Richard pierpoint early life

Richard Pierpoint was designated as a national historic person in 2020.

Historical importance: rare known accounts of the life experience and contributions of a Black Loyalist in Upper-Canada.

Commemorative plaque: Pierpoint Fly Fishing Nature Reserve in Fergus, Ontario^{Footnote 1}

Richard Pierpoint (c. 1744–c. 1838)

Born in Bundu, now in Senegal, Richard Pierpoint was captured, forcibly transported to the Thirteen Colonies, and sold into slavery around 1760. He fought as a free man with Butler’s Rangers, a loyalist unit, during the American Revolution and settled in Niagara, joining other Black free men in trying to secure land separate from white settlers. During the War of 1812, he contributed to the creation of the Colored Corps. After the war he requested passage to West Africa, but was instead given a parcel of land near here. A gifted storyteller, Pierpoint was a respected leader and advocate for the Black community.

Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada
English plaque i

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Richard Pierpoint

Senegalese-born farmer and soldier

Richard Pierpoint (c. 1744 – c. 1837) was a Senegalese-born farmer and soldier. Brought as a slave to British North America via the Atlantic slave trade, he fought as a Black Loyalist in the American Revolutionary War. After the war, he settled in a Black community in Upper Canada, where he was given some land. He also participated in the War of 1812.

Butler's Rangers

Richard Pierpoint was born about 1744 in Bundu in what is now Senegal. When he was about sixteen, he was kidnapped and sold into slavery. Surviving the Middle Passage across the Atlantic Ocean, Pierpoint was sold to a military officer in British North America named Pierpoint, probably in one of the New England Colonies.^[1][2] Richard Pierpoint acted as his personal servant.^[2]

In 1776, with the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, many enslaved African Americans were offered freedom in exchange for fighting on the side of the British. By at least 1780, Pierpoint was one of about a dozen Black people

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Richard Pierpoint

For any military hero, hardships tend to be par for the course, and true inspiration is derived from the ways in which individuals who face such hardships overcome adversity and the obstacles they face.

Pierpoint was accustomed to war from an early age as he was born in Bondu, Africa. Tribes in this area continually clashed amongst each other while under the constant harassment of slave traders. At the age of sixteen, Pierpoint was captured and sent to the New World as a slave.

How Richard was able to secure his freedom is unconfirmed but is known is that he spent 20 years of his life as a slave. Many historians agree that Pierpoint’s freedom was most likely acquired through his involvement in the American War of Independence. In 1780 Pierpoint was listed as a soldier in Butler’s Rangers and would have spent the war fighting alongside British Loyalists, mostly in New York State.

Following the war, Pierpoint settled in the Niagara area where he continued to battle for the rights and freedoms of slaves. It wasn’t long before Pierpoint would