Jane Austen, The Regency Era & Colonial Period and Free Blacks

Have you ever wondered what happened to the Blacks that remained loyal to the British Crown during the Revolutionary War? Or to those that received an inheritance like in Jane Austen's unfinished novel Sanditon? During Jane Austen's Regency Era, we know that there was some 20,000 freed Blacks working, performing, and living in England. The first Black man to vote in England's general election in 1774 was Ignatius Sancho. Dido Elizabeth Belle Lindsay, a mixed raced young lady received an inheritance from her British Naval Captain father. Moreover, there were freed Blacks carving out a life in the North Carolina. Not all were enslaved. This lecture will discuss the lives of those freed Blacks during America's Revolutionary period as well during Regency era England.