Free black harbor pilot, alleged insurrectionary. Thomas Jeremiah, or \u201cJerry,\u201d was a free person of color who earned a living by navigating ships through the treacherous waters of Charleston harbor. Little is known about his life. It appears that he obtained his freedom sometime in the mid-to-late eighteenth century. In addition to his skills as a harbor pilot, Jeremiah worked as a firefighter and ran the fish market in Charleston\u2019s wharf district. Eventually he would become a slaveowner himself, acquiring an estate valued at somewhere between \u00a3700 to \u00a31,000 sterling. Earning the respect of his own community as well as a number of prominent white allies, the pilot undoubtedly blurred and transcended the boundaries of race that were becoming ever more sharply drawn during the course of his lifetime. Yet the same skills which initially brought him success and notoriety would ultimately make him a target for suspicion.<\/p>\n
Jeremiah\u2019s paradoxical relationship to the power structure is perhaps best illustrated by an incident that occurred in 1771. On July 17, he was convicted of assaulting a white ship captain by the name of Thomas Langen\u2013a bold action for a black man living in the pre-Revolutionary South\u2013and was sentenced to an hour in the pillory and ten lashes with a whip. In view of his public deeds, however, Lieutenant Governor William Bull granted him a pardon. Four years later, when open conflict broke out between Great Britain and her North American colonies, Jeremiah would not be so lucky.<\/p>\n
In June 1775, he became the foremost suspect in an alleged plot by the British to use the majority of the Carolina populace\u2013enslaved blacks\u2013against the patriot rebels. As a man who had long worked with battleships and fire, Jeremiah appeared to be the most plausible and potentially dangerous link between black Carolinians and the British. Embroiled in a cause c\u00e9l\u00e8bre between the last royal governor of South Carolina, Lord William Campbell, and patriot leader Henry Laurens, Thomas Jeremiah was adjudged guilty by patriot authorities and sentenced to die under the Negro Act of 1740.<\/p>\n
On August 18, 1775, at twelve o\u2019clock noon, Jeremiah was brought before the gallows in Charleston. Before the noose could be tightened around his neck, he proclaimed his innocence and told his accusers that \u201cGod\u2019s judgment would one day overtake them for shedding his innocent blood.\u201d While the rest of spectacle is difficult to piece together, Jeremiah reportedly met \u201cdeath like a man and a Christian.\u201d After he was asphyxiated, his remains were set on fire\u2013both a reminder and a warning. \u201cSurely,\u201d one contemporary concluded, \u201cthere is no murder so cruel and dangerous as that committed under the appearance of law and justice.\u201d Although we may never know whether he was \u201cguilty\u201d or \u201cinnocent,\u201d Jeremiah\u2019s ordeal illustrated the three-way struggle for power between blacks, Whigs, and Tories that was taking place throughout the lower South on the eve of the Revolutionary War.<\/p>\n
Ryan, William R. \u201c\u2018Under the Color of Law\u2019: The Ordeal of Thomas Jeremiah, a Free Black Man, and the Struggle for Power in Revolutionary South Carolina.\u201d In George Washington\u2019s South, <\/em>edited by Tamara Harvey and Greg O\u2019Brien. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2004.<\/p>\n Wood, Peter H. \u201c\u2018Liberty is Sweet\u2019: African-American Freedom Struggles in the Years before White Independence.\u201d In Beyond the American Revolution: Explorations in the History of American Radicalism, <\/em>edited by Alfred F. Young. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1993.<\/p>\n \u2013\u2013\u2013. \u201c\u2018Taking Care of Business\u2019 in Revolutionary South Carolina: Republicanism and the Slave Society.\u201d In The Southern Experience in the American Revolution, <\/em>edited by Jeffrey J. Crow and Larry E. Tise. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1978.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Free black harbor pilot, alleged insurrectionary. Thomas Jeremiah, or \u201cJerry,\u201d was a free person of color who earned a living by navigating ships through the treacherous waters of Charleston harbor. Little is known about his life. It appears that he obtained his freedom sometime in the mid-to-late eighteenth century. In addition to his skills as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":-1,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","class_list":["post-8581","entry","type-entry","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","ecms-a-z","ecms-african-americans","ecms-charleston-county","ecms-colonial-period-1670-1764","ecms-colonial-unrest-american-revolution-and-new-republic-1765-1789","ecms-encyclopedia","ecms-government-and-law","ecms-j","ecms-military","ecms-politics"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n