Boston King

Who was Boston King?

Boston King was a former American slave and Black Loyalist, who gained freedom from the British and settled in Nova Scotia after the American Revolutionary War. He later emigrated to Sierra Leone, where he helped found Freetown and became the first Methodist missionary to African indigenous people.

He published his autobiography in 1798, which was one of only three by Black Nova Scotians and also notable among slave narratives as a work that was trans-Atlantic. King, who had been born a slave in South Carolina, was apprenticed as a carpenter. He joined the British when they occupied Charleston, as they promised freedom to slaves.