Peter Salem’s Revolutionary Story | Black American Heroes

On a June afternoon in 1775, as smoke rolled across the Charlestown peninsula and British warships hammered the colonial lines from Boston Harbor, an enslaved man named Peter Salem stood among the Massachusetts militia on Breed’s Hill. What happened in the minutes that followed — the death of a British officer and the legend of a Black soldier who helped stall the British advance — has been debated by historians for two and a half centuries. Salem’s story sits at the crossroads of the American Revolution and the longer, harder history of Native and African-descended peoples in colonial New England, where Black and Indigenous communities were bound together by slavery, land dispossession, and the shared struggle for freedom. His name survives not only in military chronicles but in the wider chronicle of Native American and Indigenous history, where the fight for sovereignty was always entangled with the fight against bondage.

The World That Made Peter Salem

Peter Salem was born around 1750 in Framingham, Massachusetts, and was enslaved by Jeremiah Belknap before being sold to Major Lawson Buckminster. His early life unfolded in a Massachusetts where slavery was legal but increasingly contested. Enslaved people of African and Indigenous descent labored on farms, in households, and in the coastal trades. Some had Nipmuc, Wampanoag, or Narragansett ancestry, since colonial systems of enslavement in southern New England routinely absorbed Indigenous captives — including survivors of King Philip’s War — into the same bondage networks that held Africans. That entangled history matters: as the historian Jill Lepore and other scholars have documented, the line between “Indian” and “Negro” in colonial New England was often drawn by colonial courts and tax rolls rather than by the communities themselves. Salem’s world was one where Native and Black families shared kin, worship, and hardship.

When Massachusetts militia companies began forming in the 1770s, enslaved men were sometimes permitted — and sometimes compelled — to enlist, occasionally in exchange for their freedom. Salem entered the ranks of Captain Simon Edgell’s company in Colonel John Nixon’s 6th Massachusetts Regiment. On April 19, 1775, the fighting at Lexington and Concord opened the war. Salem was among the thousands of militia who poured into Cambridge and Roxbury within days.

Bunker Hill: The Battle That Made His Name

Fortifying Breed’s Hill

On the night of June 16, 1775, Colonel William Prescott led roughly 1,200 colonial troops onto the Charlestown peninsula. They dug in on Breed’s Hill rather than the adjacent Bunker Hill, and by dawn the British command in Boston could see the earthworks clearly. General Thomas Gage ordered a frontal assault. The first two British charges were repulsed with heavy losses — the famous command attributed to Prescott, “Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes,” though its exact wording has never been confirmed — before the third charge broke the colonial line.

The Death of Major Pitcairn

According to a widely circulated account published in the early 19th century, Peter Salem shot and killed Major John Pitcairn, the British Marine officer who had led troops into Lexington that April. The claim appears in sources such as Samuel Swett’s 1825 history of the battle and in John Trumbull’s 1786 painting, The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker’s Hill, in which a Black soldier — sometimes identified as Salem — is depicted near the fallen officer. Modern historians treat the Pitcairn attribution with care: witnesses disagreed on who fired the fatal shot, and other figures, including Salem Poor, have also been credited. What is not disputed is that Salem fought at Bunker Hill, that he reenlisted, and that he was later recognized by his contemporaries as a soldier of distinction.

Salem went on to serve at Saratoga in 1777 and at Monmouth in 1778. His service, like that of thousands of Indigenous and Black soldiers across the thirteen colonies, was part of a broader Revolutionary-era debate over who could claim American liberty.

Black and Indigenous Soldiers in Washington’s Army

At the war’s outset, General George Washington initially opposed enlisting Black men, fearing it would undermine southern support for the cause. But manpower shortages, and the British promise of freedom to enslaved people who joined the Crown, forced a reversal. By late 1775 and into 1776, Washington approved the enlistment of free Black men, and enslaved men continued to serve in New England units where local practice permitted it. The 1st Rhode Island Regiment, formed in 1778, became the Continental Army’s first predominantly Black regiment — a landmark in the war’s complicated racial history.

Indigenous nations took sides for their own strategic reasons. The Haudenosaunee Confederacy split during the war: the Mohawk, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca largely sided with Britain, while the Oneida and Tuscarora supported the Americans. In the South, Cherokee and Creek communities fought to defend ancestral hunting grounds against colonial encroachment, both during and after the Revolution. For these nations, the war was never merely a quarrel between Britain and its colonies — it was a contest over land, treaty standing, and survival.

Freedom, Slavery, and the Unfinished Revolution

Peter Salem’s manumission — he was freed by Buckminster in exchange for his enlistment — was purchased at the price of his own service. After the war he lived in Leicester, Massachusetts, where he married Katy Benson, worked as a cane weaver, and struggled financially. He died in 1816 at approximately 66 years of age and was buried at what is now the Old Burying Ground in Framingham, where a memorial stone was dedicated in 2016.

His story reflects a contradiction at the heart of the Revolution. The same years that produced the Declaration of Independence also saw Native nations pressured into land cessions formalized by the Proclamation of 1763 and its aftermath, and enslaved people in New England gaining freedom slowly and unevenly. Massachusetts began dismantling slavery through court cases such as the Quock Walker decisions in 1781–1783, though full abolition came gradually. For Native communities, the Revolution accelerated westward settlement and made many wartime alliances risky: the Iroquois Confederacy lost much of its territory to punitive American campaigns in 1779, and southeastern nations faced mounting settler pressure that would culminate in the forced removals of the 1830s.

Memory, Commemoration, and Preservation

Peter Salem is remembered in several places. Framingham honors him with a memorial stone and a name attached to local streets and schools. Museums in Massachusetts, including the Framingham History Center, hold interpretations of his life. His portrait, attributed to the artist John Johnston and painted decades after his death, hangs at the Framingham History Center and is one of the earliest painted images of a Black Revolutionary veteran. The portrait itself is a preservation artifact: painted circa 1810, it captures the face of a man whose story might otherwise have vanished from the record.

For Indigenous and Black communities alike, Salem’s memory is not merely an American military footnote. It is a reminder that the revolution’s promise of liberty was claimed first and hardest by people it excluded — and that their descendants built the histories, archives, and museum collections that keep the record honest today.

Historical Context & Key Cultural Takeaways

• Entangled histories: In colonial New England, Black and Indigenous people were often enslaved through overlapping legal systems, meaning Salem’s world included Nipmuc, Wampanoag, and Narragansett kin networks.
• Service and freedom: Enslaved men like Salem sometimes gained freedom through military enlistment, but the exchange was uneven and depended on individual enslavers and state policy.
• Bunker Hill significance: The battle on June 17, 1775, was the first large-scale engagement of the Revolution. Salem’s presence there, along with other Black soldiers, disproves the myth that the Continental Army was exclusively white.
• The Pitcairn question: The claim that Salem killed Major Pitcairn is documented in early 19th-century accounts and in Trumbull’s painting, but modern scholarship treats it as a contested attribution, sometimes shared with Salem Poor.
• Unfinished promises: The Revolution did not end slavery or halt Native dispossession. Indigenous nations continued to fight for sovereignty and treaty standing through the 19th and 20th centuries.
• Preservation matters: Primary documents, painted portraits, and local memorials preserve Salem’s legacy and help scholars reconstruct the full story.

Frequently Asked Questions

Was Peter Salem the man who killed Major Pitcairn?
He is commonly credited with the shot, and the attribution appears in early histories such as Samuel Swett’s 1825 account and in John Trumbull’s 1786 painting. However, contemporaries did not all agree, and some historians credit Salem Poor or another soldier. What is certain is that Salem fought at Bunker Hill and was recognized by his peers as a distinguished soldier.

Was Peter Salem enslaved when he enlisted?
Yes. Salem was enslaved by Jeremiah Belknap and later sold to Major Lawson Buckminster. His freedom was arranged in connection with his military service, a common but not universal practice in New England.

What other Black soldiers fought in the Revolution?
Estimates suggest several thousand Black men served on the American side. The 1st Rhode Island Regiment, formed in 1778, was the first predominantly Black Continental unit. Others, like Salem Poor and Crispus Attucks, are similarly remembered.

Did Native Americans fight in the American Revolution?
Yes. The Haudenosaunee Confederacy divided in its loyalties; the Mohawk, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca largely sided with Britain, while the Oneida and Tuscarora backed the Americans. Cherokee and Creek communities in the South fought against colonial expansion both during and after the war.

Where can I see artifacts and records related to Peter Salem today?
The Framingham History Center in Massachusetts holds his portrait and related materials. His gravesite and memorial stone are located at the Old Burying Ground in Framingham. The Massachusetts Historical Society and the National Archives hold records documenting Black and Indigenous service in the Revolution.

Legacy: A Soldier in the Long Fight for Sovereignty

Peter Salem lived to see American independence secured and slavery slowly eroded in his home state, but not abolished. He died in poverty in 1816, having survived the battle that turned a Massachusetts militia into the Continental Army. His story endures because it refuses the simple narrative that the Revolution belonged to white colonists alone. Enslaved Africans, free Black men, and Indigenous nations all shaped its course — fighting on both sides, with their own goals in view.

For readers exploring Native and Indigenous history, Salem’s life is a reminder that sovereignty and freedom are intertwined struggles, and that the archive is richer when both are studied together. His name, etched on a memorial stone in Framingham, belongs alongside the tribal chronicles, treaties, and cultural continuities that define Indigenous history in what is now the United States.