Dunmore's Proclamation

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Dunmore's Proclamation
Created November 7, 1775
Ratified November 14, 1775
Location
Authors John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore
Purpose To encourage slave revolts in the American colonies

Dunmore's Proclamation is a historical document issued on November 14, 1775 by John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore, royal governor of Virginia.

The Proclamation declared martial law[1] and promised freedom for slaves of American patriots who would leave their masters and join the royal forces. Dunmore expected such a revolt to have several effects. Primarily, it would bolster his own forces, which, cut off from reinforcements from British-held Boston, numbered only around 300.[2] Secondarily, he hoped that such an uprising would create panic amongst the colonists and would force them to abandon the revolution.[3]

News of Dunmore's plan spread through the colony before the formal proclamation. In April 1775 a group of slaves offered their services to the royal governor. Though he ordered them away, the colonial slaveholders remained suspicious of his intentions. On June 8, 1775, he abandoned Governor's Palace in Williamsburg and took refuge upon a man-of-war called Fowey at Yorktown. For several months the Dunmore replenished his forces and supplies by conducting raids and inviting slaves to join him. The proclamation was drafted on November 7 and published a week later. In the document he declared martial law and adjudged all patriots as traitors to the crown. Furthermore, it declared "all indented servants, Negroes, or others...free that are able and willing to bear arms..."[4]

Virginians were outraged, and responded immediately.[5] Newspapers such as The Virginia Gazette published the proclamation in full, and patrols were organized to look for any slaves attempting to take Dunmore up on his offer. The Gazette cautioned slaves to "Be not then...tempted by the proclamation to ruin your selves" and implored them to "cling to their kind masters." As very few slaves were literate, this was more a symbolic move than anything. It was also noted that Dunmore himself was a slaveholder.[6]

On December 13 the Virginia Convention responded in kind with a proclamation of its own,[7] declaring that any slaves who returned to their masters within ten days would be pardoned, but those who did not would be punished harshly. Although few slaves reached Dunmore (estimates vary, but generally are between 800-2000),[8][9] it is estimated that up to 100,000 attempted to leave their masters and join the British.[10] Those escaped slaves who managed to join the British became known as Dunmore's Ethiopian Regiment.[11] The strategy was ultimately unsuccessful as Dunmore's forces were decimated by a smallpox outbreak less than a year later. However, as the British were fleeing they took 300 of the former slaves with them. Although seemingly minuscule, more slaves found their freedom through this than any other way until the Civil War.[12]

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[edit] References

  1. ^ Scribner, Robert L. (1983). Revolutionary Virginia, the Road to Independence. University of Virginia Press, xxiv. ISBN 0813907489. 
  2. ^ Proclamation of Earl of Dunmore, <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2h42.html>. Retrieved on 10 September 2007 
  3. ^ McPhail, Mark Lawrence (2002). The Rhetoric of Racism Revisited: Reparations Or Separation?. Rowman & Littlefield, 42. ISBN 0742517195. 
  4. ^ Halpern, Rick (2002). Slavery and Emancipation. Blackwell Publishing, 90-91. ISBN 0631217355. 
  5. ^ Fiske, John (1891). The American Revolution. Houghton, Mifflin & Company, 178-180. 
  6. ^ Williams, George Washington (1882). History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880: Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens. G.P. Putnam's Sons, 324-344. 
  7. ^ Williams, George Washington (1887). A History of the Negro Troops in the War of the Rebellion, 1861-1865. Negro Universities Press, 18. 
  8. ^ Lanning, Michael Lee (2005). African Americans in the Revolutionary War. Citadel Press, 59. ISBN 0806527161. 
  9. ^ Raphael, Ray (2002). A People's History of the American Revolution: How Common People Shaped the Fight for Independence. Harper Collins, 324. ISBN 0060004401. 
  10. ^ Bristow, Peggy (1994). We're Rooted Here and They Can't Pull Us Up: Essays in African Canadian Women's History. University of Toronto Press, 19. ISBN 0802068812. 
  11. ^ Black Loyalists, <http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/work_community/loyalists.htm>. Retrieved on 10 September 2007 
  12. ^ Ruffins, Fath, Fath Ruffins on blacks' reaction to Dunmore's Proclamation, <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2i1615.html>. Retrieved on 10 September 2007 

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