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Soldiers in the Royal Ethiopian Army Had "Liberty to Slaves" embroidered on their uniforms
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As revolution began in the thirteen American colonies in the late 1770s, the British were badly outnumbered. In order to drum up recruits, Lord Dunmore, the Royal Governor of Virginia, offered freedom to Negroes "able and willing to bear arms." His strategy had both tactical and psychological ramifications, as southern planters were terrified of slave revolts.
By 1778, some thirty thousand of the enslaved had joined the English forces in Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia. They were promised protection--as long as they fought on the side of the British--and their freedom after the war.
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Most of them worked as laborers, pilots, cooks, and musicians, although some were soldiers. Despite their service, the black Loyalists were betrayed when the British lost the war. Several thousand, mostly those fighting in the north, were evacuated as free men to British ports in England, Florida, and Nova Scotia. In the south and parts of the north, the British left their Negro allies in the hands of the colonial victors. Some blacks managed to escape, but most were resold into slavery, and left to fend for themselves in the new republic.
Alongside these spontaneous insurrections were the formation of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1794 and the birth of the Second Great Awakening in 1800. These developments provided less violent means to the fight for equality, centered on the cornerstones of faith, spirituality, and humanism.
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