The Black Loyalist company was raised by General Sir Henry as a non-combatant replacement force for the disbanded Ethiopian Regiment in Philadelphia in late 1777 or early 1778.

In 1780, Blucke would go on to command the small Loyalist military unit known as the Black Brigade, after their leader, Colonel Tye, died of lockjaw.

The Black Company of Pioneers may have been trained to use the standard British Army-issue Brown Bess musket.

In South Carolina, nearly 25,000 slaves, being 30% of the enslaved population, fled, migrated, or died from the disruption of the war.

More than 3,000 of them were freedmen and resettled in Nova Scotia, many under the leadership of Stephen Blucke, a prominent Black leader of the battalion.