692. Who Was Salem Poor? The Forgotten Revolutionary War Hero Who Fought for Liberty

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of The Way the World Works. Today we are moving right along on my series, telling you guys about unsung heroes of the Revolutionary War and the founding era and even a little bit before the founding era.

So today we're going to talk about a guy named Salem Poore, which is an interesting name. I feel bad for him. Poor Salem, right? But his name is Salem Poore and he's a really interesting individual.

I think he's different than, he's going to be a soldier as well. I know we've talked about a few soldiers. We've also talked about people who weren't soldiers, right? Because my big point in a lot of these unsung heroes is that it wasn't just the people who were making laws or serving in the second continental Congress or fighting in the battlefields who were changing the world and fighting for the American cause.

There was a lot of other ways you could contribute. But with Salem Poore, he is going to be a soldier, but he's going to have a little twist to his story. So let's get into it, shall we? So Salem Poore is born in 1747 in Massachusetts, but the twist is he's actually born into slavery, okay? So he is not a free man by any means, but he works on this farm and he saves up, and I don't know how that, I don't know how that went about.

I don't know how he was earning the money, but he saved up enough to where he could buy his freedom. So at 22 years old, he purchases his own freedom for 27 pounds, which is incredible. And now I don't know, I don't know why in some instances some enslaved people were allowed to buy their freedom and why in other circumstances they weren't.

I don't know enough about it to tell you guys why some could and some couldn't. You know, we had talked about Mumbet in another story where she had to sue for her freedom and miraculously won. But in this case, I don't know why Salem was allowed to buy his freedom where others weren't, but one thing that we do know is that he did.

He worked very hard, he saved, and for 27 pounds, he was able to buy his way into being a free man. So he's been free about a decade at this point, but, you know, 1775 rolls around, the crisis with Britain is definitely escalating, things are happening, and people start to enlist. You know, Massachusetts is ground zero for the revolution, other places too, but Massachusetts, that's where so much is happening.

And so he decides to join other Minutemen, other people, and so there were also a lot of other black patriots, a lot of black Sons of Liberty who were enlisting. And so Salem decides that he is going to do the same thing, and he enlists. And I just have to stop here and just say how incredible that is.

This man has already paid for his own freedom, worked and paid for his own freedom. He's his own man now. And while that came with a lot of strings attached to it, it's not so easy, it's not like everybody was all of a sudden treating you with equality and niceness just because you bought your freedom, there was still a lot of things he had to overcome.

But can you imagine going from growing up in slavery to then signing up for a war where you are once again signing your life away? I just don't know that I could do it, and I think he was so brave to do that, and clearly it shows that he believed in the American cause. Because there was a time later down the road where some slaves were not necessarily promised freedom, some were, but there was some ideas toyed around with like, okay, we'll free you if you fight for the Continental Army. Likewise, Britain was actually saying, if you come fight for us, we'll make sure that you stay free.

So there was stuff like that going on, but this doesn't really apply to Salem because he's already a free man, and yet here he is enlisting because he believes in the American cause. So you may not know this, but there were actually thousands of black soldiers fighting for the Continental Army in the Revolutionary War. But they were usually fighting in their own, I guess, would you call them battalions? I don't know, I'm not great with military terms, but they were not integrated.

Usually it was, there were black troops of soldiers. And so there were many, there were thousands, and one of those is going to be Salem. So remember guys, this is Massachusetts, 1775.

You're going to have Lexington and Concord, you're also going to have Bunker Hill. And that is one of the first major battles of the Revolutionary War, and Salem is going to be a part of it. So his unit is set ahead to build fortifications and kind of scope out what's going on there, but things escalate quickly, right? And the battle is starting and things are getting heated up in ways nobody really encountered for, or planned for, and so things are escalating very quickly.

And this is where he really shows his tremendous heroic spirit. Now it's not just black soldiers here, you have a lot of people here, at Bunker Hill we've talked about it before, so you can go back and listen to another episode. So this is really chaotic, the ammunition is running out, and people are having to retreat because they have no choice.

Now one thing, and this came up in the movie The Patriot with Mel Gibson, there was a lot of kind of internal trash talk sometimes from the Continental Army because they felt like the militia, the Minutemen, weren't always living up to their bravery because the Continental Army kept going no matter what, that was their job, but sometimes the militiamen would retreat because they weren't getting paid for this, it wasn't their job, they were volunteering. In this instance, that's not what's happening. In this instance, they're out of ammunition, they have to retreat.

And so while people are running and trying to retreat, Salem is helping them, he's helping them dodge fire, he's keeping them safe, and nobody's asking him to do this, but he's doing it because he feels it is his duty. While others were crumbling, while others were getting lost in the chaos, and oh my goodness guys, it's completely relatable and understandable to see why they were getting lost in it, there are bullets flying everywhere, you're not going to know what's going to happen, it's the very beginning of a war, but he didn't fall apart, he stayed together and he showed this real grit in the battlefield. So after Bunker Hill, things calmed down a little bit, 14 officers come forward and they sign this petition asking that Salem be honored, that he have recognition brought upon him for all the things he did during the Battle of Bunker Hill.

And I wish I could list them all for you, but I can't because literally, the officers wrote in this document, they said it would be impossible for us to list every single thing he did because he did too much. And this is a man who fought with the bravery of a seasoned soldier, somebody who had been doing it for a very long time. He fought with this sense of just courageousness you had seen even on the battlefield.

And so these officers stepped forward, and these were not fellow black soldiers, these were a lot of them, they were white officers, and said no, we need to honor Salem because he did so much that it's just crazy. And remember, he's not a trained soldier, he's not somebody who grew up in the military, this is not something he has experience with, that bravery just came so naturally to him. And thousands of people fought in Bunker Hill, but not one of them, not one of them had 14 officers petitioning to have additional recognition brought upon them.

That's how incredible Salem was during this fight. Obviously there are the usual lessons of bravery and fighting for a cause you believe in, but I think there's something bigger here and it actually reminds me of the Tuttle Twins book Medals of Merit, because you have to remember that during this time, obviously there's not going to be equality of all races as we have it today. And even if you are no longer an enslaved person, because he bought his freedom, there's still going to be a lot of barriers you have to get through, a lot of social hurdles because people aren't going to view you as equal.

And yet, because he showed and demonstrated such proficiency, such aptitude on the battlefield, because he showed and proved himself, it didn't matter the color of his skin, it didn't matter that just years earlier he was an enslaved person, it didn't matter, because his merit spoke for itself. His talent spoke for itself. And so it canceled out any prejudice somebody could have, because look at that.

And it's really interesting, because that was a big thing that happened during the Revolutionary War in general. Even people who were a little prejudiced against the slaves who came to fight when they weren't given that opportunity, or even the freed, you know, black people that came to fight, there was still that, you know, there was prejudice there. But when you fought on a battlefield with somebody and you saw what they were willing to do, you saw them risk their life for you, that prejudice went away, right? And so you had a lot of people rethinking how they viewed other races during this Revolutionary War, because when you're a soldier in arm, when you're fighting together, when you're fighting for that cause, the race barrier doesn't exist.

You're just the American Continental Army. You're just brothers. You're just fighting.

And unfortunately, it wouldn't be enough to get all of them to want to end slavery right away, but it did change a lot of minds. And you do see a turning point after the war in a lot of people saying, slavery is not compatible with this new system. And how can it be? Like, I fought.

I fought with these people and they're amazing. We are all the same. And so you're going to have these experiences start changing people's ideas on race.

Unfortunately, you know, Salem didn't change the world overnight. They weren't suddenly equality. He didn't suddenly get his recognition in a, you know, a solidified place in history books where we all learn about him every time we hear about the Revolutionary War.

That is why I'm telling you about him today, because I want us to remember these people. I want us to remember the people who don't always get that recognition, the people who helped make America what it is today, the people who really changed the game in a lot of ways. So I will leave it there.

As always, don't forget to like and subscribe to the podcast. And until next time, I will talk to you later.