Cuffee Wells, Romeo Smith, Peter Kiteredge
Soldiers at the siege of Yorktown, including an African American soldier of the 1st Rhode Island Regiment, by Jean-Baptiste-Antoine DeVerger, 1781. (Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University)
According to modern scholars, between 7,000 and 8,000 African Americans served in the American Revolution. The documents provided here are rare manuscripts about three such soldiers—Cuffee Wells (fl. 1781), Romeo Smith (fl. 1784), and Peter Kiteredge (fl. 1806)—who fought for the independence of the United States as well as for their individual rights as free men.
