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magidThis week's Thursday lecture at the Old South Meeting House was given by Cassandra Pybus, who became interested in the topic as background to investigating the first settlers shipped to Botany Bay. The first bushranger was Black Caesar, transported from London for whatever crime he'd committed there, but before that, he'd been a slave in the United States. This is some of what she talked about (I took no notes, however, so this is likely to be rambly).
When the American colonies started fighting for freedom, the British offered slaves their freedom if they left their masters. Possibly they expected only able-bodied men, who were usually the ones to run away, but that's not what they got. Many more people were interested in freedom, and there were groups of slaves who ran away en masse, making for the shore where the British ships were (obviously, much easier for slaves along the coasts or who could get boats). One of Pybus' theories is that why people left in such large groups was that they were an entire religious community escaping together. For instance, in Princess Anne county and some of the surrounding areas, hundreds of slaves left together, and there's some evidence that they were a Methodist congregation. They stayed together when the British had them in New York, and when the British left New York in 1783, they all went to Nova Scotia, and later on to Sierra Leone, to the free black town set up by the British. This last migration was paid for by the British government, a result of work by Sergeant Peters, who traveled to London to find his one-time commanding officer, General Clinton, who took him to the Prime Minister.
Some of the runaway slaves fought with the British (like Peters). However, they were less of a factor than they otherwise would have been because there was a severe outbreak of smallpox, which decimated many troops.*
African-Americans did not come to the British only from the South. There were black Loyalists in Boston when the city was occupied in 1776, notably a man who testified that the British had been provoked before the Boston Massacre (which is to say, that it wasn't a massacre in that sense). He was tarred and feathered for his testimony. The British saved him, and he went to Nova Scotia, later coming south when the British took New York. He went north again in 1783, then traveled to London, where he ran a pastry shop. Notably, he was one of few blacks to apply for reparations after the war, and since he'd lost his livelihood in service to the crown, he was awarded a pension of 20 pounds annually.
Runaway slaves who made it to the British ended up in many countries. Nova Scotia was an initial destination, but many moved on from there, to England (and some later convicted to the penal colony of Botany Bay), to the Carribean, to Sierra Leone. This last was an experiment, trying to show that there could be non-slave trade with Africa, but it was ill-thought-out, and some of the former American slaves rebelled against high taxes without governmental representatives (sound familiar?), lead by Harry Washington, a former slave of the first president [insert many parallels here]. The rebellion was quelled. The Sierra Leone experiment fizzled anyway, for this among other reasons.
And throughout the patched-together stories of individual slaves is the reminder of the irony that they had to flee the US to get their freedom.
* I never learned about this in school, nor about the influenza epidemic in 1917 during WWI. I wonder how often epidemics have changed history...
When the American colonies started fighting for freedom, the British offered slaves their freedom if they left their masters. Possibly they expected only able-bodied men, who were usually the ones to run away, but that's not what they got. Many more people were interested in freedom, and there were groups of slaves who ran away en masse, making for the shore where the British ships were (obviously, much easier for slaves along the coasts or who could get boats). One of Pybus' theories is that why people left in such large groups was that they were an entire religious community escaping together. For instance, in Princess Anne county and some of the surrounding areas, hundreds of slaves left together, and there's some evidence that they were a Methodist congregation. They stayed together when the British had them in New York, and when the British left New York in 1783, they all went to Nova Scotia, and later on to Sierra Leone, to the free black town set up by the British. This last migration was paid for by the British government, a result of work by Sergeant Peters, who traveled to London to find his one-time commanding officer, General Clinton, who took him to the Prime Minister.
Some of the runaway slaves fought with the British (like Peters). However, they were less of a factor than they otherwise would have been because there was a severe outbreak of smallpox, which decimated many troops.*
African-Americans did not come to the British only from the South. There were black Loyalists in Boston when the city was occupied in 1776, notably a man who testified that the British had been provoked before the Boston Massacre (which is to say, that it wasn't a massacre in that sense). He was tarred and feathered for his testimony. The British saved him, and he went to Nova Scotia, later coming south when the British took New York. He went north again in 1783, then traveled to London, where he ran a pastry shop. Notably, he was one of few blacks to apply for reparations after the war, and since he'd lost his livelihood in service to the crown, he was awarded a pension of 20 pounds annually.
Runaway slaves who made it to the British ended up in many countries. Nova Scotia was an initial destination, but many moved on from there, to England (and some later convicted to the penal colony of Botany Bay), to the Carribean, to Sierra Leone. This last was an experiment, trying to show that there could be non-slave trade with Africa, but it was ill-thought-out, and some of the former American slaves rebelled against high taxes without governmental representatives (sound familiar?), lead by Harry Washington, a former slave of the first president [insert many parallels here]. The rebellion was quelled. The Sierra Leone experiment fizzled anyway, for this among other reasons.
And throughout the patched-together stories of individual slaves is the reminder of the irony that they had to flee the US to get their freedom.
* I never learned about this in school, nor about the influenza epidemic in 1917 during WWI. I wonder how often epidemics have changed history...