South Carolina: African Americans

Video

Duration

4:19

Poster Image

South Carolina was the only colony where enslaved Black people made up a majority of the population, and Patriot leaders feared the Revolution would inspire flight, sabotage, or rebellion. The British promised freedom to any enslaved person of a Patriot who reached their lines, and as many as 5,000 formerly enslaved people left with the British when they evacuated Charleston in 1782. The most fully documented life among them is Boston King, who escaped to British lines, sailed to New York, and was eventually resettled in Nova Scotia, and later Sierra Leone. He became a Methodist minister and wrote an autobiography that is one of the era’s essential Black Loyalist sources.

Interviewees

Elizabeth Chew
- CEO, South Carolina Historical Society

More African American perspectives

View details

Connecticut

African Americans
Delaware

African Americans
Georgia

African Americans
Maryland

African Americans
Massachusetts

African Americans
New Hampshire

African Americans
New Jersey

African Americans
New York

African Americans
North Carolina

African Americans
Pennsylvania

African Americans
Rhode Island

African Americans
Virginia

African Americans

African Americans

More African American perspectives

African Americans

African Americans

African Americans

African Americans

African Americans

African Americans

African Americans

African Americans

African Americans

African Americans

African Americans

African Americans

More from South Carolina

Context

Declaration

Memory

Loyalists

Native Americans

Politicians

Women