So it's finally here! A post about the failed work of John's life, you might be asking yourself "why did you take so long posting this?" Well, if you think that talking about the Hamilton-Laurens relationship makes me depressed you should see how I get on the Black battalion subject.
As some of you may know, there are two versions of "Laurens' Interlude", in one of them it says "His dream of freedom for this men dies with him" and in the other the line goes "The surviving members of his regiment have been returned to his masters", and the latter is wrong.
You see, Laurens didn't actually get to form his black battalion, which makes me ducking depressed seeing how hard he worked for it for so many years of his life.
Congress did approve his plan and sent him to SC to gather 3,000 slaves to form the regiment, but John had to get approval from the SC House of Representatives first.
He tried to get his plan approved over and over again but he was met with an overwhelmingly negative response by the South Carolinian House of representatives again and again. He tried to get his plan approved three times between 1779 and 1782 leading up to his death but he could never get more than one or two dozen votes on his favor. The legislature was made up of slaveowners who weren't willing to let go of the slaves that produce their money nor arm the men they have been abusing for years. The last time he went to the SC House of representatives he even suggested that the slaves recruited for the regiment could come from confiscated loyalist estates, but it was still denied.
In John's words, "the single voice of reason was drowned by the howling of a triple-headed monster in which Prejudice, Avarice & Pusillanimity were united."
Also! John wasn't actually the first man to come up with a plan to offer freedom to slaves in exchange of their service. Coronel Christopher's Green of Rhode Island enlisted slaves to form his 1st Rhode Island Regiment. Hence, John wasn't either the first or the only one to come up with this idea.
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John Laurens FanClub
Non-FictionBecause John Laurens deserves all the love in the world! (Even if he died like 236 years ago). So this is exactly what the tittle said! Yes, a fanclub for John Laurens. (Historical John Laurens, that is. So if you're expecting posts about the thousa...
