During the war, thousands of African Americans fled from slavery to join the British. Former slave Thomas Peters escaped from his owner in North Carolina and became a sergeant in a British regiment called the Black Pioneers. Like other loyalists, he settled in Nova Scotia after the war. He soon realized that even in Canada blacks were treated unequally. In 1790 he went to London to present the following petition to the British cabinet on behalf of other black loyalists. Faced with persistent inequality, Peters and many other ex-slaves eventually migrated to Sierra Leone.
The humble Memorial and Petition of Thomas Peters a free Negro and late a Serjt. [sergeant] in the Regiment of Guides and Pioneers serving in North America under the command of Genl. Sir Henry Clinton on Behalf of himself and others the Black Pioneers and loyal Black Refugees hereinafter described
Sheweth
That your Memorialist and the said other Black Pioneers having served in North America as aforesaid for the Space of seven years and upwards, during the War, afterwards went to Nova Scotia under the Promise of obtaining the usual Grant of Lands and Provision.
That notwithstanding they have made repeated Applications to all Persons in that Country who they conceived likely to put them in Possession of the due Allotments, the said Pioneers with their Wives and Children amounting together in the whole to the Number of 102 People now remain at Annapolis Royal have not yet obtained their Allotments of Land except one single Acre of land each for a Town Lot and tho’ a further Proportion of 20 Acres each Private man (viz) about a 5th part of the Allowance of Land that is due to them was actually laid out and located for them agreeable to the Governor’s Order it was afterwards taken from them on Pretense that it had been included in some former Grant and they have never yet obtained other Lands in Lieu thereof and remain destitute and helpless.
Source: Great Britain, Public Record Office, Colonial Office file CO217/63fol. 63, reprinted in David Northrup, Crosscurrents in the Black Atlantic (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2008), 39–40.
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