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Black Loyalist
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Black Loyalists is the name given to formerly enslaved Africans or free people of color of the North American continent who joined the British Army against the colonists in the American Revolutionary War.
In 1775, Lord Dunmore issued a controversial proclamation, to be known later as Lord Dunmore's Proclamation, calling on all able bodied men to assist him in the defense of the colony, including the enslaved Africans of rebels. These recruits were promised their freedom in exchange for service in the Army. Some Loyalist slave owners feared a mass slave rebellion; others thought Dunmore had gone mad. Within a month 800 soldiers had flocked to Norfolk to join up and they were organised into the Ethiopian Regiment. Lord Dunmore's Proclamation was the first mass emancipation of enslaved people in American history. The 1776 Declaration of Independence refers obliquely to the Proclamation by citing as one of its grievances that King George III had 'excited domestic Insurrections among us'.[1]
After the war, the British relocated many Black Loyalists to Nova Scotia. Many later found their way to Sierra Leone.
- ^ Kaplan, Sidney (July 1976). "The "Domestic Insurrections" of the Declaration of Independence" (PDF). Journal of Negro History 61 (3): 243-255. Retrieved on 2006-11-12.
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