Ashes (35 page)

Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, and North and South Carolina–Slavery did not end until 1865, when the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which ended slavery throughout America, became law.

Read more:

Anne Farrow, Joel Lang, and Jenifer Frank,
Complicity: How the North Promoted, Prolonged, and Profited from Slavery
.

Harvey Amani Whitfield,
The Problem of Slavery in Early Vermont, 1777–1810.

Website:
Slavery in the North
,
http://slavenorth.com/

9. Was Florida controlled by Spain during the Revolution? Which side of the war did the Spanish King Carlos III support?

At the time of the American Revolution, the area we now call Florida and other parts of the Gulf Coast region were claimed by two European countries: Great Britain and Spain. Great Britain, Spain, and France had been battling for territory in the Americas and Caribbean for years, destroying the lives of countless Indigenous peoples and robbing them of their land.

During the Revolution, both France and Spain sided with the young United States against Great Britain. France contributed money, guns, soldiers, and her navy to the American cause. Spain's contributions are not as well known, but were equally important.

Spain declared war against Great Britain in 1779, forcing the British to fight not only the United States, but the Spanish military in the Gulf Coast region, the Mississippi River Valley, and Central America. The British army had to divide its forces, which weakened it. In April 1781, Spanish forces, including Spain's Irish Hibernia Regiment as well as free Afro-Cubans, battled the British in Pensacola and won possession of West Florida. Then the wealthy families of Havana, Cuba, loaned an enormous amount of money to French Admiral de Grasse, which allowed the French navy to sail North to the Chesapeake region and assist Washington at the Siege of Yorktown.

Read more:

Thomas E. Chávez, S
pain and the Independence of the United States: An Intrinsic Gift
.

Kathleen DuVal,
Independence Lost: Lives on the Edge of the American Revolution.

Allan J. Kuethe,
Cuba
, 1753–1815: Crown, Military, and Society.

10. Was there really a Baker General at the Yorktown encampment?

Indeed! Christopher Ludwig (or Ludwick) was born in Germany in 1720. After working as a soldier and a ship's baker, he immigrated to Philadelphia with fancy gingerbread molds and European baking recipes and skills. With his wife, he established a popular bakery that specialized in common gingerbread loaves, cookies, and elegant pastries. He was a founding member of the German Society of Pennsylvania, which offered English language classes to German-speaking immigrants. His business prospered.

At the beginning of the American Revolution, Ludwig collected, stored, and transported gunpowder for Washington's troops. In 1776, at age 56, he volunteered for the Continental Army, where he served as a spy and worked to convince captured Hessians (mercenary German soldiers who fought for the British) to change sides. Congress later appointed Ludwig the “director of baking” for the army. He and his company of seventy bakers worked at the Valley Forge winter encampment but struggled to find enough flour to feed the men. Ludwig, now affectionately known as the “Baker General,” and his company of bakers also supplied bread (and perhaps gingerbread) to the troops at the Siege of Yorktown.

Read more:

“Christopher Ludwig (1720–1801)” on
Immigrant Entrepreneurship: German-American Business Biographies
(
http://www.immigrantentrepreneurship.org/entry.php?rec=175
)

William Ward Condit, “Christopher Ludwick, Patriotic Gingerbread Baker,”
The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography
, October 1957.

11. Why didn't the Patriots kidnap Prince William Henry in New York City?

They almost did.

Prince William Henry of Great Britain, third son of King George III, arrived in British-held New York in September 1781, just before the Patriot Army left Williamsburg and marched to Yorktown. The sixteen-year-old midshipman was the first member of the royal family to visit America. During the winter of 1781–82, Prince William spent time with high-ranking British officials but also made sure to enjoy himself. He liked sitting in a chair being pushed around a frozen lake, among other things.

In March of 1782, five months after the Yorktown victory, New Jersey Colonel Matthias Ogden developed plans to sneak into New York with forty men and capture the prince and British Admiral Robert Digby. It was a bold and dangerous plan. Washington approved it, but before Ogden could strike, the British greatly increased security around the prince and Digby Ogden's kidnapping plans were canceled. By August, news of peace negotiations between the Americans and the British became public.

Prince William Henry didn't become King of England until 1830, when he was sixty-four years old. When he died seven years later, he was succeeded by his niece, Victoria. In other words, Queen Victoria, who ruled Great Britain from 1837 to 1901, was the granddaughter of King George III, who saw his American colonies declare, fight for, and win their independence.

Read more:

Janice Hadlow,
A Royal Experiment: The Private Life of King George III
.

Judith L. Van Buskirk,
Generous Enemies: Patriots and Loyalists in Revolutionary New York
.

12. Did the Patriot victory at Yorktown end the American Revolution?

Both sides of the conflict recognized Washington's win at Yorktown as an important victory, but it did not end the war right away. The armies fought minor skirmishes as the politicians pondered what the end of the war should look like. In March 1782, the British people voted a new Parliament into office. In 1783, both countries signed the Treaty of Paris, which officially ended the war.

The Revolution was only the first step on the road to build a new country. America's leaders had to structure the government and stabilize the economy, so they got to work writing the Constitution, which laid out the foundation of the United States.

Slavery became a central topic of debate during the Constitutional Convention. Delegates from the Northern states, whose economies were not as dependent on slave labor, argued to end the institution of slavery and gradually free all people held in slavery. The Southern states disagreed. “South Carolina and Georgia cannot do without slaves,” said South Carolina delegate, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney. There was talk of the two states seceding and rejoining Great Britain if the Constitution outlawed slavery.

The final draft of the Constitution was filled with compromises that ensured that millions of Americans would be held in slavery for the next seventy-eight years, until the Union's victory in the Civil War and the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution set all people free.

The struggle for total equality of rights and opportunity for all Americans has continued ever since.

Read more:

Thomas Fleming,
The Perils of Peace: America's Struggle for Survival After Yorktown
.

Joseph J. Ellis,
Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation
.

Gary B. Nash,
The Forgotten Fifth: African Americans in the Age of Revolution
.

addlepated:
foolish or silly

bairn:
child

balderdash:
nonsense

barmy:
crazy

befuddled:
confused

betwixt:
between

blatherskite:
person who talks on and on without making any sense

bloody flux:
dysentery, a deadly infection that causes bloody diarrhea

breeches:
Colonial-era pants that ended just below the knee, where they were fastened with a string, buttons, or buckles

buffoon:
ridiculous person, clown

clodpate:
blockhead, fool

confab:
conversation

consarned:
confounded, darned

caterwauled:
complaining

frippery:
frivolous thing

gob:
mouth

gollumpus:
big clumsy person, oaf

haint:
ghost

hexed:
magically enchanted

hullabaloo:
commotion

lackwit:
fool

lobsterback:
British soldier

looby:
awkward person who does dumb things

lout:
mean person who is up to no good

muzzy-headed:
confused

mutton-headed:
foolish

niff-naffy nincompoop:
lazy fool

odsbodikins:
a mild curse word

pate:
skull, head

pestilent:
dangerous, harmful

poppet:
affectionate nickname for a child

poultice:
cloth soaked in medication, often heated, that is placed on the skin to reduce inflammation

pox on you:
a mild curse that shows anger or disgust

rogue:
dishonest person, scoundrel

queue:
short ponytail worn by many boys and men during the Revolution

slubberdegullion:
slobbering or worthless person

sluggard:
a lazy person

sutler:
someone who sells things to soldiers

totty-headed:
confused, ridiculous

varlet:
a dishonest person

vex, vexation:
irritating, frustrating

I've been working on the Seeds of America trilogy for nearly half of my career. It has been an incredible journey, both as a writer and as an American. You can find a bibliography of the sources I used for the trilogy on my website, but I'd like to thank the people who were particularly helpful in the creation of
Ashes
here.

Historian, professor, and researcher Ray Raphael, author of groundbreaking books about the American Revolution such as
A People's History of the American Revolution: How Common People Shaped the Fight for Independence
and
Founding Myths: Stories That Hide Our Patriotic Past
, and his wife, author Marie Raphael, generously read and commented on the book. They helped me sort through some confusing contradictions and verified important details. I used many of Ray's books in the research for the entire trilogy and am grateful beyond words for the help and enthusiastic encouragement of him and Marie.

Martha Katz-Hyman, curator of the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, specialist on African-American material culture of the eighteenth century, and co-editor (with Kym S. Rice) of
World of a Slave: Encyclopedia of the Material Life of Slaves in the United States
, kindly combed the manuscript for errors in my description of the lives led by the heroes of
Ashes
. Her attention is very much appreciated.

Three leaders in the field of education read
Ashes
with an eye toward the representation of the African American children in the book:

Dr. Marcelle Haddix, chair of Reading and Language Arts, dean's associate professor in the School of Education at Syracuse University, and author of
Cultivating Racial and Linguistic Diversity in Literacy Teacher Education: Teachers Like Me
is an acclaimed scholar on the experiences of students of color in literacy, English teaching, and teacher education.

Dr. Detra Price-Dennis, assistant professor of Elementary and Inclusive Education at Teachers College at Columbia University, explores culturally relevant literacy pedagogy with her teaching, service, and scholarship that includes the examination of race, equity, and social justice, multicultural literature, and critical literacies in teacher education.