Those who wrote the stories and histories of the American Revolution were very careful to craft a tale which emphasized the war as the rising up of virtuous citizen soldiers who beat the British and won their Independence due to their patriotic zeal and love of freedom. These accounts further marginalized populations already considered to not be as important in history- Women, Indians and African Americans. While as time went on, as these marginalized people began to receive more attention in histories of the Revolution, there was one aspect of these populations historians still preferred to keep buried. This was the large numbers of African Americans that chose to fight for the British.
It is certainly easy to understand why so many enslaved African Americans eagerly fought for the British. In 1775, Lord Dunmore, the last Royal Governor of Virginia, issued a proclamation that promised freedom to the enslaved in Virginia who ran away from their rebel American owners and joined the British forces. This proclamation of course inspired the enslaved in the other southern Colonies to run away as well.
It must be stated however, that Dunmore’s reasons for doing this were purely for military/political reasons. The British knew that such a proclamation would disrupt rebel logistics and spread the terror of possible widespread slave revolts amongst southern rebels. This would, in turn, keep men at home who might otherwise have enlisted in the Continental forces. As further proof of the very narrow purposes of this proclamation, any enslaved persons that ran away from Loyalist owners were returned to those owners. The proclamation proved so successful overall, however, that in 1779, General Sir Henry Clinton, commanding all British forces in the colonies issued the Philipsburg Proclamation. This new proclamation promised that the enslaved in any of the 13 Colonies who ran away from their rebel owners and joined the British would be freed. It also threatened that any Blacks who were captured while fighting for the rebels would be sold into bondage. As with Dunmore’s Proclamation it did not free the people enslaved by Loyalists.
The Ethiopian Regiment, sometimes referred as “Dunmore’s Ethiopian’s, is probably the best known of the Black units that fought for the British. It is also one of the shortest lived, however. It saw limited action in Virginia in 1775 and was evacuated to New York City with the rest of Dunmore’s forces in August of 1776. Upon arrival in the city, it was disbanded, and its members dispersed to other units. One core group was kept together as the “Virginia Company of Blacks” and in 1778 was reported as being attached to the Royal Artillery detachment in the city as laborers.
What follows is a short list of what is known about other Black units that fought for their Independence with the British during the war, particularly in the south and the Caribbean.
Black Pioneers
“Pioneer” was the 18th century term for today’s military engineers. In the 18th century, engineers were the officers who were schooled in the art of laying out and building fortifications and other defensive works. The “pioneers” were the soldiers who did the actual physical labor of building the works. This unit was raised in 1776 from enslaved peoples who had run away from the Carolinas. They saw service building and repairing fortifications, roads, and doing other logistical work in New York, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina. In 1782 they were attached to the Loyalist “Guides and Pioneers” unit and disbanded in September of 1783.
Black Dragoons
This all-African American unit was formed in 1782. Dragoons were mounted soldiers who could fight as both infantry and light cavalry. The unit was broken up into small numbers to augment other American Loyalist units, probably acting mostly as scouts, skirmishers, and raiders. They most notably skirmished with Colonel Francis Marion’s rebel guerilla forces. They were eventually attached to the South Carolina Royalists.
South Carolina Royalists
A Loyalist unit raised in 1778 that included many African Americans in its ranks. They made up part of the British garrison of Savannah, Georgia in 1779 and Ninety Six in South Carolina in 1780. In September of 1783, all the African Americans in the unit were transferred to the British West Indies (Caribbean Islands) and served in Grenada as “The Black Corps of Dragoons, Pioneers and Artificers”. The name implies that it was largely used to do manual labor and provide other support services for the remainder of the war. This unit helped to form the core of the 1st West India Regiment in 1795, a regular British regiment composed of African Americans.
Jamaica Rangers
An unusual unit in that it was composed of “Free Mulattoes and Blacks” who volunteered to serve with the British army rather than escaped enslaved persons. The first unit was raised in 1777 in the Kingston, Jamaica area. In 1782 Royal authority was given to raise three more battalions of “Free Mulattoes and Blacks…as a means of removing the Regular Troops to more healthy Stations…” At present no other information has been found about any of the unit’s service.
Mosquito Shore Volunteers
This was a company of 50 primarily free Black men who were raised in 1779 at the British settlement of Black River on the Mosquito Coast (East coast of modern Nicaragua and Honduras). It took part in the British capture of Fort San Juan from the Spanish in modern Nicaragua in April of 1780. The overall British campaign to take Nicaragua, however, ended in failure.
Young’s Company
This unit also came from the Mosquito Coast settlement of Black River and was raised in 1780. It appears to have been a pioneer company that was made up primarily of Black enslaved men hired from their owners by the British Army. They numbered around 47 men under the command of Captain Daniel Young. They were used primarily for building/repairing fortifications. Not surprisingly, the company was reported to be “disaffected and averse to the Service”. They were most likely dispersed in January of 1781 when the British abandoned the Black River settlement.
The final unit discussed is a bit different in that it was a regular regiment of the British Army that had enlisted blacks into its ranks prior to the American Revolution. Due to it being an official military organization, it kept muster rolls with descriptive information, which gives us a glimpse into the names and service of individuals.
The 29th Regiment of Foot
This regiment of the British Army that began a tradition in 1759 of employing Blacks as their company drummers. According to the regimental history and traditions, the first drummers were ten young boys that were from the Island of Guadeloupe in the “West Indies” (modern Caribbean Islands), taken by the British from the French in 1759. They were presented to Colonel George Boscawen by his brother, Admiral Edward Boscawen, who participated in the taking of Guadeloupe. Royal permission to enlist the boys was granted by the King and a tradition was born which lasted until the 1740s.
These men received all the same benefits of being a soldier white recruits did and served most of their lives in the regiment. One example of this is Joseph Provance from St. Domingo who retired from the regiment in 1790 at the age of 50 having spent 35 years in the regiment.
The 29th Regiment was one of the British regiments sent to Boston in 1768 to help maintain order as the unrest between England and her 13 colonies grew. With most Blacks in the colonies being enslaved in some manner, it was jarring to many whites to see Blacks in positions of authority. An additional duty of drummers in the British Army was to carry out the most common punishment- whipping. The Boston Evening Post reported on October 6 of 1768:
“In the Morning nine or ten Soldiers of Colonel Carr’s Regiment… were severely whipt on the Common,… To behold Britons scourged by Negro Drummers, was a new and very disagreeable Spectacle”
What was also lost on most colonists is that Blacks might actually have some interest or thoughts concerning what was happening between the colonies and England. During a brawl between members of the 29th Regiment and Boston ropewalk workers in March of 1770, a Justice of the Peace watching the affair called out to Black drummer Thomas Walker “You black rascal, what have you to do with white men’s quarrels?”
Whatever his personal reasons for having gotten involved in the scuffle, Walker continued to faithfully carry out his duties as a British soldier. As a drummer of the Grenadier Company of the 29th Regiment, Walker was part of General John Burgoyne’s army that surrendered to the Americans after the second Battle of Saratoga in October 1777. While other prisoners escaped to try to rejoin the British or to lose themselves in the colonies, Walker stayed with the captured troops as they were marched between Boston, Virginia and finally in 1781, Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It seems the years of service and the hard life of a prisoner of war took their toll on Walker’s health and he died in July of 1781.
While the drummers of the 29th Regiment would continue their service whether there was a war or not, the service of the refugee enslaved and free Blacks enlisted for the war would end in 1783. While General Washington and Congress demanded that the refugee enslaved by rebel owners be returned, England stood behind its promise to ensure the freedom of these peoples. It was finally agreed that all refugees who had escaped to the British prior to November 30 of 1782 would be freed and restitution given to their former enslavers. The British created the “Book of Negroes” to verify the names, ages, and date of escape of all the refugee enslaved in their ranks and issued them certificates of freedom. The accompanying wives and children would swell their numbers to 3000 when they left New York City with the British Army in 1783. Most went initially to Nova Scotia, where they found freedom but little justice. Around 400 eventually abandoned Canada for England, but in 1792, over 1,200 finally returned to Africa to settle in a new settlement established by the British in Sierra Leone.
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February 24, 2023
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Last updated: February 24, 2023