In this activity, students use digitized pension records of the National Records and Archives administration to examine and learn about the life of Black Revolutionary War veterans and their families.
First, introduce students to the activity and read the article at Revolutionary War Pension Files: Tips and a Guide for the Curious (U.S. NPS). This article explains important information about the records, including the pension laws which caused them to be created.
Next, depending on students’ age and level, teachers can select appropriate pension files for students to examine from the database: National Archives Revolutionary War Pensions or choose from these Selected Black Pension File Applications filed by Black veterans or their widows. To find a record of a Black veteran, use words that are more likely to appear in a 19th century pension application to identify the service member as Black. These terms might include outdated words such as ‘negro’, ‘coloured’, or ‘colored’ or terms that might identify free or unfree status, such as ‘slave’.
The length of the pension files vary from a few pages to over one hundred. Choose one or two pension files to print and divide the pages among the class in small groups.
Provide students with the handout I know, I think, I wonder to complete as they read their assigned page(s).
After they are finished, have students share their ‘I know’ statements to complete a short class biography of the life of the individual. Next, share the ‘I think’ statements, discussing what might be likely or less likely depending on the time period and evidence. Finally, share out ‘I wonder’ statements and discuss. In the share out, it is important to note that because of the pensions laws that existed at the time, pension applications are skewed toward those veterans and their families who lived in poverty. Discuss with students: where might we go to find stories about those veterans who did not apply for pensions?