The Well Known Caesar Marion (was committed to prison)
Description
In this episode, we go in search of a Black Bostonian who was “well known” to his contemporaries, including Boston newspapers, but who was all but forgotten by history. If not for a one-paragraph news article and work by historians to reconstruct aspects of his life from notarial records, we may not know the name Caesar Marion. In this somewhat brief episode, we’re going to look at why Mr. Marion was thrown into Boston’s notorious jail 250 years ago this week, and then we’ll compare his treatment inside British-occupied Boston with the experience of Black volunteers in the Continental Army outside Boston, once Virginia enslaver George Washington took command.
Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/333/
Support us: http://patreon.com/HUBhistory/
- Black Lives, Native Lands, White Worlds
- Caesar Marion in the Boston Gazette and Country Journal
- Caesar Marion in the New England Chronicle
- JL Bell’s posts about Caesar Marion
- Jared Ross Hardesty’s “Finding Agency in Unexpected Places”
- July 10, 1775 orders barring Black enlistment
- December 30 orders allowing Black enlistment
- Committee of Safety order against enlisting anyone who was enslaved
- Davis, Robert Scott. “Black Soldiers of Liberty.” Journal of the American Revolution, 31 Aug. 2023.
- JL Bell’s “Whether there be a Distinction between such as are Slaves & those who are free?”
- Hannigan, John. “Enslavement and Enlistment.” U.S. National Park Service, 2014.
- Twohig, Dorothy. “’That Species of Property’: Washington’s Role in the Controversy over Slavery.” The Washington Papers, University of Virginia.
United States
