Southern Blacks and the American Revolution
During the American Revolution the British military offered freedom to enslaved blacks who fled to British camps to fight. But this offer wasn’t available to those whose owners were loyal to the Crown. And those taken-in were cast out when disease swept through a camp, or abandoned to an oncoming American army during retreats; some were resold into slavery. For a great many people these promises of liberty were designed only to ruin the highly profitable plantation economies of the newly-founded United States. But many did indeed find their freedom, against all odds, in British East Florida. This tragic era of African-American history needs to be understood; the heroics and heartbreaks of southern blacks demands to be heard.