March 23, 1776

When enslaved people flocked to Lord Dunmore, the royal governor of Virginia, they expected freedom. Instead, many people experienced sickness and even death. In 1776, Dunmore had a fleet of ships sailing along coastal Virginia’s waterways. The people on board these ships, including people who had escaped their enslavers, became sick from both disease and malnutrition. The “gaol distemper” that afflicted the fleet in March 1776 was probably typhus. Later in the summer, smallpox became a significant problem.

The “intelligence” about the distemper, copied from Alexander Purdie’s Virginia Gazette, had a decidedly negative tone about both Dunmore and the enslaved people who had joined him. This report alleged that “upwards of 150” Black people had “died within a short time, and who, as fast as they expire, are tumbled into the deep, to regale the sharks.” This horrific description treated the people whose bodies were thrown overboard as “provisions” for the sharks, likened to “fresh pork, good mutton, poultry, &c.” for land animals. This type of reporting about Dunmore’s fleet in the colonial press reinforced the perception that enslaved people would have been better off in bondage than seeking freedom with the British forces.

The Pennsylvania Ledger: Or the Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, & New-Jersey Weekly Advertiser
Printed by James Humphreys, Jr.

WILLIAMSBURG, March 8.

We have intelligence that the gaol distemper rages with great violence on board Lord Dunmore’s fleet, particularly among the negro forces, upwards of 150 of whom, it is positively affirmed, have died within a short time, and who, as fast as they expire, are tumbled into the deep, to regale the sharks, which it seems swarm thereabouts, and no doubt keep as sharp a look-out for such sort of provision, as the land animals do for fresh pork, good mutton, poultry, &c.