Black Loyalist

In November 1775, Lord Dunmore issued the controversial Lord Dunmore's Proclamation. As Virginia's royal governor, he called on all able-bodied men to assist him in the defense of the colony, including slaves belonging to the Patriots. He promised such slave recruits freedom in exchange for service in the British Army.

I do require every Person capable of bearing Arms, to resort to His MAJESTY'S STANDARD, or be looked upon as Traitors to His MAJESTY'S Crown and Government, and thereby become liable to the Penalty the Law inflicts upon such Offences; such as forfeiture of Life, confiscation of Lands, &c. &c. And I do hereby further declare all indented Servants, Negroes, or others, (appertaining to Rebels,) free that are able and willing to bear Arms, they joining His MAJESTY'S Troops as soon as may be, for the more speedily reducing this Colony to a proper Sense of their Duty, to His MAJESTY'S Crown and Dignity.

— Lord Dunmore's Proclamation, November 7, 1775[6]

Within a month, about 800 former slaves had fled to Norfolk, Virginia to enlist.[7][8] Outraged Virginia slave owners decreed that runaway slaves would be executed, and they also contradicted the British Army's promises by claiming that slaves who escaped to the British would be sold to sugar cane plantations in the West Indies. But many slaves were willing to risk their lives for a chance at freedom.[9]

Lord Dunmore's Proclamation was the first mass emancipation of slaves in America.[7] The 1776 Declaration of Independence refers obliquely to the Proclamation by citing it as one of its grievances, that King George III had "excited domestic Insurrections among us".[10] An earlier version of the Declaration was more explicit, stating the following of King George III, but these controversial details were dropped during the final development of the document in Congress.

He is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he has obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed again the Liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.

— Draft Declaration of Independence, 1776[11]

After the war began, a number of British generals issued proclamations calling for Loyalists to free their slaves so that they could join the undermanned British army and bolster its numbers. Among those issuing proclamations were John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore, Governor of Virginia,[7] and Sir Henry Clinton.[12] Jamaica's Governor John Dalling drafted a proposal in 1779 for the enlistment of a regiment of mulattoes and another regiment of free Negroes.[13]

With the arrival of 30,000 Hessian mercenary troops, the British did not have as much need of former slaves. Sir William Howe banned the formation of new Black regiments and disbanded his own. But freeing slaves of rebels still held value as economic warfare against the American so-called Patriots. In 1779, Sir Henry Clinton issued the Philipsburg Proclamation, expanding Lord Dunmore's Proclamation and promising freedom to any escaped slave of a Patriot.

By contrast, the British often returned escaped slaves to Loyalist masters and requested the owner to refrain from punishment. In 1778 the Patriots promised freedom to escaped slaves of Loyalists. Many slaves who escaped to one side or the other, however, ended up being sold back into slavery.[12]

The largest Black Loyalist regiment was the Black Company of Pioneers, better known as the "Black Pioneers" and later merged into the Guides and Pioneers. In the military terminology of the day, a "pioneer" was a soldier who built roads, dug trenches, and did other manual labor. These soldiers were typically divided into smaller corps and attached to larger armies. The Black Pioneers worked to build fortifications and other necessities, and they could be called upon to work under fire.[15] They served under General Clinton in a support capacity in North Carolina, New York, Newport, Rhode Island, and Philadelphia. They did not sustain any casualties because they were never used in combat. In Philadelphia, their general orders to "attend the scavangers, assist in cleaning the streets & removing all newsiances being thrown into the streets".[16]

Lord Dunmore organized his 800 Black Loyalist volunteers into the Ethiopian Regiment. They trained in the rudiments of marching and shooting before engaging in their first conflict at the Battle of Kemp's Landing. The Patriot militia at Kemp's Landing was unprepared for the attack and retreated. Next, Dunmore led the Royal Ethiopians into the Battle of Great Bridge; Dunmore was overconfident and misinformed about the Patriot numbers, however, and the Patriots overwhelmed the British troops. After the battle, Dunmore loaded his Black troops onto ships of the British fleet, hoping to take the opportunity to train them better. The cramped conditions led to the spread of smallpox. By the time that Dunmore retreated to the Province of New York, only 300 of the original 800 soldiers had survived.[14]

The "Black Brigade" was a small combat unit of 24 in New Jersey led by Colonel Tye, a slave from Monmouth County, New Jersey who had escaped to British lines early in the war.[17] The title of colonel was not an official military designation, as blacks were not formally commissioned as officers, but such titles were permitted in an unofficial capacity. Tye and the Black Brigade were the most feared Loyalists in New Jersey, and he led them in several raids from 1778 at the Battle of Monmouth to defending the British in occupied New York in the winter of 1779. Beginning in June 1780, Tye led several actions against Patriots in Monmouth County, and he was wounded in the wrist during a raid on a Patriot militia leader in September. Within weeks, he died from gangrene,[15] and Black Pioneer leader Stephen Blucke took over the Black Brigade and led it through the end of the war.[17]

Reverend William Furmage, Old Burying Ground (Halifax, Nova Scotia), Huntingdonian Missionary to the Black Loyalists; established school for Black students in Halifax (1786)[28][29]

Between 1776 and 1785, around 3,500 Blacks were transported to Nova Scotia from the United States, part of a larger migration of about 34,000 Loyalist refugees. This massive influx of people increased the population by almost 60%, and led to the establishment of New Brunswick as its own colony in 1784. Most of the free Blacks settled at Birchtown, the largest Black township in North America at the time, next to the town of Shelburne, settled by whites.[30] There are also a number of Black loyalists buried in unmarked graves in the Old Burying Ground (Halifax, Nova Scotia).

A Black Loyalist wood cutter, at Shelburne, Nova Scotia, in 1788

The coat of arms of the Black Loyalist Heritage Society in Canada

Among, the descendants of the Black Loyalists are noted figures such as Rose Fortune, a Black woman living in Nova Scotia who became a police officer and a businesswoman.[31] Measha Brueggergosman (née Gosman), the Canadian opera and concert singer, is a New Brunswick native and descendant of a Black Loyalist through her father. In the closing days of the Revolution, along with British troops and other Black Loyalists, her paternal four-times-great-grandfather and grandmother left the colonies. They were resettled in Shelburne with their first child, who had been born free behind British lines in New York.

Lawrence Hartshorne, d. 1822, a Quaker who was the chief assistant of John Clarkson in helping the Black Nova Scotian Settlers emigrate to Sierra Leone (1792), Old Burying Ground (Halifax, Nova Scotia)

[33][34]

Some Black Loyalists were transported to London, where they struggled to create new lives. Sympathy for the black veterans who had fought for the British stimulated support for the Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor. This organization backed the resettlement of the black poor from London to a new British colony of Sierra Leone in West Africa. In addition, Black Loyalists in Nova Scotia were offered the opportunity to relocate, and about half chose to move to the new colony. Today the descendants of these pioneers are known as the Sierra Leone Creole people, or Krios. They live primarily in the Western Area of Freetown.

Black Loyalists from the American South brought their languages to Freetown, such as Gullah from the Low Country and African American Vernacular English. Their lingua franca was a strong influence on the descendants of this community, who developed Krio as a language. Many of the Sierra Leone Creoles or Krios can trace their ancestry directly to their Black Loyalist ancestors.

An example of such an ancestor is Harry Washington, likely born about 1740 in The Gambia, enslaved as a young man and shipped to Virginia.[35] He was purchased by George Washington in 1763; he escaped about 1776 in Virginia to British lines, eventually making his way to New York.[36] He was among free blacks evacuated to Nova Scotia by the British following the war.[36][37] He later took the opportunity to migrate to Freetown in Africa. There by 1800 he became the leader of a rebellion against colonial rule and faced a military tribunal.[35] His descendants are part of the Creole population, who make up 5.8% of the total.