Who Were the Black Loyalists of the American Revolution?

When American colonists rebelled against the British Empire, the British encouraged enslaved people to rise up and fight for the crown. Learn about the Black Loyalists in this episode of BrainStuff.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio, Hey brain Stuff,
Lauren fog Obam here. The story of the Black Loyalists
to Britain during the American Revolution is the story of
a people stolen into slavery who fought for their freedom,
exacted revenge h on cruel self proclaimed owners, and established
one of the first free black settlements on the continent.

(00:25):
It's also a story of broken promises, a racial discord,
and the lengths to which people will go to find
a better life. And it's a nearly forgotten chapter in
North American history. When the American colonies declared independence in
seventeen seventy six, enslaved Africans and their descendants made up
twenty percent of the colonial population. The population of South

(00:47):
Carolina was sixty enslaved people, and Virginia was due to
the large plantations in those states, though slavery was not
just a Southern institution. In some northern cities like Boston,
and enslaved people made up twenty percent of the population.
Even before the War for Independence officially began, the British

(01:07):
tried to recruit the enslaved to rise up and fight
against their rebel plantation owners. Loyalist was the term given
to people who still supported Britain in the American colonies.
In seventeen seventy five, the British Royal Governor of Virginia,
Lord Dunmore, issued a stunning emancipation proclamation, promising freedom and

(01:28):
land to all enslaved people who would take up arms
against their rebel masters. Dunmore was looking for manpower to
put down an armed rebellion in Virginia, and he found it.
Between eight hundred and two thousand enslaved people and indentured
servants fled their plantations and joined with the British, including
a hard fighting militia that would become known as Dunmore's

(01:50):
Ethiopian Regiment. This militia marched to battle in uniforms inscribed
with the insignia Liberty to Slaves. Dun Moore's proclamation was
quote the first mass emancipation in American history. That's according
to one Isaac Saaney, a history professor at St. Mary's
University in Nova Scotia. It happened nearly ninety years before

(02:13):
Abraham Lincoln signed the US Emancipation Proclamation, which ended slavery
in areas not under the control of the United States government.
When the tides turned against the British in seventeen seventy nine,
they issued a second emancipation called the Phillipsburg Proclamation, which
extended the promise of freedom and land to any enslaved

(02:33):
person who would cross the British lines without the requirement
to fight. The move was a form of economic warfare
against the colonies, Saney said. Escaping Africans would weaken the
rebel economy. You'd have this mass emancipation taking place, and
the colonists would now have to expend resources to guard
the plantations instead of using them in battle. An estimated

(02:56):
twelve thousand emancipated people fought for the British, but the
war was lost when the British surrendered in seventeen eighty three.
One of the central points of contention, Saaney says, was
quote the return of what George Washington deems us property,
which are the enslaved Africans. The British commander in Chief,

(03:16):
Guy Carlton, kept his word and negotiated certificates of freedom
for all so called black loyalists who had joined the
British ranks before the surrender. Under one condition, they had
to leave the country. Carlaton's men carefully recorded the names
of three thousand newly freed men and women in what's
known as the Book of Negroes, which was an accepted

(03:38):
term for black people at that time. The freedmen were
then put on ships heading to Nova Scotia, which was
a British ruled Canadian province, but Nova Scotia in the
late seventeen hundreds was sometimes known as Nova Scarcity. In sight.
Three forty thousand loyalists, both black and white, fled to
Nova Scotia, including one thousand and two hundred and thirty

(04:01):
two black people who were still enslaved by white loyalists.
All of these people tripled the native population and completely
overwhelmed the province's meager resources. The newly freed black loyalists,
far from receiving their just rewards in a new home,
found themselves last in line for land and exploited as
cheap labor. Widespread poverty and underemployment across Nova Scotia brewed

(04:26):
ugly discontent among white people, some of whom blamed the
black laborers for working for two little pay and thus
stealing their jobs. Racial tensions erupted into violence in four,
when a black preacher by the name of David George
baptized a white woman. The riots and massacres raged for months,
claiming many black homes and lives, until troops were finally

(04:49):
sent in from the capital, Halifax. The Black loyalists repeatedly
petitioned the crown to keep its promises from the war,
eventually sending the emissary Thomas Peters, all the way to
London to make the case in person. Peter's got nowhere
with royal officials, but did meet with a group of
British abolitionists who were launching a social experiment in Sierra Leone,

(05:10):
West Africa, a sanctuary for victims of the slave trade.
They convinced Peters that the best place for the emancipated
people was back in Africa. In fifteen, ships sailed from
Halifax Harbor in Nova Scotia to Sierra Leone carrying one thousand,
one d and ninety six Black loyalists, who had Sandy

(05:31):
said quote voted with their feet against broken promises of
land and freedom. Sandy calls it the maiden voyage of
the Back to Africa movement. Those who stayed behind in
Nova Scotia largely settled in the village of birch Town,
named for Samuel Birch, one of the British generals who
signed the original Certificates of Freedom. Today, Jason Farmer is

(05:54):
a ninth generation descendant of the Black Loyalists who first
settled birch Town. Farmer can traces roots back to Jupiter Farmer,
an enslaved person who escaped from Brunswick, New Jersey. Jupiter
married a woman named Venus Yes and established a continuous
line of the Farmer family that's remained in the Birchtown
area for more than two hundred and thirty years. Farmer

(06:16):
is an interpreter at the Black Loyalist Heritage Center and
Historical Site in Nova Scotia, where he's proud to share
the remarkable story of his ancestors who dared to escape
the plantations and join with an occupying army to win
their freedom, only to continue to fight for true freedom
and equality in a new land. The Farmer said, it's
an unknown history right here in Nova Scotia. They're amazed.

(06:39):
It's powerful. Some of them can't even sit there and
listen to it. All. They have to take breaks, some
of them cry. Some twenty thousand black people live in
Nova Scotia today, most of whom are descended from the
Black Loyalists the same He says that the legacy of
the Black Loyalists is of a persecuted people exercising black agency.

(07:00):
He said, these are people who took their fate and
their destiny into their own hands. Just to get to
the British side took a lot of courage, skill and ingenuity.
The fact that so many of them chose to fight
and saw themselves is not only defending their freedom, but
participating in the liberation of others, speaks to the breadth
and depth of their conception of agency, but also as

(07:23):
part of a collective struggle for freedom. Today's episode was
written by Dave Ruse and produced by Tyler Klang. For
more on this and lots of other topics, visit how
Stuff works dot com. Brain Stuff is production of I
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(07:43):
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