In the common room of a modest, brown house in Concord, Massachusetts, lies the story of Caesar Robbins.
He was born enslaved in 1745 in nearby Chelmsford, Massachusetts. And when the Revolutionary War broke out a few decades later, he became one of the area’s Black soldiers fighting for the American cause. The scant records of the time indicate he may have fought at the Old North Bridge during the Battle of Concord, just a quarter mile from where this small home was later built.
Today the Robbins House is a museum, and Jen Turner is the executive director.
“He saw service probably through 1779, when he eventually probably became self emancipated through his service in the revolution,” Turner said.
Dorchester Heights. Fort Ticonderoga. Robbins served at those sites, too.
Now, as the United States recognizes the 250th anniversary of the start of the war, America’s earliest Black and Indigenous soldiers, including Robbins, are the focus of new scholarship.
The one-and-a-half story house was originally inhabited by the first generation of Robbins’ children, and today aims to share more about his life with the public.
Beth van Duzer is a public historian and owner of Concord Walking Tours. She’s on a mission to find everyone connected to Concord who fought at some point during the war.
“I found over 500 individuals that fought either had a birthplace, home or grave in Concord, or had their service credited to Concord, and 24 of them are patriots of color,” van Duzer said.
But the record-keeping of the era was imprecise. Scholars note clerks used ambiguous terms to identify soldiers. Other times, they left rosters incomplete. For example, van Duzer points to records that show who was present as Patriots besieged British-occupied Boston.
“There are three men named Caesar on this list. Which Caesar was he? I don’t know, probably one of these three, but I don’t know which one right now because he didn’t use the last name,” she said.
Little is known about other names listed on muster rolls, like a man simply called “‘Charlestown” or another known as “‘Samuel Blood.” Over in Lexington, scholars have tracked down some details about Prince Estabrook, the first Black soldier of the Revolution, and Caesar Ferrit, a man of Indigenous Caribbean descent who marched with his son John.
Of the soldiers who fought in Concord, Van Duzer said there’s one man we know more about.
“Brister Freeman or Bristol Freeman. Both first names are used,” van Duzer said.
Pouring through these records and artifacts, slivers of Freeman’s life story emerge.
At the start of the war, Freeman was enslaved.
“Brister Freeman was enslaved to John Cuming,” explained Elise Lemire, a professor at SUNY Purchase who wrote the book “Black Walden” about Concord’s Black community in the 19th century. “And John Cuming, in addition to being a Harvard-educated doctor, was the town moderator for many, many years in Concord.“
Records show Freeman served in the Revolution under his enslaved name of Cuming until 1779, when he enlisted for a three-year term under his new name.
There are also hints to Freeman’s story in old receipts, including one for medical treatment that he received in the service.
“I found a receipt for after the war was over, and he is reimbursed again for returning his blanket and his gun. And he got five shillings back for returning it,” van Duzer said.
Life wasn’t easy for these veterans of color after the war.
For example, Brister Freeman returned to Concord, but he didn’t have the money to buy an ideal piece of land.
“He’s able to buy a tiny sliver of what had once been a field,” said Lemire. “But the nutrition in the soil had been exhausted. So he’s never able to support his family through agriculture, which is the traditional means by which at this point you would support your family.”
John Cuming, his former enslaver, didn’t leave anything directly to the veteran, but instead set aside some money to the townsfolk to provide food and shelter in case Freeman became too destitute to support himself.
Vvan Duzer said one month the town provided him with shoes, the next a barrel of apples. He was provided 100 pounds of beef one year. But Freeman was not always treated kindly. Town officials took away his property after he failed to pay taxes, and a biography of another resident recalls when Freeman was locked in a barn with a raging bull.
Near Concord’s North Bridge, the Minute Man Statue by sculptor Daniel Chester French represents the citizen soldier of 1775. It’s an image that has become a symbol of patriotism and the American Revolutionary soldier.
But soldiers like Brister Freeman, who stood shoulder to shoulder with household names, are much less likely to show up in school textbooks or art.
The new country he helped to create did not invest back into him and his peers. And that, these researchers say, is yet another reason to learn more about them, and share that scholarship with the world.
