Thanks for the great article. I love real history.

I'm trying to find an agent for my novel Restive Souls, but I have a feeling that its core premise, that the first American civil war over slavery was the Revolutionary War, is going to be quite an obstacle, given the Christo-Nationalist right-wing's current drive to cancel history.

Lord Dunmore's proclamation that promised manumission to any slave joining the British cause is said by some to have attracted at least 100,000 slaves into the British effort to stop the American revolution.

At that time, loyalist and rebel sentiment was pretty evenly split. But when the proclamation was issued, the mercantilists and plantation/ranch owners and even farmers — anybody who could benefit from free labor, flipped their allegiance strongly to the cause of the revolution. They were furious.

It would be similar to if, in our present day, the 35-40% of MAGAites turned to 90%. The colonials were that upset about Dunmore's proclamation, which threatened to set hundreds of thousands of slaves free if it were to come to full fruition. The tax rebellion with support from half the population became a war over slavery with the support of almost everyone.

That would have spelled "trouble" especially in the Carolinas, which were majority Black. Charleston was something like 70% Black, if I remember my research correctly. Even some northern cities, especially along the seaside ports, were majority Black. Setting all the slaves free before the slave enforcement infrastructure of slave patrols and such was fully implemented would have empowered Blacks far beyond what Europeans were willing to tolerate.

Another unheralded bit of history is that there were enough small slave revolts in the north to give the colonists there pause. The cause of abolition in the north wasn't driven by the good graces of white abolitionists, although, of course, these folks did exist (the Quakers, especially). This is not to discount the efforts of the folks you cited! Early northern anti-slavery sentiment was driven mostly by resistance, but most of these stories were buried with their protagonists. I wish I had done a better job of cataloging all the links I've found while doing research - I hope to work on organizing those eventually.

The easiest solution in the north during the revolutionary war and shortly after was to just send the slaves south by coffle. That way, northerners could continue to make some coin off the misery of slaves without feeling terribly awful about it, and without having to deal with insurrection. Split those families up, send them south!

Apologies for the long comment! I started with just a sentence or two in my head!