James Lafayette
Posted by: 
archway
N 37° 31.068 W 076° 58.701
18S E 325165 N 4154154
A historical marker located on the grounds of the old New Kent County courthouse.
Waymark Code: WM76KM
Location: Virginia, United States
Date Posted: 09/09/2009
Views: 2
James Armistead Lafayette was the first American double agent. Lafayette joined the army as a volunteer, but since he was an intelligence officer, and technically not a soldier, he was not eligible for freedom under the Act of 1783 that freed African American soldiers. In appreciation for his outstanding service Lafayette's petition to the General Assembly for emancipation was successful, and, immediately after the war, he continued to live in New Kent and worked on his own land as a farmer.
The text on the marker reads as follows:
James Lafayette was born in slavery about 1748 near here. His master William Armistead was commissary of military supplies when in the summer of 1781 the Marquis de Lafayette recruited James as a spy. Posing as a double agent, forager, and servant at British headquarters, James moved freely between the lines with vital information on British troop movements for Lafayette. The Virginia General Assembly freed James in 1787 in recognition of his bravery and service, on the written recommendation of Lafayette, whose name he took for his own. He died in Baltimore on 9 Aug. 1830.