Escaped Slaves After the American Revolution
In October, 1781, an allied Franco-American force trapped, besieged, and forced the surrender of General Cornwallis’ British army at Yorktown. It was the war’s final major pitched battle, as the British, exhausted by years of fruitless fighting and the mounting costs in blood and treasure, threw in the towel. Defeat at Yorktown led to the fall of the pro-war government in London, and its replacement with one that sued for peace. From the Black Loyalists’ perspective, that was terrible news. It meant that the side that had offered them freedom had lost, and their former masters had prevailed.
Thousands of slaves-turned-freedom-fighters found themselves bottled up with the British in enclaves such as Charleston and New York, unsure whether the Crown would honor its promises to them. They had good reason to worry: American negotiators had added a last minute clause to the 1783 Treaty of Paris, forbidding the British from “carrying away” American property. That “property” included runaway slaves who had fought for the British. After the war ended with the Treaty of Paris in 1783, the fate of the Black Loyalist escaped slaves became a bone of contention between the Patriots and British military commanders.
