1775 – American Revolution. Slavery

John Murray, Earl of Dunmore, and governor of Virginia, issued a proclamation that promised freedom to those slaves who joined the British in the fight against the rebellious colonists. According to reports, runaway slaves flocked to Sullivan’s Island in Charleston and Tybee Island in Savannah by the hundreds. William Moultrie estimated that about five hundred slaves had found refuge on Sullivan’s Island and Stephen Bull wrote to Henry Laurens that about two hundred slaves had settled on Tybee Island.