Moving On

Black Loyalists in the Afro-Atlantic World

John W. Pulis, John W. Pulis

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781135650377
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

During the American Revolution tens of thousands of colonists loyal to Britain left the colonies and resettled in Canada, Britain, and the Carribean. Among them were a substantial number of black loyalists. This groundbreaking study explores the lives, struggles, and politics of black loyalists who dispersed throughout the Atlantic region, including Canada, Britain, Sierra Leone, and Jamaica. The struggles of these populations, a diaspora within a diaspora, for political and economic independence under various British colonial regimes highlight the variety of challenges which faced black loyalists in the Afro-Atlantic World.

Chapter 1
The Black Pioneers and Others

The Military Role of Black Loyalists in the American War for Independence

Todd W. Braisted

Each of the military contests entered into by the American people has involved combatants of every race, creed, and color. The American War of Independence was certainly no different. Each side offered slaves or servants the same enticement for their service: emancipation. This great offer of the time gave many blacks a choice; either to serve Congress or the Crown. The choice was extremely important, as picking the wrong side could lead to a return to servitude. Add to the mix a smattering of free blacks faced with similar choices, and a picture emerges of a confusing and hard-fought civil war, a war for freedom in more ways than one. This chapter is the story of those blacks who chose to support and stake their future welfare on the side of Great Britain, a decision that would change all of their lives forever.

Blacks and the Provincial Corps

The provincial corps was the official title given to Loyalist units raised in America for the duration of the war and liable for service in any of the colonies. They were under the same military discipline as the British soldiers and received the same pay, quality of clothing, provisions, arms, ammunition, etc. The company of Black Pioneers commanded by George Martin, and later Allan Stewart, was the only black corps put on the provincial establishment. All others were considered either as militia, refugees, or private corps of one type or another. By being under a regular establishment, the provincials were subject to any and all regulations or orders given by the commander in chief of the army. The person who formulated these regulations for the commander in chief was Alexander Innes, Inspector General of Provincial Forces. For reasons that are unclear, Innes in no way wanted to utilize the many blacks the British could recruit (or in some cases had recruited) for the provincial forces. His report to British Adjutant General James Patterson on March 14, 1777, noted that the "Negroes, Mulattoes, Indians and Sailors, have been enlisted, shall they be discharged, and orders given none in future be admitted?" To which he received as an answer, "to be discharged and none to be hereafter enlisted on any account."¹ Two days later, Sir William Howe made the order official:

The Commander in Chief being desirous that the Provincial Forces should be put on the most respectable Footing, and according to his first Intention be composed of His Majesty's Loyal American Subjects, has directed that all Negroes, Mollatoes, and other Improper Persons who have been admitted into these Corps be Immediately discharged; The Inspector Genl. of Provincial Corps will receive particular Orders on this Subject to Prevent such Abuses in future.²

There is no way of knowing how many blacks had already enlisted in the provincial corps. One enlistee by the name of Mungo Dick had already enlisted in February in an independent company, while freeborn John Thompson had joined the King's American regiment.³ Thompson lived on 10 acres of land on the eastern end of Long Island.⁴ When the Revolution broke out, he made his way to the British vessel Dutchess of Gordon, where he offered his services to Edmund Fanning, secretary to Governor William Tryon of New York. Fanning immediately employed him in carrying secret correspondence between the ship and the Loyalist mayor of New York City, David Mathews. Thompson was somehow discovered and apprehended, and suffered chains, threats, and 4 months' imprisonment on bread and water. After 2 more months in prison, this time in Newark, New Jersey, he and 10 others escaped to British-held Staten Island, where he reenlisted. He was not the only black to have enlisted in the regiment:

I Certify that in the years 1776 and 1777 when I Victualed his Majesty's Troops at Brooklyn, Long Island, I have Known the Petitioner, John Thompson, to be under Arms and very Active with the King's American Regimt. Commanded by Colonel Fanning, having frequently Issued provisions to the petitioner for the Loyal Black Men belonging to that Core. [Signed] Stephen Norris, Deputy Commissary of Provision Hous New York.⁵

Thompson was certainly discharged as an enlisted man from the regiment, but may have continued as a servant to Colonel Fanning. His connection with the regiment definitely ceased by 1781, when he joined the Royal Navy, serving on board HMS Warwick through 1784, when he was discharged in Portsmouth, England.⁶

John Thompson was not unique. Virtually all provincial regiments had blacks who served as officers' servants. While their normal duties would be to attend an officer as a modern orderly would, they also engaged in fighting. Samuel Burke, a native of Charlestown, South Carolina, became a servant to Montfort Browne while Browne was governor of the Bahama Islands. When Browne raised the Prince of Wales American Volunteers in 1776, Burke attended him not only as a servant, but assisted in raising men for the regiment. He took part in the regiment's first major battle at Danbury, Connecticut, where he was seriously wounded, and again 3 years later at Hanging Rock, South Carolina, where it was feared his wounds would prove mortal. He would retire to England and submit claims for the property lost by his wife, a "free Dutch mulatto woman" of some means in New York City whom he had married during the war.⁷ Another free black who fought while in the capacity of a servant was John Twyne:

That your Honors Memorialist is a Native of the Jerseys North America and he Joyned The British Forces at Trentown—and did his duty in Lord Rowdens Corps. Since which your Honors Memorialist has come over to England by which means he has Lost all his property and Dare not Return again to the country. Is now in a Strange country—a wife to Maintain and for want of some Imploy is Reduced to great poverty.⁸

While he claimed service in the Volunteers of Ireland, he was not listed on any of the muster rolls. Captain James King of the regiment mentions Twyne as having lived with him for 8 months, suggesting his status as a servant,⁹ while another Loyalist mentions him as being wounded in action in South Carolina.¹⁰ He too survived the war and likewise sought compensation for his losses in England.

There were other ways for blacks to serve in provincial regiments. It should be pointed out that the regulations against serving were true only for Colonial America. Those Loyalist regiments headquartered in Quebec had no such similar rules and accepted a very small number of blacks.¹¹ In the South, blacks were often attached, usually one per company, to several regiments as Pioneers.¹² Corps raised in South Carolina for service in Jamaica were allowed two and sometimes three Black Pioneers per company.¹³ This same allowance was likewise given to British regiments as evidenced by Pioneer Robert Kearey of the 71st Foot.¹⁴ A few blacks were enlisted as privates and drummers as well.¹⁵ Black drummers served in regiments in both the North and the South. In December 1779, the South Carolina Royalists had two blacks serving as drummers, named Black Sancho and Cyrus.¹⁶ One who served in a northern corps was Eneas Lapee. It is interesting that his name appears on no rolls of his corps, but his service was certified by an officer of the regiment:

That he faithfully served His Majesty, King George the 3d, for the space of more than three years (in the Royal [sic-Loyal] American Regiment) during the American Revolutionary War. The said Regiment was then Commanded by Colonel Beverly Robinson, and your petitioner was in Captain Hatch's Company . .. That your Petitioner Served with the said Corps as a Drummer, was with them at Sandy Hook, and in several skirmishes, and was finally, after the conclusion of the war, discharged from the said Regiment, on its being disbanded, at St. John, in this province.¹⁷

Infantry regiments were not alone in seeking black musicians. It became almost fashionable to have black trumpeters in provincial cavalry. Trumpeter "Black Belfast" served for at least a year in the many skirmishes fought in the Carolinas and Virginia while a member of the British Legion.¹⁸ The cavalry of the American Legion, the provincial regiment raised by Benedict Arnold, recruited black trumpeters during their stay in Virginia, two of whom served until the end of the war.¹⁹ No cavalry officer though utilized blacks as much as Benjamin Thompson did.

Benjamin Thompson was a New Hampshire Loyalist who served as an undersecretary of state for America in England for much of the war. Given command of a new regiment raised in 1781 by the name King's American Dragoons, he set out for America and landed first in Charlestown, where he was appointed commander of cavalry for about three months. Sailing north to New York, he joined his regiment in the spring of 1782. The regiment consisted of six troops, each with two Black Pioneers.²⁰ In addition to the Pioneers, all the trumpeters were black as well. Probably the most elaborately dressed men of the regiment, however, were the officers' servants:

I Permit no man to be taken from the Ranks to be made a servant of. All our Officers have Black Servants, they are all Dressed in the same Uniform, except the feathers in their Turbans, which are of different Colours according to the Troops their Masters belong to. At Reviews and on all Field Days they Parade with the Regiment and assist in managing the Guns. They get no pay from the King, but they draw Rations, their masters paying for them at the usual rate (2½d).²¹

Thompson's future plans were even more ambitious. Seeing in 1782 that the war in America was virtually over, he offered to raise six troops of light dragoons, four companies of light infantry, and one of artillery to serve in the West Indies. The dragoons would come from the King's American Dragoons, while the infantry would be composed of officers and volunteers from the provincial corps. Sixty Black Pioneers, non-commissioned officers included, were to be distributed among the different troops and companies, but only "such as are absolutely free" were to be accepted.²² The trumpeters, drummers, and fifers were all to be blacks. The new feature would be in the composition of the artillery:

... the Company of Artillery to be formed in two Divisions, Each Division to be under the Command of a Quarter Master. The Privates of the Company of Artillery to be Blacks. To have no other Arms but Swords, and to be Accoutered for drawing the Guns. The Noncommissioned Officers to be Whites and to be Armed with Musquets and Bayonnettes. The whole to have Infantry Pay.²³

As revolutionary and innovative as these plans were, they were never to be ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Contributors
• Introduction
• Chapter 1. The Black Pioneers and Others: The Military Role of Black Loyalists in the American War for Independence
• Chapter 2. Hidden from History: Black Loyalists at Country Harbour, Nova Scotia
• Chapter 3. Birchtown: The History and Material Culture of an Expatriate African American Community
• Chapter 4. Black Loyalists in London after the American Revolution
• Chapter 5. The Black Loyalists in Sierra Leone
• Chapter 6. The Promised Land, Inc.: Company-Repatriate Relations during the Founding of Freetown, Sierra Leone
• Chapter 7. Edward Jones: An African American in Sierra Leone
• Chapter 8. Bridging Troubled Waters: Moses Baker, George Liele, and the African American Diaspora to Jamaica
• Index