Military and Race

Colonial Period

During colonial times, African Americans participated in the military services, including the early engagements at Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill. The Revolutionary War was unusual in that African Americans sometimes fought alongside Whites, sometimes as free men and sometimes as indentured men or even as slaves. The British offered emancipation for any slaves who joined them, though, like the Americans, they were reluctant to recruit many African Americans; they, too, had their racial prejudices. Military commissions as early as 1775 recommended the exclusion of African Americans from military service, but military necessities resulted in both covert and overt enlistments. The lower South, in particular, strongly resisted arming African American slaves. The service of African Americans in the Revolutionary War was one of the contributing factors to the abolition of slavery in the northeastern states.

The issue of whether African Americans should be part of the military services simmered for several decades, even as the United States was engaged in wars with England in 1812 and with Mexico from 1846 to 1848 and the nation debated the role of slavery before the Civil War. At least 3,000 African Americans reportedly participated in the Mexican American War in de facto integrated units, despite the official policy of exclusion. Following the U.S. victory [Page 903]and annexation of territory, many Mexicans became Americans without relocating, as a result of the changed national boundary. Likewise, numerous Native American groups and their territories eventually became part of the United States as a result of American-Indian wars, though most Native Americans were not given the right to vote until the 20th century.

Civil War

During the Civil War, neither the South nor the North initially enlisted African Americans, free or slave, in the armed services. Nevertheless, many volunteered. The law at the time restricted militia duty to White males; the regular army had a policy of not enlisting African Americans. Further, the policy of the Lincoln administration at the beginning of the Civil War, not wanting to disaffect the border states, was to return all fugitive slaves to their masters. Some states in the South began to use free men of color both as soldiers and in support services. As the war wore on, and particularly after the Emancipation Proclamation, in January 1863, the North used African Americans as soldiers. Almost all in both the North and the South served in segregated units. The implementation of the Conscription Act became another major step toward abolition of slavery and the granting of citizenship for African Americans.

World Wars I and II

Segregated units remained the norm during subsequent wars through most of World War II. This included the brief conflict with Spain in 1898 and World War I, where an estimated 380,000 African Americans served. Senior officers for these units were always White. Between World Wars I and II, the army adopted a quota system that kept the number of Blacks in the Army proportionate to the total population. More than a million African Americans served in World War II, which was about 10% of the total military personnel and roughly their proportion in the population.

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