Colonel Tye (Titus Cornelius)
Titus Cornelius escaped enslavement in New Jersey after Lord Dunmore's 1775 proclamation and, taking the name Colonel Tye, became the most effective Black Loyalist guerrilla commander of the war. Leading the mixed-race Black Brigade in raids across Monmouth County, he targeted the plantations of the same Patriot slaveholders he had fled, embodying the war's rarely-told alternative: that for enslaved Americans, the Crown -- not the Congress declaring all men equal -- was, in practice, the side offering freedom.
- Lived: 1753 CE – 1780 CE
- Nationality: american
- Roles: guerrilla leader, formerly enslaved
