A Black Loyalist Pass, 1783
White Patriots claimed their freedom by fighting against the British; thousands of black slaves won their liberty by fighting for them. This pass certifies that Cato Rammsay (actually Ramsey), “a Negro, resorted to the British Lines” in search of the freedom promised by Virginia royal governor Dunmore and British commander Henry Clinton to slaves who escaped from Patriot owners. Now age forty-five and a “slim fellow,” Ramsey had escaped from his owner, John Ramsey of Norfolk, Virginia, in 1776, probably fleeing to Dunmore’s ships. Seven years later, he ended up in New York, reunited with his wife, China Godfrey (thirty-five), and their three children: James (twenty), Betsey (fifteen), and Nelly Ramsey (ten), who had fled subsequently from other owners. As the British evacuated New York in 1783, Ramsey and his family were free “to go to Nova-Scotia,” where they worked as farmers. Nova Scotia Archives and Records Management.