Lord Dunmore Ethiopian Regiment (6)


In November 1775 Lord Dunmore, royal governor of Virginia, issued a proclamation promising freedom for any enslaved black in Virginia who joined the British army. Within a month, nearly three hundred slaves had joined what would be known as “Lord Dunmore’s Ethiopian Regiment.” Later, thousands of slaves fled plantations for British promises of emancipation. At the end of the war, the British kept their word, to some at least, and evacuated as many as fourteen thousand “Black Loyalists” to Nova Scotia, Jamaica, and England.