York, offering the usual land bounty
which would go to the masters to purchase the slaves, promised freedom to
all slaves who would enlist for the time of three years.[43] Maryland
provided in 1780 that each unit of L16,000 of property should furnish one
recruit who might be either a freeman or a slave, and in 1781 resolved to
raise 750 Negroes to be incorporated with the other troops.[44]

Farther South the enlistment of Negroes had met with obstacles. The best
provision the Southern legislatures had been able to make was to provide
in addition to the allotment of money and land that a person offering to
fight for the country should have "one sound Negro"[45] or a "healthy
sound Negro"[46] as the laws provided in Virginia and South Carolina
respectively. Threatened with invasion in 1779, however, the Southern
States were finally compelled to consider this matter more seriously.[47]
The Continental Army had been called upon to cope with the situation but
had no force available for service in those parts. The three battalions
of North Carolina troops, then on duty in the South, consisted of drafts
from the militia for nine months, which would expire before the end of
the campaign. What were they to do then when this militia, which could
not be uniformly kept up, should grow impatient with the service? Writing
from the headquarters of the army at this time, Alexander Hamilton in
discussing the advisability of this plan doubtless voiced the sentiment
of the staff. He thought that Colonel Laurens's plan for raising three or
four battalions of emancipated Negroes was the most rational one that
could be adopted in that state of Southern affairs. Hamilton foresaw the
opposition from prejudice and self-interest, but insisted that if the
Americans did not make such a use of the Negroes, the British would.

The movement received further impetus when special envoys from South
Carolina headed by Huger appeared before the Continental Congress on March
29, 1779, to impress upon that body the necessity of doing something to
relieve the Southern colonies. South Carolina, they reported, was suffering
from an exposed condition in that the number of slaves being larger than
that of the whites, she was unable to effect anything for its defense with
the natives, because of the large number necessary to remain at home to
prevent insurrections among the Negroes and their desertion to the enemy.
These representatives, therefore, suggested that