History

The History

They usually rose swiftly, silently out of the dark swamps and shrubs to strike with quick and deadly force. As quickly, they smoothly slipped away into the shadowy night without losing a single man. Their leader was probably the most feared, most hated, and oddly enough, one of the most respected British partisans in the New York arena during the Revolutionary War. Almost single-handedly he and his men kept the British in firm control of New York and the surrounding area. From Long Island to Staten Island, from Westchester County to Monmouth County, New Jersey and beyond -- their exploits struck terror in the hearts of Colonial Patriots. The victorious Colonists freely admitted at the end of the Revolutionary War that it would have been over at least two years earlier had it not been for Colonel Tye and The Black Brigade.

"We show how they lived, worked, fought and died — heroes on both sides of the American Revolution"

But Colonel Tye, Stephen Bleuke, and other Black, larger-than-life freedom fighters were simply a continuation of a long progression of phenomenally heroic enslaved Africans who rose from slavery to change the course of this nation from it's earliest Colonial days. This is their story as it unfolded in the areas of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut in what would eventually become the United States of America. To call it remarkable is to deal in a major understatement.

From their first arrivals in New Amsterdam in 1626 and the founding of the African Burial Ground, through the Revolutionary War, to the New York Draft Riots of 1863 — we chronicle the life and times of those first Africans, their descendants, and others who followed. We show how they lived, worked, fought and died — heroes on both sides of the American Revolution. We see how they moved up from slavery to become respected and feared; men of god and men of mammon — the poorest of the poor, to people of wealth and even landed merchants.

There were entrepreneurs, and early Abolitionists like David Ruggles, without whom there might have been no Frederick Douglass as we know him. You meet early Civil Rights activists like Elizabeth Jennings, the Rosa Parks of 1854, who hired a future President as her Defense Attorney. It's the story of constant struggle — first for freedom, then for first class citizenship; always against seemingly insurmountable odds; tremendous triumphs and the depths of despair. From the birth of the Black Church, the Black Middle Class and the Underground Railroad, to the Back to Africa Movement — the themes and truths are all here in this remarkable saga we call Then I'll Be Free To Travel Home.