John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore was a British peer, military officer and colonial administrator in the Thirteen Colonies and The Bahamas. He was the last royal governor of Virginia. Dunmore was named governor of New York in 1770. He succeeded to the same position in the colony of Virginia the following year, after the death of Norborne Berkeley, 4th Baron Botetourt. As Virginia's governor, Dunmore directed a series of campaigns against the trans-Appalachian Indians, known as Lord Dunmore's War. He is noted for issuing a 1775 document, Dunmore's Proclamation, offering freedom to any enslaved person who fought for the British Crown against Patriot rebels in Virginia. Dunmore fled to New York after the burning of Norfolk in 1776 and later returned to Britain. He was Governor of the Bahamas from 1787 to 1796.
Loyalists were colonists in the Thirteen Colonies who remained loyal to the British Crown during the American Revolutionary War, often referred to as Tories, Royalists or King's Men at the time. They were opposed by the Patriots, who supported the revolution, and called them "persons inimical to the liberties of America."
Titus Cornelius, also known as Titus, Tye, and famously as Colonel Tye, was a slave of African descent in the Province of New Jersey who escaped from his master and fought as a Black Loyalist during the American Revolutionary War; he was known for his leadership and fighting skills. He fought with a volunteer corps of escaped Virginia Colony slaves in the Ethiopian Regiment, and he led the Black Brigade associators. Tye died from tetanus from a musket wound in the wrist following a short siege in September 1780 against Captain Joshua Huddy. He was one of the most feared and effective guerrilla leaders opposing the American patriot forces in central New Jersey.
The Battle of Great Bridge was fought December 9, 1775, in the area of Great Bridge, Virginia, early in the American Revolutionary War. The victory by colonial Virginia militia forces led to the departure of Royal Governor Lord Dunmore and any remaining vestiges of British power over the Colony of Virginia during the early days of the conflict.
The Gunpowder Incident was a conflict early in the American Revolutionary War between Lord Dunmore, the Royal Governor of the Colony of Virginia, and militia led by Patrick Henry. On April 20, 1775, one day after the Battles of Lexington and Concord, Lord Dunmore ordered the removal of the gunpowder from the magazine in Williamsburg, Virginia to a Royal Navy ship.
Black Loyalists were people of African descent who sided with the Loyalists during the American Revolutionary War. In particular, the term refers to men who escaped enslavement by Patriot masters and served on the Loyalist side because of the Crown's guarantee of freedom.
Women in the American Revolution played various roles depending on their social status and their political views.
The Battle of Kemp's Landing, also known as the Skirmish of Kempsville, was a skirmish in the American Revolutionary War that occurred on November 15, 1775. Militia companies from Princess Anne County in the Province of Virginia assembled at Kemp's Landing to counter British troops under the command of Virginia's last colonial governor, John Murray, Lord Dunmore, that had landed at nearby Great Bridge. Dunmore was investigating rumors of Patriot troop arrivals from North Carolina that turned out to be false; he instead moved against the Princess Anne militia, defeating their attempt at an ambush and routing them.
The Philipsburg Proclamation is a historical document issued by British Army General Sir Henry Clinton on 30 June 1779, intended to encourage slaves to run away and enlist in the Royal Forces.
Harry Washington was a Black Loyalist in the American Revolutionary War, and enslaved by Virginia planter George Washington, later the first President of the United States. When the war was lost the British then evacuated him to Nova Scotia. In 1792 he joined nearly 1,200 freedmen for resettlement in Sierra Leone, where they set up a colony of free people of color.
Black refugees were black people who escaped slavery in the United States during the War of 1812 and settled in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Trinidad. The term is used in Canada for those who settled in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. They were the most numerous of the African Americans who sought freedom during the War of 1812. The Black refugees were the second group of African Americans, after the Black Loyalists, to flee American enslavement in wartime and settle in Canada. They make up the most significant single immigration source for today's African Nova Scotian communities. During the antebellum period, however, an estimated 10,000 to 30,000 Black refugees reached freedom in Canada, often traveling alone or in small family groups.
In the American Revolution, gaining freedom was the strongest motive for Black enslaved people who joined the Patriot or British armies. It is estimated that 20,000 African Americans joined the British cause, which promised freedom to enslaved people, as Black Loyalists. Around 9,000 African Americans became Black Patriots.
Moses "Daddy Moses" Wilkinson or "Old Moses" was an American Wesleyan Methodist preacher and Black Loyalist. His ministry combined Old Testament divination with African religious traditions such as conjuring and sorcery. He gained freedom from slavery in Virginia during the American Revolutionary War, was a Wesleyan Methodist preacher in New York and Nova Scotia. In 1791, he migrated to Sierra Leone, preaching alongside ministers Boston King and Henry Beverhout. There, he established the first Methodist church in Settler Town and survived a rebellion in 1800.
The Ethiopian Regiment, better known as Lord Dunmore's Ethiopian Regiment, was a British colonial military unit organized during the American Revolution by the Earl of Dunmore, last Royal Governor of Virginia. Composed of former slaves who had escaped from Patriot masters, it was led by British officers and sergeants. The regiment was disbanded in 1776, though many of its soldiers probably went on to serve in other Black Loyalist units.
The Burning of Norfolk was an incident that occurred on January 1, 1776, during the American Revolutionary War. British Royal Navy ships in the harbor of Norfolk, Virginia, began shelling the town, and landing parties came ashore to burn specific properties. The town, whose significantly Tory (Loyalist) population had fled, was occupied by Whig (Revolutionary) forces from Virginia and North Carolina. Although these forces worked to drive off the landing parties, they did nothing to impede the progress of the flames, and began burning and looting Tory properties.
Then Province of Maryland had been a British / English colony since 1632, when Sir George Calvert, first Baron of Baltimore and Lord Baltimore (1579-1632), received a charter and grant from King Charles I of England and first created a haven for English Roman Catholics in the New World, with his son, Cecilius Calvert (1605-1675), the second Lord Baltimore equipping and sending over the first colonists to the Chesapeake Bay region in March 1634. The first signs of rebellion against the mother country occurred in 1765, when the tax collector Zachariah Hood was injured while landing at the second provincial capital of Annapolis docks, arguably the first violent resistance to British taxation in the colonies. After a decade of bitter argument and internal discord, Maryland declared itself a sovereign state in 1776. The province was one of the Thirteen Colonies of British America to declare independence from Great Britain and joined the others in signing a collective Declaration of Independence that summer in the Second Continental Congress in nearby Philadelphia. Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, and Charles Carroll of Carrollton signed on Maryland's behalf.
Slavery in Maryland lasted over 200 years, from its beginnings in 1642 when the first Africans were brought as slaves to St. Mary's City, to its end after the Civil War. While Maryland developed similarly to neighboring Virginia, slavery declined here as an institution earlier, and it had the largest free black population by 1860 of any state. The early settlements and population centers of the province tended to cluster around the rivers and other waterways that empty into the Chesapeake Bay. Maryland planters cultivated tobacco as the chief commodity crop, as the market for cash crops was strong in Europe. Tobacco was labor-intensive in both cultivation and processing, and planters struggled to manage workers as tobacco prices declined in the late 17th century, even as farms became larger and more efficient. At first, indentured servants from England supplied much of the necessary labor but, as their economy improved at home, fewer made passage to the colonies. Maryland colonists turned to importing indentured and enslaved Africans to satisfy the labor demand.
Andrew Sprowle was a Scottish-born merchant, naval agent, landowner, shipyard owner, slaveholder and slave trader in Portsmouth, Virginia. Today Andrew Sprowle is best remembered for establishing the Gosport Ship Yard, now known as Norfolk Naval Shipyard. Sprowle emigrated from Milton, West Dunbartonshire, Scotland to what is currently the Commonwealth of Virginia in the mid-18th century, where he lived until his death on 29 May 1776.
The Book of Negroes is a 2015 television miniseries based on the 2007 novel of the same name by Canadian writer Lawrence Hill. The book was inspired by the British freeing and evacuation of former slaves, known as Black Loyalists, who had left rebel masters during the American Revolutionary War. The British transported some 3,000 Black Loyalists to Nova Scotia for resettlement, documenting their names in what was called the Book of Negroes.
Jane Jackson Thompson was an enslaved person who lived with her common-law husband, Talbot Thompson, until he was able to purchase her freedom in 1769. Talbot was a successful sail-maker and provided a comfortable life for Jane and their family.
