Stephen Blucke
Stephen Blucke | |
|---|---|
| Born | c. 1752 |
| Died | c. 1795 (aged 43) |
| Occupation(s) | soldier, colonizer, teacher |
| Years active | 1777–1783 |
| Title | Colonel |
| Spouse | Margaret Coventry |
| Children | Isabel Gibbons |
| Military career | |
| Allegiance |  Kingdom of Great Britain |
| Service/ |  British Army |
| Years of service | 1775–1783 |
| Rank | Colonel (honorary rank) |
| Commands held | Black Company of Pioneers (1777-1780) and Black Brigade (1780-1783) |
| Battles/wars | American Revolutionary War
|
Stephen Blucke (born c. 1752) was a Black Loyalist, in the American Revolutionary War, and one the commanding officer, of the British Loyalist provincial unit, the Black Company of Pioneers.[1]The "Black Pioneers" were a Black Loyalist company, of soldiers, who worked labor detail, for the British Army. He has been referred to as "the true founder of the Afro-Nova Scotian community".[2]
Early life
American Revolutionary War
Black Company of Pioneers
Black Brigade
After the death of Black Loyalist and guerrilla leader Colonel Tye in 1780, Stephen Blucke was given the honorary rank of "Colonel" and took command, of another Black Loyalist unit, a group of military associators, known as the infamous "Black Brigade", until the end of the war.[3]
Like, many exiled, Black Loyalists, he came to the Maritimes, in British Canada, after the war and settled in Birchtown, Nova Scotia, in 1783[4] and became a teacher and taught at one of the Bray Schools.[5]
Death
See also
References
- ^ Brown, Wallace (1969). The good Americans: the loyalists in the American Revolution. William Morrow and Company. p. 203.
- ^ Barry Cahill. Stephen Blucke: The Perils of Being a "White Negro" in Loyalist Nova Scotia. Nova Scotia Historical Review. 1999. No.1, p. 129
- ^ Jonathan D. Sutherland, African Americans at War, ABC-CLIO, 2003, pp. 420–421, accessed 4 May 2010
- ^ Clarkson, John (1971). Clarkson's mission to America 1791–1792. Public Archives of Nova Scotia. p. 191.
- ^ Loyalists and Layabouts, p. 219, note 68