Virginia’s royal governor threatened to free slaves if colonists rebelled

Evidence

One act in particular would alter the course of the Revolution. The fighting had not yet reached the Southern colonies when, in April 1775, seeking to suppress the rebellion, Virginia’s royal governor, John Murray, the Earl of Dunmore, warned the colonists that if they took up arms there, he would “declare Freedom to the Slaves, and reduce the City of Williamsburg to Ashes.” — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 95

Categorization

• XREF: This is a key piece of the Revolutionary-War-cause dispute the reader is tracking as their case study — the Crown exploiting enslaved resistance as a counter-move.