Thomas Peters (black leader)

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Thomas Peters (1738- 25 June 1792) was an African American slave that fled North Carolina with the British during the American Revolution and later ended up as a leader in Freetown, Sierra Leone.

Peters fled his owner's flour mill in Wilmington, North Carolina and joined the British army fighting against the Americans and rose to the rank of Sergeant in the Black regiment. After the war, he and other former slaves fled to Bermuda then Nova Scotia with the British loyalists, where they stayed from 1783 to 1790. In 1790, he left to London, where he helped to convince the Royal government with the help of Granville Sharp to establish the colony that eventually became Sierra Leone. After convincing 1100 of the 3500 Canadian blacks to return to Africa, Peters died of Malaria in Freetown during the first rainy season in 1792.

In 1988, Peters was honored by the Sierra Leonean government for his work in founding Freetown.

In 2007, Percival Street in Freetown was renamed in honor of Peters [1]

[edit] Sources

• "Sierra Leonean Heroes Fifty Great Men and Women Who Helped to Build Our Nation"
• Thomas Peters on the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online
• "S Leone honours Africa slave campaigners", 20 March 2007, BBC News