Deborah Squash

In November of 1782, Guy Carleton, then commander in chief of the British forces in North America, asked the masters of all ships departing from New York carrying Loyalist refugees to keep a list of their Black passengers. This register, called the Book of Negroes, was nominally intended to be used to compensate the former enslavers of the people in question. According to the terms of the peace treaty Great Britain had signed at the time, the Black Loyalists who had joined the British were to be returned to their enslavers. Carleton used the register to sidestep this requirement, arguing that enslavers could use the book to apply for compensation later. In reality only a few people did so.

This entry in the Book of Negroes shows the names of Harry Squash and his wife Deborah. The recorder described Deborah as twenty years old, stout, middle sized, and "Pock Mark'd," perhaps evidence of an illness she endured while traveling with the British army. She identified her former enslaver as "General Washington." This aligns with George Washington’s list of people who had self-emancipated from Mount Vernon and boarded the British ship HMS Savage in April of 1781. His farm manager listed “Deborah. A woman about 16 years old,” as one of the people who had left with the British.