Many Black freedom seekers fought for their unalienable rights during the Revolutionary period. Witnessing the war’s contradictions, how American patriots demanded individual freedoms while denying them to others fueled people like Colonel Tye.
Enslaved in Monmouth County, New Jersey, 22-year-old Cornelius Titus fled the Corlies homestead in 1775. He then joined the British army in Virginia as part of the Ethiopian Regiment. Titus embraced the all-Black unit’s rallying cry of LIBERTY TO SLAVES. When disease and disorganization disbanded the Regiment, Titus was shipped to New York City with 300 other survivors. He ended up back in New Jersey in Refugeetown within Sandy Hook.
Titus, now known as Colonel Tye, led the courageous Black Brigade. Between 1779 and 1780, this unit of 24 Black freedom seekers, Native Americans, and poor loyalist white men displayed remarkable determination as they unleashed terrifying guerilla warfare throughout Monmouth County. They moved at night, darting between moonlit trees to ransack and rob militiamen’s homes of livestock and freeing the enslaved.
The night the Black Brigade met Joshua Huddy at his homestead came at a cost. Along with his lover, Lucretia Emmons, Huddy initially tricked Tye and the raiders. As Emmons loaded muskets, Huddy ran from room to room, engaging with the Brigade to make it seem like a more significant force was defending the homestead. But the raiders soon set fire to the house, causing Huddy to surrender.
Gathering their captive and spoils, the Black Brigade boarded a boat on the Navesink River. As they began north to Sandy Hook, the patriot militia intercepted. In the chaos, Huddy threw himself overboard and, with a bullet to the leg, swam to safety. But what of Colonel Tye? That night, the Black Brigade leader sustained a cannonball shot through the wrist. Tetanus quickly spread, and within a few days, he died.
At the war’s end, the remnants of the Black Brigade joined up with 3,000 Black loyalists in New York City. Throughout 1783, many resettled in Nova Scotia but found life there difficult. Some even moved to the Sierra Leone colony in Africa—and became enslaved once more.
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