I was born in Africa and taken from my homeland as a child. I arrived in Princeton, New Jersey, enslaved and brought into the household of Dr. Absalom Bainbridge, a respected physician who would later declare loyalty to the British crown. I was known as Prime. I lived and labored in the Bainbridge House on Nassau Street, tending to my master’s needs while the country around us moved toward revolution.

When the war began, Bainbridge fled Princeton and joined the British army as a surgeon. I was left behind, handed off to relatives, moved from house to house. I ran away in 1778, escaping back to Princeton, where I hoped to live free. But freedom was not simple. I was captured and nearly sold again, until a man named Jacob Bergen, troubled by the idea of liberty being won while I was still being treated like property, urged me to join the Continental Army. I became a waggoner, serving in the American forces, hoping my work would earn my freedom.

After the war, I lived in Trenton, thinking myself free. But in 1784, I was seized and re-enslaved by a man who claimed to have bought me years before. A court case followed, dragging on for two years. The jury ruled in my favor. Still, I was not free. I now belonged to the state of New Jersey.

So I petitioned the legislature. I told them I had served their cause. That I had earned my liberty. That no man should live in bondage after fighting for freedom. On November 21, 1786, they agreed. They passed an act to set me free. I became one of only three enslaved men in New Jersey granted freedom by legislative decree for service in the Revolution.

After that, I disappear from the records. My name—common as it was—makes me hard to trace. But my fight, my service, and my petition live on. I was Prime. And I carved my name into the story of American freedom, even when others tried to erase it.