in chains.

Attucks was in feelings, sympathies, and in all other respects,
essentially an American, and so were the other colored patriots of the
Revolution, and why shouldn't they be? They were born and bred here, and
knew no other country; as was true of their fathers. They had been here
as long as the Puritans. They came here the same year, 1620; in fact,
had been here a little longer, for while Plymouth Rock was only reached
in December of that year, the blacks were at Jamestown in the early
spring. In every difficulty with the mother country, the colored men
took sides with the colonists, and on every battle-field, when danger
was to be met, they were found shoulder to shoulder with the rest of the
Republicans, sharing the burden of war. At Lexington, where the farmers
hastily seized their muskets and gathered on the plain, and at the
bridge, to resist with the sacrifice of their lives the approach of the
British forces, Prince Estabrook, "Negro man" as the _Salem Gazette_ of
that day called him, rallied with his neighbors and comrades in arms,
and fell on the field, a wounded man, fighting the foe. He, like
Attucks, was both of and with the people. Their cause was his cause,
their home was his home, their fight was his fight. At Bunker Hill, a
few months later, we know there was a goodly number of colored men;
history has saved to us the names of some of them; how many there were
whose names were not recorded, of course, we cannot now tell. Andover
sent Tites Coburn, Alexander Ames, and Barzilai Low; Plymouth sent Cato
Howe, and Peter Salem immortalized his name by leveling the piece in
that battle which laid low Major Pitcairn. It is fair to presume that
other towns, like Andover, sent in the ranks of their volunteers colored
Americans. In the town of Raynham, within forty miles of Boston, there
is now a settlement of colored people who have been there for three or
four generations, the founder of which, Toby Gilmore, was an old
Revolutionary veteran who had served his country faithfully. Stoughton
Corner contributed Quack Matrick to the ranks of the Revolutionary
soldiers; Lancaster sent Job Lewis, East Bridgewater Prince Richards. So
did many other towns and States in this Commonwealth. Rhode Island
raised a regiment which did signal service at Red Bank in completely
routing the Hessian force under Colonel Donop, but it was not in
distinctively colored regiments or companies that colored men chiefly
fought in