Ethiopian Regiment

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Ethiopian Regiment

ETHIOPIAN REGIMENT. John Murray, the fourth earl of Dunmore, the royal governor of Virginia in 1775, gave this name to the unit of runaway slaves he created to help him fight the armed forces of the Virginia Convention. Perhaps three hundred of these former slaves accompanied Dunmore's little army when it was evacuated to New York from Gwynn's Island in the Chesapeake in July 1776. The unit was disbanded shortly thereafter.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Quarles, Benjamin. The Negro in the American Revolution. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1961.

                              revised by Harold E. Selesky