From Charleston slavery to African freedom

Black History Month lecture at DI library spotlights lives of two slaves

Slaves seeking freedom in the early years of our country often looked to Canada and the Northern states as a safe refuge. But there was another route to freedom…back across the ocean on the coast of west Africa.

As local historian Nic Butler shared in his recent Black History Month lecture at the Daniel Island Library, Boston King and John Kizell, two brave men and former slaves in Charleston, were largely responsible for the success of an operation that helped thousands of slaves in America find freedom back in Africa, a land many of them once called “home.”

King and Kizell were both enslaved on Charleston area plantations. King served on Richard Waring’s plantation near what is now Summerville, SC. Both men found refuge as “Loyalists” during the American Revolution and were protected by the British Military. Lord Dunsmore, the last Royal Governor of Virginia, proclaimed “We will make free any slave who flees an abusive master.”

Whenever the British set sail for ports in the American north, so too did their protected loyalist passengers. When Britain surrendered - and finally evacuated from Charleston in 1778 - thousands of slaves managed to escape from their owners and leave with the British fleet. Dr. Butler points out that the rampant chaos in Charleston at this time served as the perfect distraction for slaves to slip away undetected. The passage of the slaves was documented in a collection of travel certificates famously known as “The Book of Negroes.” Boston King (who is listed in “the Book”) and John Kizell (who is not) count among fortunate “black loyalists” who found their way to freedom.

King initially ended up in New York where he met his wife, Violet, herself a former slave. Their new found freedom was briefly threatened when the American government procured a peace agreement mandating the return of slaves, causing great anguish. The British countered with a clause that protected all blacks who were loyalists at the time of surrender. With a sigh of relief, the Kings, along with hundreds of other freed slaves, relocated to Birchtown, a community near Shelburne, Nova Scotia, established just for black loyalists. In his lecture, Dr. Butler cited the work of author Ruth Whitehead, who has written extensively about the historical connection between South Carolina and Nova Scotia.

Indeed the British, who often disdained the idea of slavery, championed for the freedom of slaves. In Britain, especially, Quakers there wanted to help the “poor blacks” who had arrived in England. The British Quakers established the Sierra Leone Company for the express purpose of transporting freed slaves to a new land. Freetown, a new colony in Sierra Leone, on the west coast of Africa, had been developed just for them.

But back in Nova Scotia, while they enjoyed their new found freedom, the members of the black community were shunned by white neighbors and endured long cold winters with barely enough to eat. Boston King applied his skill as a carpenter to make a living for himself and his wife. Inspired by his wife’s religious conversion, King threw himself into religious studies and became a Methodist preacher.

In 1792, King met Lt. John Clarkson, an agent for the Sierra Leone Company and sailed with his young family and 1200 other blacks to a new colony in Africa. Although Boston King survived disease and pestilence in this new country, Violet soon died. The young preacher did his best to teach Christianity in a land with a far different culture and language than he was used to. After a stint in England to gain further education, he returned to Sierra Leone to set up a school to teach English and possible salvation through Jesus Christ. In 1798, King published a short memoir about his experiences: “The Life of Boston King.”

Unlike King, who was born into slavery, John Kizell was born in Africa and may have held a government post in his village before being captured and sold into slavery in the American colonies [he was a teenager when captured, and later stated that his father was a chief]. Kizell was a literate slave, who, like King, found his way into the protection, and ultimately the service of, the British Military. Although Kizell was captured in battle, he managed to escape back to the safety of the British and finally sailed to freedom in Nova Scotia with the evacuation of the British fleet and the mass exodus of black slaves with them.

Kizell ended up in Nova Scotia in a community not far from King (Dr. Butler notes that the two men did know each other). He met and married a woman known only as “Phillis.” Kizell and his wife eventually immigrated to Sherbo Island, just south of Freetown, in an effort to support the development of these new free colonies in Africa. But the very literate Kizell subsequently travelled to London to settle disputes for the poorly managed Sierra Leone Company.

Returning to Sherbro Island, Kizell, like King, had a religious conversion, and became a Baptist Minister to the native Africans in and around his community. He also became an active voice against slavery, identifying kidnappers and enslavers, and breaking down the mechanism of a long-reviled practice.

Kizell then met Paul Cuffee, an abolitionist and sea captain with a fleet of trading ships. The two men become friends in Africa; Cuffee’s trips to Africa served as a practical example that inspired the American Colonization Society, but Cuffee died shortly after the society was formed. By the time the American Civil War began, 15,000 slaves, former slaves and freed blacks from the American South, Nova Scotia and even the West Indies, established brand new lives in Sierra Leone and Liberia thanks to the support of men like John Kizell and Boston King.

About the presenter:

Nic Butler, Ph.D. is the archivist and historian for the Charleston County Public Library. A the native of Greenville County, South Carolina, Dr. Butler attended the University of South Carolina before completing a Ph.D. in musicology at Indiana University. He has worked as archivist at the South Carolina Historical Society, as an adjunct faculty member at the College of Charleston, and as an historical consultant for the City of Charleston. Dr. Butler is the creator of the Charleston Time Machine, an imaginary educational time-travel device at the Charleston County Public Library fueled by stories and facts from Charleston’s colorful history.

Daniel Island Publishing

225 Seven Farms Drive
Unit 108
Daniel Island, SC 29492 

Office Number: 843-856-1999
Fax Number: 843-856-8555

 

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