Thomas Peters (revolutionary)

Thomas Peters
Thomas Peters, a Nigerian-born slave, and Black Loyalist soldier, in the British Black Company of Pioneers, early Black settler of the Province of Nova Scotia, British Canada, and one of the "Founding Fathers" of the Nova Scotian Settlers, Sierre Leone Colony in West Africa, from a painted portrait
Born	Thomas Potters (1738-06-25)June 25, 1738 Nigeria
Died	1792 Freetown, Sierra Leone
Cause of death	Malaria
Resting place	Freetown, Sierra Leone
Nationality	Nigerian, American, Canadian, Sierra Leonean
Citizenship	Canadian, Sierra Leonean
Occupation	slave, soldier, politician, colonizer
Known for	being a colonizer, of the mass recruitment of former, African American, Nova Scotia settlers, from British Canada, Northern America, to Sierra Leone Colony, West Africa
Spouse(s)	Sally Peters (m. 1776)
Children	John Peters (son) Clairy Peters (daughter) 5 other children
Military career
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Rank	sergeant
Unit	Black Company of Pioneers
Battles/wars	American Revolutionary War

Thomas Peters, born Thomas Potters (25 June 1738 – 1792), was one of the Black Loyalist "Founding Fathers" of the nation of Sierra Leone in West Africa. Peters, along with David George, Moses Wilkinson, Cato Perkins and Joseph Leonard, were influential Black Canadians, who recruited African settlers in the Province of Nova Scotia for the colonisation of Sierra Leone. Peters was a former African-American slave, who fled the Province of North Carolina with the British during the American Revolutionary War, having served as a Black Loyalist in the Black Company of Pioneers and later becoming a prominent, Black, colonial leader in Freetown. Thomas Peters has been called the "first, African-American hero". Peters, like Elijah Johnson and Joseph Jenkins Roberts of Liberia, is considered the African-American founding father of a nation.

Thomas Peters was born in Nigeria, West Africa, to the Yoruba tribe, of the Egba people clan.

In 1760, a twenty-two-year-old Thomas Peters was captured by slave traders and sold as a slave to Colonial America on a French ship, the Henri Quatre. Upon arrival in North America, Peters was sold to a French owner in French Louisiana. Peters tried to escape three times before being sold to an Englishman or Scotsman in one of the Southern Colonies probably Campbell, an immigrant Scotsman, who had settled on the Cape Fear River in Wilmington, North Carolina.