THE REVOLUTIONARY SHORE – November 4, 1775 – The Shot Heard ‘Round Virginia

The Shot Heard Round Virginia: Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation

By Kellee Blake

On this very day, 250 years ago . . .

Lord Dunmore, the Royal Governor of Virginia, surveyed the steely blue water from his damp perch on the William, just off the Norfolk coast. It was time. The Patriot Virginians were rapidly arming and training and each day brought increasingly vicious threats. Dunmore and the other Loyalists forced from Williamsburg and environs were weary of living on ships. He had limited manpower, winter encroached, and they were running low on everything but disease and discord. Patriot forces were assembling on the coast preparing to shoot at Dunmore and His Majety’s vessels. No rescue was forthcoming. Something had to give.

And so, on November 7 the Royal Governor formalized actions he had long been considering. Dunmore declared martial law and insisted that all capable of bearing arms must support “His Majesty’s Standard” or be considered traitors. He then penned the section that stunned his Virginia enemies—and his friends—by declaring:

“all indented servants, Negroes, or others, (appertaining to Rebels), FREE that are able and willing to bear arms, they joining His Majesty’s troops as soon as may be, for the more speedily reducing this colony to a proper sense of their duty to His Majesty’s crown and dignity.”

It was extraordinary. No allowable neutrality—you were with King George or against him, Dunmore anticipated the Patriot anger to his freedom edict but did not imagine the effect it would have on heretofore Loyalists or those straddling the loyalty fence. Not only had he summarily invited the Tidewater’s main labor force to flee their bonds and enslavement, but he promised to free and arm those who did. The response was furious and immediate. Dunmore’s Proclamation turned the tide of public sentiment and advanced the cleaving of Virginia and other colonies from the British. As South Carolina’s Edward Rutledge observed, nothing else might have worked more effectively to do so.

The enslaved community seized the moment and found ways to Dunmore. Slave patrols increased and Virginia leadership’s promised imprisonment, hard labor in the salt or lead mines, foreign sale, and worse to those found in flight or serving Dunmore. Even so, Northampton County’s Committee of Safety reported that some two hundred enslaved workers journeyed to Dunmore immediately after the Proclamation. Both Shore counties recorded episodes of capture and court drama, some of which will be featured in future installments of The Revolutionary Shore.

Many Tidewater enslaved who reached the welcoming Dunmore were trained, armed, and “uniformed” with a shirt proclaiming “Liberty to Slaves.” Shore watermen were highly valued as pilots and crewmen. Their ability to negotiate the complicated shallow coast and identify homes where supplies and more “recruits” might be found would prove priceless to the British.

Loyalties could be nuanced; freedom could not. Most living in bondage stepped into the freedom at hand, be it Loyalist or Patriot. The choices these families made in the coming weeks would affect generations on the Shore, in other colonies, and in communities as far away as Sierra Leone, Africa. Lord Dunmore was right. It was time.

Join WESR on the 4th of each month to learn more about Virginia and the Shore’s role in the War for Independence. Welcome to the Revolutionary Shore!