Forgotten Patriots
For decades, the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution has worked to identify African Americans, Native Americans and individuals of mixed heritage who supported the struggle for independence during the American Revolution. We welcome the descendants of these men and women into our membership within our National Society.
This effort was inspired, in part, by Lena Santos Ferguson, a woman of African American decent, who was initially denied membership in DAR by a local chapter due to her race. As part of a 1984 mutual agreement with Ms. Ferguson, DAR committed to better researching minority Patriots in order to both document the sacrifice and courage of these often-overlooked Patriots and to help ensure that their female descendants would be encouraged to join the DAR.
As a result, in the 1980s and 1990s, a series of small booklets for each of the original states was published; in 2001 these booklets were merged into one volume and their contents greatly expanded via the publication African American and American Indian Patriots in the Revolutionary War. In addition, a well-received DAR Museum exhibition, “Forgotten Patriots: African American and American Indian Service in the Revolutionary War, 1775-1783,” was opened to the public and a seminar was held featuring noted historians from around the country. The exhibit now appears online.
In 2006 a new, intensified effort to identify further names of minority Patriots was undertaken that ultimately resulted in the publication of the 874-page Forgotten Patriots: African American and American Indian Patriots in the Revolutionary War by DAR in 2008. Although initially sold, it was digitized and made available free of charge on the DAR public website for all to access in 2011.
In 2020, DAR was proud to launch an important ongoing effort, the “E Pluribus Unum Educational Initiative,” to increase awareness of often-underrepresented Revolutionary War Patriots, including those who were African American, Native American and female. Given DAR’s fundamental purpose to perpetuate the legacy of all the men and women who achieved independence, the National Society is researching and promoting how diversified participants assisted in the creation of our nation. DAR is committed to better telling the stories of these Patriots who have all too often been left out of the pages of history and to adding new names to its database as additional information becomes available.
Click here to download a free PDF of the Forgotten Patriots research guide
Note: Please be aware that the following publication is not connected with NSDAR publications, with the 2002-2003 DAR Museum exhibit, or the 2003 seminar.
Burrows, Edwin G. Forgotten Patriots: The Untold Story of American Prisoners during the Revolution. New York: Basic Books, 2008.
Contact
The publications staff of the DAR Library continues to work on the Forgotten Patriots Project. They welcome questions, additions, or corrections to the content of the material and would appreciate documentation to support or to clarify the correspondence.
For more information, or to ask questions about the Forgotten Patriots project, please email [email protected] or call the DAR Library at (202) 879-3229.
