what ultimately led to the americans using black recruits in the continental army
African Americans in the Revolutionary War American states had to meet quotas of troops for the new Continental Army, and New England regiments recruited black slaves by promising freedom to those who served in the Continental Army. During the course of the war, about one-fifth of the northern army was black.[8] At the Siege of Yorktown in 1781, Baron Closen, a German officer in the French Royal Deux-Ponts Regiment, estimated the American army to be about one-quarter black.[9]