The Black Loyalists

"The man who would come to be called Harry Washington was born near the Gambia River, in West Africa, around 1740. As a young man, he was sold into slavery and endured the horrors of the Middle Passage. In Virginia, he was purchased by a neighbor of George Washington, who then bought the young man in 1763 for 40 pounds. After working to drain the colony's Great Dismal Swamp-one of George Washington's many land ventures-he was sent to Mount Vernon to care for the horses."

"Then came war. With General Washington in Massachusetts leading the Continental Army, Harry Washington, like thousands of other enslaved people, abandoned the plantation, risking torture and imprisonment, to join the British cause. In exchange for his freedom, he enlisted in what was known as the Ethiopian Regiment. Virginia's royal governor, Lord Dunmore, had created a base to oppose the rebels near the port of Norfolk in the summer of 1775."

Harry Washington was born near the Gambia River around 1740 and was sold into slavery as a young man, enduring the Middle Passage. He was purchased in Virginia by a neighbor of George Washington and then bought in 1763 for 40 pounds, after which he worked draining the Great Dismal Swamp and served at Mount Vernon caring for horses. During the Revolutionary War he abandoned the plantation to join the British Ethiopian Regiment in exchange for promised freedom. Lord Dunmore issued an emancipation proclamation offering liberty to enslaved people owned by Patriots who took up arms.

Read at The Atlantic