declaration of Independence, for example, Thomas Jefferson blamed King George III for the institution of slavery. That held no water for black slaves like British Freedom: they blamed slave masters like Jefferson for slavery. From their perspective, the British monarch was their enemy’s enemy, the emancipator who offered them freedom from the likes of Thomas Jefferson, and was thus their friend.
