Black Loyalists

By: John W. Pulis

Source:

 Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895: From the Colonial Period to the Age of Frederick Douglass

Black Loyalists

Black Loyalists, a term invented during the American Revolution, was used by the British to distinguish black, or African, from white, or European, Americans who remained loyal to Great Britain. Like most conflicts, the Revolution was waged on numerous fronts, and the term was deployed in a discursive arena in which the meanings of such slogans as “independence,” “freedom,” and “rights of man” were challenged and contested. The British seized upon the idea of declarations and drafted a series of proclamations (beginning with Lord Dunmore, the last royal governor of Virginia, and continuing with General Thomas Gage, Sir William Howe, and Sir Henry Clinton) in which they offered to emancipate the slaves of rebels in return for rendering services to “King and Crown.” These were some of the most subversive documents drafted during the conflict.

In addition to exposing a contradiction between the theory and practice of freedom, British proclamations drove a wedge between the Patriots and their African and enslaved counterparts. They were not, however, part of some altruistic agenda concerning emancipation: freedom was not offered to the slaves of white Loyalists, although a good many ran away, nor were such proclamations extended to the British West Indies. Along with subverting republican ideologies, linking freedom to service withdrew the labor of Africans from the cause of the Patriots. Black labor had been instrumental to the colonial economy, and such was the case during the Revolution as well. The conflict drained half a million pounds per month for goods and services from the military chest, and the labor of blacks was essential in that, along with releasing British units for combat, it helped defray direct costs (for provisions, fuel, and rations) to the Exchequer.

Lured by British proclamations, black Americans (some free, but most enslaved) joined the British and were organized into units such as the Black Brigade, the Ethiopian Regiment, and the Black Pioneers, which assisted and supported British regiments. In addition to military formations, blacks served as “followers of army and flag” and performed informal but necessary tasks acting as teamsters, pilots, vendors, and spies, as well as aides-de-camp and personal servants. Blacks were by no means passive recipients. If service constituted agency, then African Americans precipitated one of the largest slave revolts in the Americas. Initial estimates in the range of 80,000 to 100,000 have been substantiated, suggesting that the number of black Loyalists may have exceeded their white counterparts.

Voting with their feet, Africans abandoned their former abodes and migrated to British-controlled New York, Savannah, and Charleston, where they formed communities. The New York community expanded from less than two hundred in 1776 to almost four thousand in 1783, transforming the city into one of the largest free-black communities in the New World. Blacks were billeted in “Negro quarters” the British leased from white Loyalists and in housing they confiscated from the rebels. These were not transient communities, and some indication of their vitality can be ascertained by accounts of “Ethiopian balls” and other festivities in which whites as well as blacks participated. Along with festivities, observers noted that African Americans formed or reconstituted families with both intergenerational and extra-kinship relations in communities that resembled the Maroon societies that coalesced in the West Indies.

Despite proclamations assuring their liberty, the plight of the black Loyalists was by no means secure, and negotiations concerning their disposition assumed top priority as the Revolution drew to a close. In an effort to honor British proclamations, Sir Guy Carleton, the British general who negotiated the peace with George Washington, interpreted article 7 of the Treaty of Versailles to mean that blacks who were within British-controlled areas were free. Best efforts aside, the Carleton (or British Headquarters) Papers are permeated with accounts of Patriots who entered British-controlled areas seeking to reclaim their “movable property.”

The term “movable property” was used in the “intelligence” (military) correspondence for the common but nonetheless illicit practice of seizing slaves as contraband. Both sides confiscated slaves, and the British engaged in an illicit trade to the West Indies. Philip Morgan and Sylvia Frey estimated that the population of South Carolina dropped by twenty-five thousand, and Benjamin Quarles has suggested that, in addition to the official tallies, as many as ten thousand blacks were illicitly removed during the evacuation of Savannah and Charleston. Along with routine intelligence there is correspondence noting that Tortola in the British Virgin Islands and Saint Lucia in the Leeward Islands had become entrepôts for the sale of blacks “carried from the Southern Provinces.”

Absolutes are difficult to verify, but some appreciation of scale and magnitude can be ascertained by looking at records maintained by the Jamaican planter-historian Edward Long. According to Long, the slave population of Jamaica increased from 160,000 in 1768 to 240,000 in 1788, with some 65,000 arriving between 1775 and 1785 despite cessation of the Africa trade and the loss of 15,000 during the conflict. It seems more likely than not that many of the 65,000 slaves originated in the Southern Provinces (Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia) and were acquired from Tortola.

The transport and relocation of these communities constituted one of the largest evacuations in the Atlantic world. Between July 1782 and November 1783 Carleton evacuated Savannah, Charleston, and New York. Four convoys left Savannah in July, and three left Charleston in December and January. New York was the last and largest, and the evacuation began in June and was completed in November. Evacuation was one issue and relocation another. Canada was a destination for white and black Loyalists, and blacks established separate communities in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Dissatisfied with Canada, a substantial number departed for England; finding life little better there, they were induced to settle Sierra Leone.

A small but influential number opted for Jamaica. Among the more notable were Moses Baker and George Liele, who as folk, or itinerant, preachers laid the foundation for the practice of African Christianity. The history of the black Loyalists remains one of the untold stories in the making of the Atlantic world. While scholarly inroads into their diaspora have been undertaken, much remains to be studied concerning their plight and future in the New World and the Old.

See also African Diaspora; American Revolution; Black Brigade; Black Family; Caribbean; Free African Americans to 1828; Liele, George; Riots and Rebellions; and Slave Trade.

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