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Juneteenth and Other Lesser Known African-American Historical Culture

Khalid Elhassan June 15, 2020 34 min

Colonel Tye - American Revolutionary War — Colonel Tye as portrayed in a PBS documentary. PBS

18. The Black Loyalist Company

A Black Loyalist with British soldiers. YouTube

Later in 1776, General Clinton was tasked with taking Newport, Rhode Island, and the Black Pioneers were the only provincial unit that accompanied his British regulars. From Rhode Island, they were sent back to New York, and thence to Philadelphia, which fell to the British in 1777.

In 1777, Clinton’s runaways became the nucleus of the Black Loyalist Company – a noncombatant force to replace Lord Dunmore’s disbanded Ethiopian Regiment. In 1778, the company was merged into the Guides and Pioneers in New York, and given the name the Black Pioneers and Guides. As Pioneers, the new unit’s soldiers were tasked with military engineering, fortification, and construction tasks. As Guides, they served as scouts and raiders.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.