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Short Stuff: Black Loyalists · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey there, ho there, Hi again. This is Josh, there's Chuck,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: there's Jerry. You put us together. You give us like
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: a twelve minute time limit, maybe less. It's short stuff
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: the podcast. That's a short term version of stuff you
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: should know, which is also a podcast, but it's a
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: longer version of short stuff. I guess you could say.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: That's right. And as per tradition, you started off the
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: show by saying, hey, there, ho there, Right, you want
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: to talk about black loyalists? I do, man, So you
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: pick this one, Hats off to you, try cornered hat
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: with a big old Yankee doodle feather off to you. Um,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: because I've never heard anything about this, and I majored
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: in history colonial history, and I didn't even pick up
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: on this one. Yeah, so this is uh this. We
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: did a regular long form episode for Black History Month
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: on Tuskegee Airmen, and now we're doing a shorty version
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: for the Black Loyalists for Black History Month. And it
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: goes a little something like this one and the two.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: So the Black loyalists, Chuck, yes, are in a very
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: much overlooked um group in American history. And they were
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: African Americans, or I guess African African slaves who lived
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: in the colonies. Uh, some of whom were free too,
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: but mostly were slaves that ended up fighting for Great
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Britain in the American Revolutionary War. Yeah, so it's important
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: to kind of set the stage here. What's going on
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: in seventeen seventy six, Um, African slaves were all over
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: the place, and well, not all over the place, but
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: you know, basically east of the Mississippi River at this point.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: Um Or am I wrong about that? No? No, you're right.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: I was gonna I was gonna support you, like a
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: lot of people think, well, yes, slavery was just southern, no, man,
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: and the colony. Slavery was everywhere, and slaves made up
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: of the population. In some states they were more concentrated
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: than in other states. And I think they might have
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: never been in Rhode Island or Pennsylvania. I'm not sure,
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: but they You could find states in the North as
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: well as the South at the time, for sure, because
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: the South was a lot of the commerce was based
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: on the plantation model. Obviously a lot more slaves in
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: the South, to the tune of like fort in Virginia.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: South Carolina was sixty percent slaves, but even up in Boston,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: slaves made up of the population. So before the War
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: for Independence even started, there was an effort by the
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: British to get American slaves on their side and basically say, hey,
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: be a loyalist and take up arms against your plantation
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: owner and we will grant you freedom. Yep. Not only
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: are we gonna grant you freedom, we're going to give
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: you some land after we uh kick the rebels. Butts uh. Yeah.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: There was a governor, the British Royal Governor of Virginia,
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Lord Dunmore, said this was sort of the first um,
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: I guess, the first emancipation proclamation where he said, you know,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: you guys can be free take up arms against your oppressors.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: Because they were looking for for people to fight, Like
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: every time this happened a couple of times, it's because
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: they needed men to fight on their side. It wasn't
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: I mean, I wish it was just some altruistic move,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: but it was like we need feed on the ground
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: with guns. Right. That first proclamation by dunn More was
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: was um I guess, proclaimed before the Declaration of Independence
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: was ever signed. This is yeah, this is while the
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: rebellion is just starting up and it's kind of isolated
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: and sporadic. And there was an armed rebellion in Virginia
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: that done more the governor of Virginia it was trying
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: to put down. And so that's why he said, you
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: come fight for us, Rise up against your um, your
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: plantation owners, and the the the what were the guys
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: who like the overseers, You rise up against these guys,
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: the rebels, we will we will give you your freedom.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: And I mean, at this point, it's not even clear
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: that the colonies are going to form an armed, um
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: organized revolt like the Revolutionary War. So it just seemed
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: like this was a rebellion, local rebellion that needed putting down. Yeah,
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: and they even, uh, I believe between about eight hundred
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: and two thousand slaves and servants, uh, indentured servants fled
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: their plantations, took up arms. That was one regiment named
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: dun Moore's Ethiopian Regiment, which had a on their uniform
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: the insignia Liberty to Slaves, which is pretty cool. Uh.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: And this was, like I said, the first big mass
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: emancipation um close a hundred years before Abraham Lincoln signed
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: the official Emancipation Proclamation. Yeah, and what was cool about
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: it was these these um, the slaves who took up
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: the British offer. Um, We're not just like fighting for
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: their own freedom. They were fighting to free the slaves
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: who were you know, left behind. It was really um.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: It was pretty cool. I had not heard about the
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: Ethiopian regiment before, but um. As the as the American
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Revolution goes into full swing and by uh, I think
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: seventeen seventy nine, when the tide is turning against the British,
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: the British released a second Emancipation Proclamation and said, hey,
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: if you just leave and come over to British held territory,
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: we'll we'll you'll be free. You don't even have to fight,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: which is this is a cool idea because this this
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: basically was like they think they can get more people
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: to do that if they don't think they have to fight.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: And what it does is is it leaks all these
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: workers from the plantations. And then in order to guard
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: their plantations, now the plantation owners had to you know,
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: use people that would have been fighting in the war
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: to stay at home and guard that plantation. So it
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: was it was known as economic warfare basically, right, which
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: is pretty smart. And for the African slaves who took
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: them up on their offer. There was win win for them,
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: so um, I think a total of twelve thousand African
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: descended slaves fought for the British during the Revolutionary War,
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: and at the end of the war um which the
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: American colonies won, there was a there was a problem
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: because I mean, it wasn't like the Brits were like,
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: all right, fine, we're going home. There was a negotiated treaty,
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: like there was an end to hostilities. The there was.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: It was like a formal war, and in formal wars,
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: things come up, things happen in war that um need
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: to be settled. After the war, one of the main
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: points of contention was the status of the African slaves
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: who had defected or just gone over to the British
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: side and said, hey, we're here to fight. What was
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: to be done with them? And the Brits could have
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: very easily been like, ha ha, suckers, we're not We're
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: not gonna keep our word on any of this. But
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: they didn't do that. They didn't keep their word on
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: all of it, but they kept their word on some
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: of it. And let's just take a quick break Chuck,
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: and we'll come back and fill everybody in on the
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: rest of the details. All right, So when we left
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: the war is over. George Washington is negotiated to have
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: quote unquote US property return, which included these enslaved Africa ends.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: And on the other side you have a commander in
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: chief named Guy Carlton who said, well, you know, we
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: gave our word and negotiated these certificates of freedom for
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: these loyalists. Um, but here's what we're gonna do everyone. Uh,
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: we I think you need to leave the country, and
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: we think you should go to Nova Scotia, which is
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: a province in Canada that we rule. And I'm sure
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: they were like Nova Scotia, this is not what I
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: signed up for, um, But they went there anyway. And
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: in the eighteenth century, in the late eighteenth century, forty
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: thousand uh loyalists, both white and black went to Nova Scotia, um,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: including more than twelve slaves of these white loyalists, And
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden, Nova Scotia was like, we don't
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: have resources for all these people. It was called Nova
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: scarcity at the time, which I'm guessing you knew, yes, So, um,
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: this is kind of a big problem, Chuck, because the
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: population of Nova Scotia at the time was like like
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: maybe twelve or something thirteen thousand people and all of
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: a sudden showed up. And when that happens, just common
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: economics means that you have a really really big labor
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: supply and probably not very not nearly enough demand. And
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: so when that happens, people start to fight with one another. Yeah,
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: and you know, uh, like you would imagine even in
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: Nova Scotia, these um new arrivals were kind of kicked
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: to the back of the line and things got tents. Uh. Finally,
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: at one point there was a black creature named David
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: George baptize a white woman and that sparked what people
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: basically say is the first race riot in North America.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: In yeah, the Shelburne Riot. Um, the white showed up
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: and they beat David George pretty bad. They went through
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: the Shelburne Settlement, which is largely UM African uh freed
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: slaves and literally pulled their houses over, just trash the place.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: And this riot went on for months and it was
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: it sounds pretty familiar. It's you're you're you're selling your
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: labor for too cheap and stealing our jobs. So we're
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: going to take all of our ankst out on you.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: So the riot was finally put down Um when troops
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: came in from Halifax, the capital of Nova Scotia, and
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: restored order. But by this point, Um the Black loyalists
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: who had been promised not just freedom but remember land
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: and are now ending up in Nova Scotia where things
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: are really really tense. They're like, we've got to We've
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: got to get the crown to do something about this.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: So they sent a guy named Um Thomas Peters to
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: go petition the crown in London or Parliament, at least
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: one of them, and Um say, hey, you know, can
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: we get our land now? We we did everything we
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: were asked of and uh, he didn't get anywhere with
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: the Crown at least no. They they said, well, we've
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: got another idea. We've got this, Uh, we've got this
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: area in West Africa and Sierra Leone, and what we
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: think is a good idea is to make this like
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: a sanctuary for for you folks, and we can send
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: you over there and it'll be great. You're gonna love it.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: That's the best place for freed slaves to be back
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: in Africa. Uh, it became basically in se when fifteen
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: ships sailed from Halifax Harbor, the very first voyage of
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: the Back to Africa movement. And there were some that
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: um stayed back in Nova Scotia and they settled a
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: place called Birch Town named after Samuel Birch. But a
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: lot of them left and went to Sierra Leone, and um,
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: that was sort of the you know, the end dish
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: of that story. The cool thing is is you can
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: still trace. Uh, there are twenty thousand black people living
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: in Nova Scotia today and you can trace a lot
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: of those back to these Black Loyalists. Yeah, there's one
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: guy that shows up in this article named Jason Farmer.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: He's a ninth generation descendant of a Black loyalist named
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: Jupiter Farmer, and Jupiter married a woman named Venus if
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: you can believe that, and his family has been living
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: in Birchtown for about two d and thirty years. Yeah,
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: it's pretty cool. He works at the Black Loyalist Heritage
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: Center and Historical site, and he said a lot of
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: people in Nova Scotia, even descendants, don't even realize that
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: this is their history. And so when I tell the story.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: He said. It's it's pretty powerful stuff. Yeah. Well, good
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: pick Chuck. I'm glad we did this one. Yeah. Uh.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: If you want to know more about black loyalists, go
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: check it out on the internet and send us an email.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: In the meantime to Stuff podcast how Stuff works dot com.