07/15/2026
From our latest News from the Delta newsletter.
Enslaved People of the Santee River Hear the Call of Freedom During the American Revolution
By Herb Frazier, SDP Team Member and Cultural Historian
During the American Revolution, John Murray, the Earl of Dunmore and the governor of Virginia, offered freedom to enslaved people if they fled their American enslavers who were rebelling against the British Crown and join the British. Dunmore’s proclamation in November 1775 sent shockwaves through the thirteen colonies, and it was heard along the Santee River in South Carolina.
Records document at least two dozen enslaved people who fled plantations in the Santee River region to join the British. They would later find new homes in Canada with the thousands of formerly enslaved people who fled Charleston during England’s evacuation of the city in late 1782.
Most of the people who escaped from the Santee River were alone, but some made their way to freedom in family groups.
Frank Crumline, 30, escaped with his wife, Chloe, 45, and their 7-year-old son, Mingo. They had been enslaved by George Patten, before they managed to escape in 1778. [1]
During the siege of Charleston in 1780, Mellia Marrant, who was enslaved by Santee River planter John Marrant, fled with her children, Amelia, 6, and Ben, 4.[2] Susannah, who had been enslaved by John Marian, ran away in 1779 with her seven-year-old daughter, Diana, and seven-month-old daughter, Sukey. [3]
Not all of the people traveled to Canada with the British. John Higgins ran away from his owner, Dennis Higgins of Santee River, in 1779. Three years later he was a drummer with the Hessian soldiers, who were British allies. After the war, he went to Spithead, England. [4]
Thirty-five-year-old Rachell fled her owner John Collins in 1778. Five years later, she was a free person on British-controlled Cat Island in the Bahamas. [5]
The British occupied Georgetown from July 1780 to May 1781. After British forces left the area, William Snow, a Santee River planter in nearby St. James Parish, remained concerned about losing the people he enslaved.
In a Sept. 9, 1781, letter to his overseer, Snow warned him to be most cautious of Ruth. “Have no mercy on these negroes or they will deceive you,” Snow wrote. He added a postscript, advising the overseer that “if you say the least about Ruth, she will run off.” [6]
A year before John Rutledge became South Carolina’s first governor in January 1779, Pompey, Rutledge’s body servant, ran away. Pompey became a valuable guide for the British because he was familiar with the main road to Savannah and the main route to the French settlements along the Santee. Pompey fled with his wife, Flora. [7]
Two years after issuing the proclamation, Dunmore’s own words cost him at least one enslaved person. Sarah, who was one of the people Dunmore enslaved in Virginia, joined the British in 1776. She secured a job working with the Black Pioneers, a unit of newly freed people who did a variety of non-combat jobs such as building fortifications, driving wagons and doing in-camp tasks. [8]
Enslaved people in South Carolina in much greater numbers chose to seek safety with the British, who unlike white South Carolinians, were less willing to muster Black men in local militias for fear of slave insurrections.
Historian Benjamin Quarles wrote that “in the Revolutionary War the American Negro was a participant and a symbol. He was active on the battlefronts and behind the lines. The Negro’s role in the Revolution can best be understood by realizing that his major loyalty was not to a place nor to a people but to a principle. Insofar as he had freedom of choice, he was likely to join the side that made him the quickest and best offer in terms of those ‘unalienable rights’ of which Mr. [Thomas] Jefferson had spoken. Whoever invoked the image of liberty, be he American or British, could count on a ready response from the blacks.” [9]
Citations in comments.
📸 English Hurteau/SDP
