Prince Simbo’s Powder Horn

Simbo was born in Glastonbury, CT, around 1737 and enlisted on February 23, 1778. With the 7th Connecticut Regiment, Simbo served in the Battle of Brandywine, Battle of Germantown, and the Battle of Monmouth. He was Black; surviving documents do not record whether he was ever enslaved, but most likely, by the time he enlisted, he was a free person.

Simbo used the powder horn, which was carved from the horn of a cow, to carry his gunpowder. On the side of the horn, he engraved his name, “Prince Simbo,” and wrote, “his horn made at Glastonbury, November 17th AD 1777.” Along with a number of other images – a series of eyes, the sun, a deer, a leaf, and more abstract symbols – Simbo added a bird. In its mouth, the bird carried a banner proclaiming “LIBERTY.”

The powder horn is in the collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.