The American Revolution and the Black Loyalist Exodus

#History: A Journal of Student Research Volume 1 Article 5 12-2016 The American Revolution and the Black Loyalist Exodus Julia Bibko The College at Brockport Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/hashtaghistory Part of the Social History Commons, and the United States History Commons Repository Citation Bibko, Julia (2016) "The American Revolution and the Black Loyalist Exodus," #History: A Journal of Student Research: Vol. 1 , Article 5. Available at: http://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/hashtaghistory/vol1/iss1/5 This Paper is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Commons @Brockport. It has been accepted for inclusion in #History: A Journal of Student Research by an authorized editor of Digital Commons @Brockport. For more information, please contact . THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION AND THE BLACK LOYALIST EXODUS Julia Bibko, The College at Brockport Abstract This paper provides an account of the experiences of Black Loyalists in Nova Scotia, London, and Sierra Leone after the American Revolution. Tens of thousands of North American slaves fled to the ranks of the British army when they were promised freedom in return for service. When the British lost the war, they began the evacuation of both White and Black Loyalists out of the colonies. Black Loyalists were sent primarily to Nova Scotia and England and, to a lesser extent, the Bahamas and West Indies. Yet the Black Loyalists were not content with freedom alone; they actively fought for equality and against discrimination in their new countries. Black Loyalists thus took charge of their own emancipation by fighting for the British and continuing to fight for equality even after their exodus from the colonies. The results of the Black Loyalist exodus were mixed, as shown by letters from the Sierra Leone colonists themselves. Yet the experience of the Black Loyalists is significant because this massive migration of free Blacks had international implications, the founding of the Sierra Leone colony being one example. This narrative also brings into question the concept of the Revolution as a national struggle for independence, in addition to revealing the complexity of Loyalist ideology. [Keywords: American Revolution, Britain, race relations, slavery, emancipation, Loyalists] Ever since the American Revolution, historians have written and rewritten the Loyalist narrative countless times. Yet within this narrative, the Loyalists are often portrayed as a small, homogenous group. In reality, the Loyalists were highly diverse; there were a significant number of Black Loyalists during the Revolution, most often escaped slaves who fought for the British. They won their freedom after the end of the war, even though they were on the losing side. The 1783 poem, “The Tory’s Soliloquy,” captures the dilemma that faced all Loyalists after the war’s end: “To go - or not to go - is that the Question?”1 Massive numbers of escaped slaves took this opportunity to leave America as Loyalist refugees for Canada, England, and other various destinations. In this way, the Black Loyalists were able to facilitate their emancipation by fighting for the British and then continued their pursuit of equality after they settled in their new countries. By synthesizing previous research on the black Loyalists, this paper intends to reveal a diverse, but often neglected perspective on the American Revolution. This work challenges the traditional definitions of loyalism, in addition to complicating the concept of the Revolution as a struggle for national liberation. Bibko, Julia. “The American Revolution and the Black Loyalist Exodus,” #History: A Journal of Student Research, n. 1 (December 2016). Brockport, NY: Department of History, The College at Brockport, S.U.N.Y.: 57-73. Julia Bibko / “Black Loyalist Exodus” I. DEFINING LOYALISM Who were the Loyalists? The historical stereotype is that they were an elite group of wealthy, educated Anglicans that had close ties to Britain. Maya Jasanoff argues that in reality, Loyalists came from all different regions, social classes, races and ethnicities, making them as diverse as their patriot counterparts. As a group, their size is often underestimated. Estimates today claim that Loyalists made up a fifth to a third of the population of the American colonies. These people did not have one unified ideology, but in fact held a wide range of beliefs. Some were loyalists for intellectual reasons, others for economic reasons, and still others preferred maintaining the status quo to all-out revolution.2 Yet defining and analyzing loyalism in the American colonies becomes much more complicated when race is considered. Besides the White Loyalists, there were Indian tribes that decided to support the British. Most relevant to this paper, however, is that there were a large number of Black Loyalists. The British promised freedom to slaves who signed up to fight in their army and, according to Jasanoff, twenty thousand Black slaves took this opportunity. 3 Because of these promises, Black Loyalist ideology was different from White Loyalist ideology. Both free and enslaved Blacks seem to have aligned with the Loyalist cause because they firmly believed that a British victory would benefit their race. By becoming Loyalists, slaves believed they were fighting not just for their own personal freedom, but the end of slavery and racial prejudice. American slaves came to see the British as “an enemy to slavery,” and the British army was flooded with runaway slaves ready to fight for their emancipation.4 Mary Beth Norton argues that there was an irony in slaveholding Patriots arguing for the “equal rights of man” and writing about their fear of being “enslaved” by Britain. Recognizing this paradox, American Blacks flocked to the British cause.5 Yet historians still debate whether Black Loyalists should be called Loyalists at all. This debate exists in part because defining loyalism is complex. Jasanoff characterizes Loyalists somewhat simplistically as “colonists who had sided with Britain during the war.”6 She uses the phrase “black Loyalists” again and again throughout her book, yet she never fully addresses where this group fits within her definition of loyalism. James W. St. G. Walker argues that those Blacks who fought for the British showed an ideological commitment to their cause by doing so, for not all runaway slaves joined the British army. 7 Yet in an earlier article, Walker writes that the Black Loyalists were “less pro-British than they were pro-Black,” suggesting they were risking their lives in pursuit of freedom rather than victory.8 These conflicting arguments show the difficulty of examining these former slaves-turned soldiers within the traditional definitions of loyalism. Perhaps the most complete definition can be found in The Canadian Encyclopedia, which describes Loyalists as “American colonists of varied ethnic backgrounds who supported the British cau (...truncated)