Some five thousand blacks served in the Continental army. Most were probably slaves when the war erupted and they were liberated at war’s end. It has been estimated that approximately 20,000 slaves owned by Revolutionaries fled to the British during the war. Disease claimed many and not a few were recaptured by their owners, but up to 10,000 lived to the end of the war, gaining their freedom and leaving America with the British sometime in 1783.17
