Black Loyalists
Black Loyalists were individuals of African descent, both free and enslaved, who supported the British during the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783). Motivated by promises of freedom and land, thousands of Black soldiers joined British forces, particularly in Virginia, where the recruitment effort began. While some served in combat roles, many were assigned to support positions, including scouting and military engineering. As the war neared its conclusion and the American colonists appeared likely to win, the British evacuated Black Loyalists to various locations within their empire, with a significant number resettled in Nova Scotia, Canada.
In Nova Scotia, the Black Loyalists formed the largest free Black community outside Africa at the time, settling in towns such as Birchtown and Shelburne. Although they were promised land, they often faced delays and exploitation from White Loyalists who had fled to Canada, leading to widespread poverty and hardship. In 1791, Thomas Peters, a notable Black Loyalist, advocated for their rights and facilitated the relocation of some to Sierra Leone, a colony established for freed Africans. The legacy of the Black Loyalists reflects the complexity of their quest for freedom and the challenges they faced in the aftermath of the war.
Black Loyalists
The Black Loyalists were a group of Black people, both free and enslaved, who sided with the British during the Revolutionary War (1775–1783). Thousands of Black soldiers joined the British ranks during the war, answering the promise that they would receive their freedom and land with a British victory. The effort to recruit Black soldiers began in Virginia but soon spread to other colonies. Although some soldiers joined fighting units, the majority of Black Loyalists served as scouts and military engineers in non-combat capacities. As the war drew to a close and it became apparent the American colonists would emerge victorious, the British began to evacuate their Black allies who faced a return to enslavement if they remained. The Loyalists were relocated to various parts of the British empire, with the largest number resettled in Canadian Nova Scotia.
Background
Settlers from Spain and Portugal began arriving in the “New World” of North and South America with the voyages of Christopher Columbus in the 1490s. By this time, the Portuguese had been engaging in the trade of enslaved people from Africa since the 1440s. In the early sixteenth century, Spanish explorers began bringing the first enslaved Africans with them to the New World, in addition to enslaving some Native Americans.
The British established their first American colony in 1607 when they settled at Jamestown in Virginia. In 1619, a Spanish privateer ship landed in Jamestown and traded several enslaved Africans who had been stolen from a Portuguese ship. Although they were being held against their will, the “twenty and odd” Africans were not technically enslaved; they were indentured servants who could earn their freedom after a certain time. By the late seventeenth century, this status began to change as states began passing laws enslaving people and their descendants for life.
In the years leading up to the American Revolution, the thirteen colonies had become divided along economic lines, with slavery firmly entrenched in the Southern Colonies and the practice beginning to slowly die out in the Northern Colonies. By 1775, enslaved people made up about 20 percent of the colonial population, with more than half of them living in the South. About half the population of Virginia and 60 percent of South Carolina consisted of enslaved people.
Overview
When the war began in 1775, Black soldiers fought with the American forces in the first battles, but Commander in Chief George Washington banned them from participating in further miliary actions. In Virginia, the British colonial governor Lord Dunmore had suffered early losses against the American forces and was facing a shortage of available soldiers. He issued a call to any Black person who was enslaved or indentured by the colonial “rebels” to fight for the British cause in exchange for their freedom. About eight hundred answered the call to join Dunmore’s “Ethiopian Regiment,” and many more came to follow behind the lines.
Initially, Dunmore and the British feared arming the new recruits and placed them in support positions such as making shoes or digging trenches. In December 1775, Dunmore’s armies suffered a catastrophic defeat at the Battle of Great Bridge, and he was forced to flee the state when his stronghold of Norfolk was burned in January 1776. Soon after, the Ethiopian Regiment was disbanded, but the British organized the Black Pioneers from its remnants in 1777. The Pioneers became well-known for scouting, raiding, and their skill at military engineering.
By 1779, the British could see that they were losing the war, leading commander Sir Henry Clinton to issue a proclamation that any Black person who left the American side and joined the British would receive land and a farm in addition to their freedom. Thousands of enslaved and freed Blacks answered the call, with some estimates claiming as many as one-hundred thousand joining the British cause.
With the British surrender at Yorktown in October 1781, the war was effectively over, although it was not until 1783 that a peace treaty was officially signed. With the war lost, the British began making plans to leave their former colonies. Some loyalists, both White and Black, left for Florida or British holdings in the Caribbean. The majority were evacuated north to the British colony of Canada, specifically the sparsely populated area of Nova Scotia.
All enslaved people who had fought for the British before November 30, 1782, were declared free. The names of those Black Loyalists bound for Nova Scotia were recorded in the Book of Negroes, which included names, ages, and dates of departure from the United States.
About three thousand Black Loyalists left for Nova Scotia between April and November of 1783. The settlements in Nova Scotia marked the largest free Black community in the world outside of Africa. They settled in towns such as Birchtown, Shelburne, Annapolis Royal, and Digby, with Birchtown emerging as the largest of the settlements.
Although the Black Loyalists were promised land in addition to their freedom, the British had also promised land to the more than thirty thousand White Loyalists who also fled to Canada. The White Loyalists were accommodated first, leaving many Black Loyalists waiting for their promised land and farms. Furthermore, the Black Loyalists were taken advantage of by their White neighbors who exploited them for labor, often treating them like indentured servants and forcing them to work in low-paying jobs. Most lived in poverty and faced food and clothing shortages in addition to having to deal with Canada’s harsh winters.
In 1787, some Black loyalists finally received their promised land grants, although the land was far less than promised and barren and rocky. In 1791, Thomas Peters, who had served in the Black Pioneers, traveled to London to petition the British government for better treatment of the Black Loyalists. There, he met a representative of the Sierra Leone Company, which had founded the British colony of Freetown in the West African nation. Peters arranged for the transport of Black Loyalists from Nova Scotia to Sierra Leone in 1792 and 1,200 took him up on the offer. Over the next few decades, most of the Black loyalists moved away from their original communities in Nova Scotia to other parts of Canada.
Bibliography
“Black Loyalists: Our Story, Our People.” Black Loyalist Heritage Society, blackloyalist.com/cdc/. Accessed 10 June 2023.
“Exploring the Lives of Black Loyalists.” University of New Brunswick Libraries, 2008, preserve.lib.unb.ca/wayback/20141205152154/http://atlanticportal.hil.unb.ca/acva/blackloyalists/en/. Accessed 10 June 2023.
Gilbert, Alan. Black Patriots and Loyalists: Fighting for Emancipation in the War for Independence. University of Chicago Press, 2012.
Ito, Gail Arlene. “Black Loyalists Exodus to Nova Scotia (1783).” Black Past, 8 Mar. 2009, www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/black-loyalists-exodus-nova-scotia-1783/. Accessed 10 June 2023.
Oyeniran, Channon. “Black Loyalists in British North America.” Canadian Encyclopedia, 3 Feb. 2021, www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/black-loyalists-in-british-north-america. Accessed 10 June 2023.
“The Revolutionary War.” PBS, www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2narr4.html. Accessed 10 June 2023.
Whitehead, Ruth Holmes. Black Loyalists: Southern Settlers of Nova Scotia’s First Free Black Communities. Nimbus, 2013.