The Pineapple, Dunmore, Scotland (1777)
John Murray, the Fourth Earl of Dunmore, served as governor of Virgina in the early 1770s. In November of 1775, he issued Dunmore’s Proclamation, granting freedom to indentured servants, African slaves and slaves of African descent, and others held in bondage. In return, they would agree to fight for the British against American troops in the Revolutionary War. Historians estimate 800 to 2,000 enslaved men took him up on the offer, flaming already-rising tensions between the colonists and the British government in the colonies. But this failed to give him the enough troops, so he returned to Scotland. But he carried with him some traditions he learned in Virginia. Sailors would place a pineapple on their gatepost to let the neighborhood know they’ve returned home. Lord Dunmore decided to do the same thing, by creating a tower on his home featuring a giant, bold pineapple to announce his return.
