Profiles in Africana Religion-Part 7: Boston King

              The Revolutionary period in the US had far reaching impact throughout the Atlantic world.  Though it was never labeled as a world war, the conflict had a wide range of global implications that shaped the US, Europe, Canada, the Caribbean and Africa.   Among the populace, many were caught up in the conflict and forced to choose sides based on geographic location and/or loyalties; some joined the war effort because they felt the war would help their social and/or political standing in one way or another.  As well, many people used the conflict as an opportunity to relocate and begin new lives by fleeing to a more hospitable territory or simply by taking advantage political/social openings that arose.  Boston King is one such individual who seemed to take every advantage offered to him during the Revolutionary War; he, like David George, used the conflict to secure his freedom and develop a religious institution that would impact the global African world.[1]

              King was born into enslavement in South Carolina in the year 1760.  His father was born in Africa but was brought to the US in chains in the mid-18th century.[2]  His mother was a Native American and an herbalist who was skilled in the healing arts.[3]   Though King was born into slavery, unlike his father and mother, he was a favorite of the captor who felt it important to teach him to read.[4]  Being extraordinarily intelligent and being the son of parents who knew freedom, Boston escaped a life of servitude and joined the British ranks at a garrison near Charleston.[5]  Moreover, given his parentage, keeping King enslaved would have been extremely difficult because the flavor of freedom was likely deeply instilled in him at a young age.[6]  As well King was not alone in his effort to experience freedom from American enslavement, the British helped him find his way to more hospitable territory in New York in exchange for his loyalty in the approaching war.
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        In New York, King would find and marry his first wife Violet, an emancipated woman from North Carolina who also liberated herself by absconding to New York.[7]  From New York the couple migrated further North to Nova Scotia in 1783 to settle in Birchtown, a community established by African American migrants seeking asylum from enslavement and the war.[8] In Birchtown, King worked a number of jobs to survive.  Though the grace of the colonial Canadian government provided land for the settlers, the land they were given was difficult to work: the soil was hard and not as fruitful as the lands they had come from.[9]  However, before the Kings were forced to move to survive, Boston was appointed to be a Methodist minister for a small congregation near Halifax, Nova Scotia.[10]  As a preacher part of his charge (which was also part of the purpose of having Negro preachers) was not merely saving the souls of formerly enslaved Africans but to deliver them from “evil tempers” of enslavement.  This effort was not just centered on convincing the formerly enslaved that retaliation against their masters or white people in general was un-Christian, it was also focused on relieving the trauma experienced by the enslaved through religious counseling: essentially PTSD counseling.[11] 

        King and his wife were very impactful with their work in Nova Scotia.  However, they themselves did not feel anymore safe in Canadian territories despite the development of the black settlement Birchtown and despite relocating to Halifax.  So, the King’s decided to relocate as a family for the third and final time to Freetown, Sierra Leone with the help of the British government.  As discussed in an earlier profile (Andrew Bryan), the British, like the Americans, had established a colony on the continent of Africa specifically for emancipated Africans.  Though this colony was not exactly a free-state as it was still the property of the British government, it was a place where the formerly enslaved could establish a modicum of power and influence.  It was a promising move for King and his wife, as it was far away from the absurdities of American-life, however, not long after the King’s arrived Violet fell ill and died in 1792.[12]  Two years after the passing of his wife Violet, the Sierra Leone Company sent Boston to England to study at the Methodist-Kingwood School near Bristol.  At this Methodist school Boston studied to be a missionary and a teacher.[13] 

          While in London King wrote his memoirs and published, Memoirs of the Life of Boston King: A Black Preacher, which served as a critical autobiography for the Methodist Church.[14] Throughout this memoir King recounted his trials and travels in the American South and Nova Scotia providing critical insight into not just his life but the system of enslavement in which he was born.  Further, it is important to note that the insight provided by memoirs like his and those of Phillis Wheatley and Olaudah Equiano served historians well over the centuries, but were also extremely impactful in their time and space.  At times narratives of the enslaved were used to justify slavery or held up as evidence of the need to dismantle the peculiar institution. However, King’s narrative is extremely notable because it has the distinction of being written by a Black Canadian and Sierra Leonian migrant.  That is to say, the nature of this narrative serves as one of the few that provide intimate detail of the Atlantic world during the Revolutionary period, from the perspective of a former slave and returning African migrant.
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        After King spent two years studying in Bristol and completing his narrative, he returned to Sierra Leone in 1796 to train other missionaries.   While there, King worked very closely with the Sherbro people, a small ethnic group near the coastal area of Sierra Leone and spent his remaining days living on the West African coast with his second wife, Peggy.   He and his wife worked diligently and intimately with the people of Sierra Leone, proving invaluable to the Methodist Church in its missionizing efforts.  Both he and his wife succumb to illness in 1802 and did not survive the year.  They left behind three children, two sons and a daughter, who remained in Sierra Leone.  As mentioned, the life of King is an extremely important one that helps give shape to the Atlantic world of the Revolutionary period.  His travels took him from the slave-holding American south to the British-side of the Revolutionary War, to one of Canada’s first black towns, then to Sierra Leone with a brief stay in Britain.  What his travels demonstrate is the connectivity of the Atlantic world and its delicate eco-system, throughout which we can glimpse just how thoroughly the hemispheres of the world were connected and balanced through the migration and movements of African people.


[1] The Life of Boston King, Black Loyalist, Minister and Master Carpenter.  (Nimbus Publishing: Nova Scotia Museum, 2003).

[2] Phyllis R. Blakeley. "Boston King: A Negro Loyalist Who Sought Refuge in Nova Scotia." The Dalhousie Review (1968), 349.

[3] Ibid., 350.

[4] Boston King. Memoirs of the Life of Boston King: A Black Preacher, Written by Himself During His Residence at Kingswood School. 2001. 

[5] Phyllis R. Blakeley "Boston King: A Negro Loyalist Who Sought Refuge in Nova Scotia." The Dalhousie Review (1968), 347.

[6] After King’s initial escape, he avoided capture a number of times whilst traveling from Charleston to New York.

[7] The Book of Negroes.  African Nova Scotians: in the age of slavery and abolition.  (Nova Scotia Archive).

[8] Phyllis R. Blakeley. "Boston King: A Negro Loyalist Who Sought Refuge in Nova Scotia." The Dalhousie Review (1968), 347.

[9] Boston King. Memoirs of the Life of Boston King: A Black Preacher, Written by Himself During His Residence at Kingswood School. 2001.

[10] Vincent Carretta. Unchained Voices: An Anthology of Black Authors in the English-Speaking World of the Eighteenth Century.  (University of Kentucky Press, 2003), 394-395.

[11] Phyllis R. Blakeley. "Boston King: A Negro Loyalist Who Sought Refuge in Nova Scotia." The Dalhousie Review (1968), 351-352.  It is worth noting that such an experience in the present day would force therapist to diagnose most if not all enslaved Africans with varying degrees of post-traumatic stress disorder. 

[12] Vincent Carretta. Unchained Voices: An Anthology of Black Authors in the English-Speaking World of the Eighteenth Century.  (University of Kentucky Press, 2003), 394-395.

[13] Ibid., 395.

[14] Boston King. Memoirs of the Life of Boston King: A Black Preacher, Written by Himself During His Residence at Kingswood School. 2001.  This memoir was published in for installments.