William Homes in the "Book of Negroes" - July 31, 1783

See line 21 for W[illia]m Homes’ entry in the book. At the end of the war the British Army signed a provisional agreement with the newly formed United States to not allow Black people to travel with them off US soil. Sir Guy Carleton allowed Black people to travel but had each person documented in what became the Book of Negroes in case US enslavers demanded to be compensated for their “loss.”

Courtesy of the Nova Scotia Archives.

Title: William Homes in the Book of Negroes - July 31, 1783
Date: July 31, 1783
Object Information: paper document
Repository: Book of Negroes, Guy Carleton, 1st Baron Dorchester: Papers, The National Archives, Kew (PRO 30/55/100) 10427, https://archives.novascotia.ca/africanns/book-of-negroes/page/?ID=52&Name=William%20Homes.

Description:
This is the page featuring William Homes’ 1783 entry in the Book of Negroes. Twenty-four-year-old William Homes became a freedom seeker in 1778 when he left the household of Robert Morris, signer of the Declaration of Independence and Revolutionary War financier. Homes was an enslaved servant likely with the Morris family as they alternated between their city residence on Front Street near Dock Street or their country residence, The Hills, on the land today known as Lemon Hill, along the Schuylkill River. After Homes fled from the Morris home, he made his way north to New York, and sailed to Nova Scotia, Canada with the last fleet of British forces on November 30, 1782. The Book of Negroes became the list of about 3,000 Black people (men, women, and children) who left New York on ships under the charge of Sir Guy Carleton of the British Army and traveled with them to several different ports in Canada.

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TRANSCRIPT

Wm Homes [age] 26 [Description] Stout Fellow w[ith] a flat nose [remarks - Formerly the property] Ditto of Robert Morris of Philadelphia [when freedom was obtained] Five