In the summer of 1783, as the American Revolutionary War drew to a close, one of the most consequential legal proceedings in early American history unfolded inside a tavern in Lower Manhattan.

“Black Loyalists”

Four years earlier, the commander of the Crown forces in America, Sir Henry Clinton, had issued the Philipsburg Proclamation, which promised freedom to any person enslaved by a Patriot who escaped to British lines. The proclamation was motivated not by humanitarian ideals but by military tactics; Clinton planned to expand the war front into the southern colonies, and he hoped his proclamation would disrupt the southern slave economy and sow fear of open rebellion. Still, thousands of enslaved persons fled their captors and aligned themselves with the British in a bid for freedom. These people were known as “Black Loyalists.”

Great Britain’s surrender at Yorktown in October 1781 threw the fate of the Black Loyalists into doubt. Preliminary articles of peace, signed in November 1782, provided for the peaceful evacuation of the British military and those loyal to the Crown, but they prohibited “carrying away any Negroes, or other Property of the American Inhabitants.” American slaveholders—including American Commander-in-Chief George Washington—insisted that Black Loyalists remained American “property” and must be returned. Some slaveholders and their agents descended upon New York City, where Black Loyalists had converged in anticipation of evacuation, to forcibly take those whom they claimed to own.

Sir Guy Carleton, Commander-in-Chief of the British forces, recognized that this caldron could boil over into renewed conflict, but he stood firm on the promise that Great Britain had made to the Black Loyalists. In meetings with General Washington, Carleton maintained that “no Interpretation could be put upon the Articles [of Peace] inconsistent with prior Engagements binding the National Honor, which must be kept with all Colours.” Carleton maintained that any Black Loyalist who had reached British-controlled territory before the articles of peace formally ended hostilities was a free person, and he resolved that he had “no right to deprive them of that liberty.”

Joint Commission

To secure General Washington’s acquiescence, Carleton formed a joint British-American commission to adjudicate Black Loyalists’ eligibility for emancipation. These proceedings, overseen by British Brigadier General Samuel Birch, would come to be known as the “Birch Trials.” And so it was that each Wednesday between April and November 1783, thousands of Black Loyalists presented themselves in the Long Room on the second floor of Fraunces Tavern (present-day 54 Pearl Street) to state their claims to freedom.

The Birch Trials were not governed by traditional rules of procedure or evidence, and claimants were not afforded counsel. But one by one, claimants offered personal testimony and documentary evidence to the tribunal, seeking to establish how and from whom they had escaped captivity and, crucially, when they first had reached British-controlled territory. In a few instances, slaveholders or their representatives also appeared and offered testimony and documentary evidence of their purported property interests.

The commissioners deliberated over the claims presented. In some instances, they referred uncertain cases to General Birch for final decision. Black Loyalists who proved their claims to the satisfaction of the commission were issued a “certificate of freedom,” which functioned as a passport to embark on a British ship. Their names, physical descriptions, and former enslavers were also memorialized in the “Book of Negroes,” a ledger created in duplicate by British and American officials.

The purpose of the Book of Negroes, much like the Birch Trials themselves, was fundamentally transactional. For the British, the ledger served as proof to ship inspectors that all persons on departing ships were entitled by the articles of peace to evacuate. And for former slaveholders, the ledger functioned as evidence of lost “property,” for which they would press claims for monetary compensation from the British Crown for the next 30 years.

No reliable record exists of the number of claimants who appeared before the commission during the summer and fall of 1783, but the Book of Negroes records some 3,000 persons who were granted certificates of freedom and permitted to board British ships. Destined first for British-controlled Nova Scotia, the Black Loyalists ultimately dispersed. Their journeys would help define the modern African diaspora, traveling to Canada, West Africa, Florida, and the West Indies.

Epilogue

Even as they granted freedom to thousands, the Birch Trials were constrained by and, in some ways, perpetuated the fundamental inhumanity coiled at the heart of the institution of slavery. And because they were not formal judicial proceedings, the Birch Trials did not create legal precedent for the human rights of other enslaved persons. Still, the Birch Trials effectuated the largest emancipation of American slaves until the Civil War, and the trials’ reliance upon war powers to advance civilian rights would echo in Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation 80 years later. As such, the Birch Trials marked an early point on America’s course along the arc of the moral universe, an arc that to this day continues to bend—slowly, imperfectly, inexorably—toward justice.[1]

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Editor’s note: The author is a member of the Board of Editors of the Federal Bar Council Quarterly.

[1] Sources: Fraunces Tavern Museum, The Birch Trials at Fraunces Tavern, at https://www.frauncestavernmuseum.org/birch-trials-at-fraunces-tavern (last visited Apr. 9, 2026); New York Almanac, Black Loyalists and New York’s Birch Trials (June 20, 2023), at https://www.newyorkalmanack.com/2023/06/black-loyalists-new-yorks-birch-trials/ (last visited Apr. 9, 2026); Nova Scotia Archives, African Nova Scotians in the Age of Slavery and Abolition, at https://archives.novascotia.ca/africanns/book-of-negroes/ (last visited Apr. 9, 2026); National Archives—Founders Online, Preliminary Articles of Peace [30 November 1782], at https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-38-02-0286 (last visited Apr. 9, 2026); Kyle Roberts, Maryland Loyalism Project, The Inspection Rolls (Sep. 10, 2020), at https://www.ctsdh.org/kroberts/maryland-loyalism-project-redux/inspectionroll (last visited Apr. 9, 2026); L. Goulet and Mary Tsaltas-Ottomanelli, The Gotham Center for New York City History, Black Loyalists in the Evacuation of New York City, 1783 (Nov. 15, 2023), https://www.gothamcenter.org/blog/black-loyalists-evaculation-zy4la#:~:text=After%20the%20Preliminary%20Articles%20of%20Peace%20were%20approved%2C,Negroes%2C%20or%20other%20Property%20of%20the%20American%20Inhabitants.%E2%80%9D (last visited Apr. 9, 2026); New York City Revolutionary Trail, Tour Stop No. 14: Fraunces Tavern, at https://nycrevolutionarytrail.org/library/fraunces-tavern/#frauncessection2 (last visited Apr. 9, 2026); Black Loyalist Heritage Center, Loyalist History, at https://blackloyalist.com/loyalist-history/ (last visited Apr. 9, 2026); Harrison W. Mark, World History Encyclopedia, African Americans in the American Revolution (May 9, 2024), at https://www.worldhistory.org/article/2449/african-americans-in-the-american-revolution/ (last visited Apr. 9, 2026).