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Tony Small
Black, Robert R. South Carolina American Revolution Sestercentennial Commission
Black, Robert R.
South Carolina American Revolution Sestercentennial Commission
Abstract
Lord Edward arrived in Charleston with the 19th Regiment of Foot on June 3, 1781. A Black man named Tony Small who may have lived on the McKelvey Plantation at Eutaw Springs saved his life after Lord Edward was wounded at the Battle of Eutaw Springs on September 8, 1781. From there, master and servant, friend and confidant, retired to British headquarters in Charleston. On May 5, 1782, after eleven months and at least twelve military actions during the Southern Campaign of the Revolutionary War, Lieutenant Lord Edward Fitzgerald sailed from Charleston harbor with Tony Small. Small’s friendship with Lord Edward lasted for seventeen years during which time Lord Edward served with the British army in South Carolina, St. Lucia in the West Indies, Canada, Ireland, England, France, and the continent. Lord Edward eventually returned to Ireland with Tony. Inspired in part by Tony’s accounts of African Americans in South Carolina in their struggle for freedom, Lord Edward renounced his peerage and commission in the British Army to lead the unsuccessful United Irishmen rebellion of 1796–1798 against British rule in Ireland. After Lord Edward’s arrest and death in a British jail in 1798, Tony died in London about six years later. With roots grounded in the Lowcountry of South Carolina, and through his influence on Lord Edward, Tony Small helped further an existing spirit of liberty in Ireland.
Issue Date
2025-10-29
Keywords
SC250, South Carolina 250, South Carolina--History--Revolution, 1775-1783, Small, Tony, 1763 or 1764-1804, Eutaw Springs, Battle of, S.C., 1781
Type
Text
Rights
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