Since publication of The Black Loyalist Directory in 1996, the primary
component, The Book of Negroes, has become one of the most-cited of
American Revolutionary primary sources. This new edition salutes The
Book of Negroes by using the original title of this famous accounting
of Black freedom. On the surface, The Book of Negroes is a laconic,
ledger-style enumeration of 3,000 self-emancipated and free Blacks who
departed as part of the British evacuation of Loyalists from New York
City in the summer and fall of 1783 for Nova Scotia, England, Germany,
and other parts of the world. Created under orders from Sir Guy Carleton
(Lord Dorchester), Commander-in-Chief of British forces in North
America, to placate an angry George Washington, Commander-in-Chief of
the Continental Army (USA), who regarded the Black Loyalists as fugitive
slaves, The Book of Negroes is, as Alan Gilbert has observed, a "roll
of honor."