Marci Littlefield

The revolutionary era was transformative for the British colonies that became the U.S Instead of forming a free society, the revolutionary era exposed the inconsistencies in American liberty which demanded natural rights while also maintaining slavery. The stories of Black patriots in the Revolutionary war are overstated, even though 20,000 enslaved people joined the British. The fiction of legal manumission for Black Loyalists dominates scholarship while the ideological origins which propelled enslaved people to side with the British is understudied. Furthermore, how enslaved Black people constructed and applied this ideology to their own freedoms needs further inquiry. This study seeks to contextualize the actions of the freedom seekers and the ideological origins of their choice.