In search of the promised land
Black Loyalists
It’s all but a forgotten chapter in the North American history.
It’s yet another story of colonial manipulation.
It’s also a story of a few thousand black slaves, who had a chance for freedom, and an opportunity to exact revenge on their merciless masters.
But mostly, it’s a sad story of broken promises, the amount of sufferings one would voluntarily endure in order to find a better life, and the resulting racial discord that would resonate across 3 continents in various forms.
Have you heard of the Black Loyalists?
They were those black slaves who were promised freedom and free land, if they signed up to join the British army to fight against the American rebels during the revolutionary war. Not because of compassion but because the British needed manpower. But after the British lost the war and were forced to leave the American colonies, these loyalists got neither freedom nor land. They had to fight for it and go to extreme lengths to get freedom and the promised land eventually.
Here is what happened:
(If the above images are hard to read, please follow the timeline using the presentation mode available in this link.)
That’s how some of these loyalists ended up in Nova Scotia, while some in England and the rest in Sierra Leone.
Many American historians have tried to erase, rewrite, or revise their history. The myth of the black loyalists has to be burst open and their history needs to be understood for they certainly were not ‘fugitive slaves’ as claimed by Thomas Jefferson.
Today is the last day of Black History month in 2019.
A good day to reflect upon how far the country has come in terms of racial prejudices & injustices and also think about how little some things have changed.
