Thomas Jeremiah
Thomas Jeremiah (died 18 August 1775) was a free Negro harbor pilot, firefighter, fisherman and merchant from Charles Town,[a] South Carolina, in British North America.
[1] Jeremiah's first appearances in the historical record are in 1750s in the South-Carolina Gazette where he was blamed for running both the HMS Jamaica and the Brothers Adventure aground.
In 1768, the South-Carolina Gazette noted that "The Negro Jerry (well known for his extinguishing of fires) has just completed a Well-Boat, in order to supply the inhabitants of [Charles Town] with Live Fish every day".
[6] By the 1770s, Jeremiah was well known in Charles Town and in 1771 respect for him may have been responsible for a successful request for a pardon from Lieutenant Governor William Bull for an assault charge.
That Congress met in Philadelphia from 5 September to 26 October 1774, with two of South Carolina's delegates, Christopher Gadsden and Thomas Lynch, playing "especially conspicuous roles" with their belligerent attitudes toward the British.
[13] The Secret Committee had seized official British mail in April 1775 which reportedly included plans to incite Cherokee attacks on colonists and slave rebellions.
[17] In a letter to his son John, Henry Laurens wrote that the committee was disinclined to apply any punishment beyond having "one or two Negroes ... severely flogged & banished".
In one of its last acts, the de jure Commons House approved of the Provincial Congress' issuance of currency and then "simply faded out of existence".
[25] Following the sentencing, the case became a proxy battle between opposing sides in South Carolina's conflict with the personages of Congress president Henry Laurens and royal Governor William Campbell.
[4] The recently arrived Campbell intervened on Jeremiah's behalf and carried on an exchange of letters with Laurens attempting to persuade the latter of the injustice of the pending execution.
[26] Following rumors of violence against him, Jeremiah's champion Governor Campbell dissolved the defunct Commons House and decamped to HMS Tamar, a warship in Charles Town harbor, never to return to the city.
[30] In November, the first shots in South Carolina's revolution were fired at a three-day skirmish between loyalist and patriot militias at Ninety-Six in the Upcountry.
[33] Due to the dearth of information and the distance of time, modern writers generally refrain from speculating as to whether Jeremiah was actually guilty of the crime for which he hanged.
Historian Robert M. Weir notes that Loyalists saw Jeremiah as "the victim of a Machiavellian policy having a twofold purpose": to intimidate harbor pilots who might aid the British and to whip up anti-British sentiment to further military preparedness.
[34] Historian Walter J. Fraser, Jr., bluntly remarks that while Jeremiah might have been taking advantage of domestic turmoil to plot a slave revolt, he may have also been "the scapegoat of a scheme developed by the political elite who hoped to divert the attention of the laboring classes by playing on their deepest fears".
Governor Campbell sent an account of the trial and surrounding events to London where it was cited by Lord Sandwich in parliament as an example of the "cruelty and baseness" of the colonials.
