|
 Cuff Liberty, of Middletown, CT. joined the Continental Army in 1777. From 1781-83, he served in Captain David Humphreys’s “Negro Company.”
Liberty signs for receipt “of Oliver Wolcott, Comptroller of the Public Accounts, One Pound four shillings and eight pence Lawful Money, in 1 Certificate; being the balance due on 1 State Note lodged in the Treasury…”
Cuff Liberty. Partly Printed Document Signed. Hartford, Ct., September 1, 1789. 3 x 7½”.
Inventory# 11346 $3,400
Historical Background:
As many as 400 black soldiers fought in Connecticut’s Continental and State regiments. Of the estimated 100,000 men who served in the Continental Army during the war, at least 5,000 were black. Both enslaved and free African-Americans served in the army as soldiers, laborers, and servants. In some cases, slaves were offered freedom when they enlisted, though others remained enslaved, fighting in place of their masters. Most black soldiers fought with integrated units, but occasionally all-black units were formed.
Oliver Wolcott, Jr. (1760-1833) was born to a distinguished Connecticut family; his father signed the Declaration of Independence and represented Connecticut at the Continental Congress. The younger Wolcott, a graduate of Yale, served as Comptroller of Accounts for Connecticut in 1788-89 and as Comptroller of the United States from 1791 until 1795. An enthusiastic proponent of Alexander Hamilton’s financial policies, he was appointed by President George Washington to be the second Secretary of the Treasury (1795-1800) when Hamilton resigned from the cabinet.
David Humphreys (1752-1818) soldier, diplomat, merchant, poet. Graduated Yale (1771). Served as an aide-de-camp to Washington during the American Revolution rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel. Secretary to the commercial treaty commission in France and England (1784-86). Member of the Connecticut Assembly (1786) and in the same year commandant of a new regiment to carry out operations against the Indians. Served as secret U.S. intelligence agent at London, Lisbon, and 1790; commissioner for Algerian affairs (post 1793); minister to Spain (1796-1801). Settling in Boston he became interested in the breeding of merino sheep and textile milling. Humphreys was also a poet (albeit relatively unsuccessful); and associated with America’s first literary coterie, the “Hartford Wits” which included John Barlow and John Trumbull.
Humphreys stood at George Washington’s side during his Inauguration as President of the United States. Later in 1789, Humphreys published the first part of his Life of George Washington, including notes on George Washington’s feelings about slavery, recording Washington’s hope to “lay down a foundation to prepare the rising generation for a destiny different from that in which they were born.”
|
