These Black Soldiers Fought for the British During the American Revolution in Exchange for Freedom From Slavery

 These Black Soldiers Fought for the British During the American Revolution in Exchange for Freedom From Slavery

“The Carolina Corps achieved emancipation through military service, paving the way for future fighters in the British Empire to do the same

Kinsey GidickDecember 12, 2024

For enslaved Black Americans living through the Revolutionary War, freedom sometimes meant donning the red coat of the enemy. Such was the case for the Carolina Corps, a military unit comprising roughly 300 fugitives from slavery who took up arms for the British in exchange for emancipation. Created out of two predecessor units in December 1782, when the Patriots’ imminent victory prompted the British to evacuate Black soldiers from Charleston, South Carolina, the newly formed regiment served in the Caribbean, where it was tasked, ironically, with suppressing slave uprisings and keeping the peace in the British West Indies.

Gary Sellick, a historian who uncovered the corps’ story while writing his 2018 dissertation, argues that its members—the first Black soldiers in the British Army to receive pensions upon retirement, embark on a recruiting mission abroad and enlist in a West India Regiment—set a precedent for securing freedom from slavery through military service.

“These men changed the way the British military works, and no one knows about it,” he says. “They earned their freedom and then used that freedom to not only better their lives but to better an institution.”

“It all starts with those guys on a boat in Charleston,” Sellick adds, and it culminated in the Mutiny Act of 1807, which freed around 8,000 Black soldiers in the British Army, promising them the same pay and treatment as their white counterparts.

A private from the Eighth West India Regiment, circa 1803 National Army Museum

So, why isn’t this all-Black fighting force more widely known today? Unfortunately, no firsthand accounts by members of the corps survive. As a result, the written record comes almost exclusively from the perspective of white men, particularly the British officers who led the regiment. Thanks to the efforts of Sellick and other historians, however, the long-overlooked achievements of this groundbreaking unit are finally receiving the recognition they deserve.

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The Carolina Corps wasn’t the first Black military unit to serve the crown. During the Seven Years’ War, which spanned 1756 to 1763, the British recruited enslaved and free Black men from the colonies to fill their ranks. Beyond the Carolina Corps, Black soldiers served in such Revolutionary War units as Lord Dunmore’s Ethiopian Regiment and the 29th Regiment of Foot. By the end of the revolution in September 1783, an estimated 20,000 fugitives from slavery had joined the Loyalist cause.

Enslaved Americans had good reason to side with the British over the Patriots. In late 1775, Dunmore, the royal governor of Virginia, issued a proclamationguaranteeing freedom to Black fugitives who joined “His Majesty’s troops.” Thousands took the British up on this offer, bolstering the crown’s forces in the Southern colonies in the later years of the war.

In Charleston, Loyalists were desperate for skilled horsemen who could work as scouts and raiders, plundering Patriot homes for supplies. The Black Dragoons, an armed Black cavalry company led by white officer Benjamin Thompson, emerged to fill this need. It was a remarkably successful unit, and the Dragoons’ responsibilities quickly expanded. In 1782, they were tasked with apprehending Hessian deserters, earning a reward of two guineas for each one recovered, whether dead or alive. The soldiers also captured individuals enslaved by the Patriots, depriving the enemy of critical manpower.“