Representative George Middleton

George Middleton (activist) (1735–1815) was an African-American Revolutionary War veteran, activist, and Freemason who became a prominent figure in Boston’s free Black community in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Born around 1735, likely in New England though his exact place of birth is not definitively recorded, he came of age in a colonial society in which slavery and racial discrimination were deeply entrenched. By the time of the American Revolution, he was part of a growing population of free and enslaved African Americans who sought both personal liberty and broader civil rights through military service and civic engagement.

During the American Revolutionary War, Middleton served as a soldier and rose to a position of recognized leadership among Black troops. He is most closely associated with the command of an all-Black militia company in Massachusetts, sometimes identified as the “Bucks of America,” a unit that tradition holds was composed largely of African-American soldiers who supported the Patriot cause. Though the historical record for this unit is fragmentary, Middleton’s role as a Revolutionary War veteran is well attested, and he emerged from the conflict as one of the better-known Black veterans in Boston. His military service placed him among the early generation of African Americans who used their participation in the Revolution to argue for equal rights and civic inclusion.

In the postwar period, Middleton became an important activist within Boston’s free Black community. He was involved in efforts to secure civil rights, oppose discriminatory laws, and improve social conditions for African Americans in Massachusetts. He participated in petitions and public advocacy that pressed state and local authorities for fair treatment, including campaigns against segregation and for equal access to education and public facilities. His activism reflected the broader movement among free Black Bostonians who, in the decades following independence, sought to translate Revolutionary ideals of liberty and equality into tangible legal and social gains for people of African descent.

Middleton was also a Freemason and is remembered as one of the early African-American Masonic leaders in Boston. He was associated with Prince Hall Freemasonry, the pioneering African-American Masonic tradition founded in the late eighteenth century, and he helped foster fraternal networks that provided mutual aid, moral support, and organizational structure to Black communities. Through his Masonic involvement, he contributed to the development of African-American civic institutions that would endure well into the nineteenth century, linking social fellowship with charitable work and community leadership.

In addition to his public roles, Middleton was part of the emerging Black middle and working classes in Boston, a community that included artisans, laborers, and small property holders who carved out spaces of autonomy in a racially stratified society. He lived through the transition from colonial rule to the early republic and witnessed the gradual abolition of slavery in Massachusetts, events that shaped both his personal life and his public commitments. His standing as a veteran, activist, and Freemason made him a respected figure among his contemporaries and an important symbol of Black participation in the founding era of the United States.

George Middleton died in 1815, closing a life that spanned from the pre-Revolutionary colonial period into the formative decades of the American republic. Remembered as an African-American Revolutionary War veteran, activist, and Freemason, he occupies a significant place in the early history of Black civic and political engagement in New England. His example helped lay the groundwork for subsequent generations of African-American leaders who would continue the struggle for equality in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.