![]() So, the British weren’t necessarily looking to dismantle slavery at this point, but they did have an interest, as a war measure, in disrupting the rebels’ slave holdings.To recoup some of the massive debt left over from the war with France, Parliament passed laws such as the Stamp Act, which for the first time taxed a wide range of transactions in the colonies. This didn’t necessarily make the British liberators – enslaved ‘property’ was generally respected and there were loyalists who ended up leaving the colonies at the end of the war, taking their enslaved people with them. Again, from 1775, British military and civil officers were offering freedom to people who were enslaved to rebel masters, providing they fought on the side of the Crown, which obviously disrupted the plantation system quite a bit. ![]() ![]() The other part of the story – largely, but not exclusively – took place in the South. By the middle of the war, many New England states were offering enslaved black people their freedom in exchange for military service, and all the New England colonies eventually abolished slavery – either during the war or soon after the war. There were black people who were part of the army surrounding Boston from the very beginning of the conflict, and some indigenous people, too. What’s known about the enslaved people who fought in the conflict on either side?
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