VHSSTO_160812_0716
Existing comment: Revolutionary Double Agent
Serving as a spy for the Americans, James Armistead Lafayette, an enslaved African American, posed as a runaway slave to earn the confidence of British generals. The information he gathered contributed to American victory at Yorktown, but James was not emancipated until 1787. He took "Lafayette" as his last name to honor his former commander, the marquis de Lafayette.
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