Thomas Peters (revolutionary)
[3] Like Elijah Johnson and Joseph Jenkins Roberts of Liberia, Peters is considered the African-American founding father of a nation, in this case, Sierra Leone.
[6][9][10][11][12][13][self-published source] According to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography: Legend has given Thomas Peters a noble birth in West Africa, whence he was supposedly kidnapped as a young man and brought as a slave to the American colonies.
In that year, encouraged by the proclamation issued by Governor Lord Dunmore of Virginia in 1775 promising freedom to rebel-owned slaves who joined the loyalist forces, Peters fled Campbell’s plantation and enlisted in the Black Pioneers in New York.
The British had previously promised freedom to slaves of rebels in exchange for supporting the war effort against the colonies that formed the new United States.
Peters served at the British siege of Charleston, South Carolina, in the summer of 1776, and was with them when they moved north to take Philadelphia, the seat of the Continental Congress, in the autumn of 1777.
[16] After the war Peters and some three thousand of other former African-American slaves were evacuated by the British, who had promised their freedom, and resettled in Nova Scotia, along with white Loyalists.
Peters was well received during his trip to London, and he was introduced to some notable people by his former commander, General Henry Clinton, who was politically out of favour.
Together with leaders David George, Moses Wilkinson, Joseph Leonard, Cato Perkins, William Ash, John Ball, and Isiah Limerick promoted migration to Sierra Leone among the black pioneers in the communities of Birchtown, Halifax, Shelbourne, and Annapolis Royal.
Peters and David Edmons (Edmonds) from Annapolis Royal petitioned John Clarkson for beef to celebrate their last Christmas in North America in 1791.
Although he received support from influential figures amongst settlers such as Abraham Elliot Griffiths and Henry Beverhout,[20]: 97 eventually the overwhelming majority of Nova Scotians affirmed John Clarkson as their leader.
In 2001 supporters suggested renaming Percival Street (specifically Settler Town, Sierra Leone, where Peters's Nova Scotians settled) in Freetown in his honour, but this has not yet happened.
[21] Peters was portrayed by Leo Wringer in the BBC television series Rough Crossings (2007), based on a history of the British and American slaves during and after the Revolution, written by historian Simon Schama.
