This is an I-Heart podcast.

Guaranteed Human.

And we continue with our American stories.

Up next, the story on an all-important and underappreciated name in American history you might not know,

but will be glad to meet James Armistad Lafayette.

Spies were an important asset in the American Revolution, and there were many of them.

But James was different.

He was African-American.

Here's Kirk Higgins, courtesy of the Bill of Rights Institute, with the story.

It was October 17, 1781, and more than 8,000 British soldiers under the command of General Charles Cornwallis

had been under siege for three long weeks by American and French forces at Yorktown, Virginia.

The artillery fire from the Americans in French was relentless. Cornwallis had hoped for reinforcements,

but a French fleet had created a naval blockade in the lower Chesapeake Bay. Reinforcements would not

be able to reach Cornwallis,

and now an escape by sea was impossible, too.

Realizing that all hope was lost,

Cornwallis sent out a drummer and an officer with a white flag of surrender.

For the American forces, victory meant a new independent nation was now within grasp.

For Cornwallis, it meant second-guessing and criticism about how he had led the British forces to defeat.

But there was an important factor in his defeat at Yorktown that Cornwallis did not know at the time.

One of Cornwallis' trusted servants, a man named James posing as a runaway slave, was a spy.

James had been secretly working for the Continental Army, providing them intelligence about

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