Dunmore's Proclamation Issued

Date: November 7, 1775 • Location: London, United Kingdom

This milestone marked the outbreak and beginning of this historic period, which spanned 1775–1783.

John Murray (also known as Lord Dunmore), the Royal Governor of the Colony of Virginia, starts the first mass emancipation of slaves in North America by issuing Lord Dunmore's Offer of Emancipation, which offers freedom to slaves who abandoned their colonial masters to fight with Murray and the British.

John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore was a British Army officer and colonial administrator who served as the governor of Virginia from 1771 to 1776. Dunmore was named governor of New York in 1770. He succeeded to the same position in the colony of Virginia the following year after the death of Norborne Berkeley, 4th Baron Botetourt. As Virginia's governor, Dunmore directed a series of campaigns against the trans-Appalachian Indians, known as Lord Dunmore's War. He is noted for issuing a 1775 document, Dunmore's Proclamation, offering freedom to slaves who fought for the British Crown against Patriot rebels in Virginia. Dunmore fled to New York after the burning of Norfolk in 1776 and later returned to Britain. He was Governor of the Bahamas from 1787 to 1796.