During those times, the word equality was exclusively used when referring to white men. When it came to African Americans, women and Native Americans, equality was just another word. For African Americans, the North did not want slaves; however, the Southern states had no plan to give them up. So, the Southern states, mostly Virginia, joined the fight against Great Britain, causing the Revolution to become “primarily a war to defend slavery” (Tindall and Shi, 177). This act did not make the Revolutionary Era ‘revolutionary’, but instead kept it the same that it was before the American