When American colonists took up arms in a battle for independence starting in 1775, that fight for freedom excluded an entire race of peopleâAfrican-Americans. On November 12, 1775, General George Washington decreed in his orders that âneither negroes, boys unable to bear arms, nor old menâ could enlist in the Continental Army. Two days after the patriotsâ military leader banned African-Americans from joining his ranks, however, black soldiers proved their mettle at the Battle of Kempâs Landing along the Virginia coast. They captured an enemy commanding officer and proved pivotal in securing the victoryâfor the British. After the battle, Lord Dunmore, the royal governor of Virginia who had been forced to flee the capital of Williamsburg and form a government in exile aboard the warship HMS Fowey, ordered the British standard raised before making a startling announcement. For the first time in public he formally read a proclamation that he had issued the previous week granting freedom to the slaves of rebels who escaped to British custody.Dunmoreâs Proclamation was âmore an announcement of military strategy than a pronouncement of abolitionist principles,â according to author Gary B. Nash in âThe Unknown American Revolution: The Unruly Birth of Democracy and the Struggle to Create America.â The document not only provided the British with an immediate source of manpower, it weakened Virginiaâs patriots by depriving them of their main source of labor. Much like Lincolnâs Emancipation Proclamation, however, Dunmoreâs Proclamation was limited in scope. Careful not to alienate Britainâs white Loyalist allies, the measure applied only to slaves whose masters were in rebellion against the Crown. The British regularly returned slaves who fled from Loyalist masters. Dunmoreâs Proclamation inspired thousands of slaves to risk their lives in search of freedom. They swam, dog-paddled and rowed to Dunmoreâs floating government-in-exile on Chesapeake Bay in order to find protection with the British forces. âBy mid-1776, what had been a small stream of escaping slaves now turned into a torrent,â wrote Nash. âOver the next seven years, enslaved Africans mounted the greatest slave rebellion in American history." Among those slaves making a break for freedom were eight belonging to Peyton Randolph, speaker of the Virginia House of Burgesses, and several belonging to patriot orator Patrick Henry who apparently took his famous wordsââGive me liberty, or give me death!ââto heart and fled to British custody. Another runaway who found sanctuary with Dunmore was Harry Washington, who escaped from Mount Vernon while his famous master led the Continental Army. Dunmore placed these âBlack Loyalistsâ in the newly formed Ethiopian Regiment and had the words âLiberty to Slavesâ embroidered on their uniform sashes. Since the idea of escaped slaves armed with guns stirred terror even among white Loyalists, Dunmore placated the slaveholders by primarily using the runaways as laborers building forts, bridges and trenches and engaging in trades such as shoemaking, blacksmithing and carpentry. Women worked as nurses, cooks and seamstresses. As manpower issues grew more dire as the war progressed, however, the British army became more amenable to arming runaway slaves and sending them into battle. General Henry Clinton organized an all-black regiment, the âBlack Pioneers.â Among the hundreds of runaway slaves in its ranks was Harry Washington, who rose to the rank of corporal and participated in the siege of Charleston. On June 30, 1779, Clinton expanded on Dunmoreâs actions and issued the Philipsburg Proclamation, which promised protection and freedom to all slaves in the colonies who escaped from their patriot masters. Blacks captured fighting for the enemy, however, would be sold into bondage.