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Juneteenth and Other Lesser Known African-American Historical Culture

Khalid Elhassan June 15, 2020 34 min

Colonel Tye - American Revolutionary War — Colonel Tye as portrayed in a PBS documentary. PBS

12. Self Help

An advertisement by Titus Cornelius’ master after his escape, offering a reward for his runaway slave’s recapture. Wikimedia

In 1775, upon realizing that his master had no intention of freeing him, Titus Cornelius decided to free himself by running away. Lucky for him, he fled one day after Virginia’s governor had issued a proclamation offering freedom to all slaves who escaped their American masters to serve the British. So the young black man made his way to the Virginia Tidewater region, where he changed his name to Tye.

Tye settled in Williamsburg, Virginia, and initially made his living performing a series of odd jobs. Eventually, he enlisted in Lord Dunmore’s Ethiopian Regiment, took to his new life under arms like a fish to war, and distinguished himself. The fortunes of war eventually returned him to New Jersey, and he ended up where he had once been enslaved, Monmouth County, as a freedman under arms in British service. There, he ended up distinguishing himself and earning a 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.