January 24, 1776

John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore and royal governor of Virginia, issued a proclamation in November 1775 which shaped how many Americans thought about both Dunmore and the enslaved population of the British colonies. Dunmore declared “all indentured Servants, Negroes, or others, (appertaining to Rebels,) free that are able and willing to bear Arms.” In short, enslaved people who were the property of “Rebels” could leave their enslavers, take up arms for the British, and become free. 

This report from Williamsburg, two months after the proclamation, may or may not be accurate. By using phrases such as “we are informed,” printers could publish information without taking responsibility for the credibility of the news. In this case, a correspondent of one of the Virginia Gazettes claimed that, in early January, two of his own enslaved laborers were escorted through Fredericksburg by an overseer. What followed was an incredulous reaction to Dunmore continuing to keep people in bondage: “it should seem his Lordship has not been so very generous to his own bondman as he wished to be to those who were the property of others.” The argument here was that neither Dunmore nor his “august master,” King George III, had the right to seize the property—including the human property—of the colonists.

The Pennsylvania Gazette
Printed by Hall and Sellers

WILLIAMSBURG, January 12.

Notwithstanding Lord Dunmore’s late proclamation for emancipating such slaves as should repair to his standard, we are informed, by a correspondent, that two of his own Negroes, with an overseer, passed through Fredericksburg one day last week, on their way to his Berkeley plantation; so that it should seem his Lordship has not been so very generous to his own bondmen as he wished to be to those who were the property of others, but whom neither he, nor even his august master, have the smallest right to intermeddle with.