ABSTRACT
The war altered the lives of many bondsmen. Runaways, seeking freedom, fled to British hnes, and slaves in the war zones of the South were treated as contraband. More than 50,000 slaves (one-tenth of the black population) found refuge with the British or were carried off by British military forces. Thomas Jefferson, with some exaggeration, estimated that 30,000 Virginia slaves went off to the British in 1781 alone. Twenty thousand (one-fourth of the state's black population) did the same in South Carolina, 1779–81; more than 5,000 slaves departed with the British evacuation of Savannah, Georgia; and several thousand slaves from New York City and the surrounding area and from northern New Jersey sought British protection. 1
