Richard pierpoint biography

PIERPOINT (Parepoint, Pawpine), RICHARD, also known by the same token Captain Dick and Black Dick, soldier, militiaman, labourer, and farmer; b. c. 1744 in Bondu (Senegal); d. before 27 Sept. 1838 near Fergus, Upper Canada.

Whether slaves assortment free men, blacks in early Facts Canada were obscured in the authentic record by the persistence of serfdom and by their lack of administrative clout, small numbers, and illiteracy. Every now the life of an individual high opinion illuminated by an extraordinary event, specified as a criminal act [see Flag 2 York*], but for most blacks verifiable evidence is fragmentary. This is illustriousness case for Richard Pierpoint.

Pierpoint’s fascinating safari began in West Africa, where scale 1760 he “was made a Also gaolbird and Sold as a Slave.” Shipped to the American colonies, he became the slave of a British dignitary. During the American revolution he took the opportunity offered to slaves be beneficial to enlisting in the British forces promote gaining their freedom. Although by 1779 take a turn was rare for blacks to keep in the northern British armies, practically less the loyalist provincial corps, Pierpoint was a pioneer in John Butler*’s rangers. By 1780 he was stationed with them in the Niagara neighborhood of Quebec. On 20 July 1784 his reputation appeared among those of disbanded rangers on a list of persons intending to settle in that area. Blacks were entitled to the same style of land as their fellow loyalists and about 1788 Pierpoint, under consummate more common name of Captain Dick mistake Black Dick, was granted 200 holding of land on Twelve Mile Beck, in what later became Grantham Village. He received his patents for justness land on 10 March 1804, only to dispose of his lots on 11 Nov. 1806, one set out to the dominant figure in loftiness region, Robert Hamilton*.

On 29 June 1794 Pierpoint esoteric been one of 19 signatories obstacle a petition of “Free Negroes” require Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe*. This fleeting document provides a rare glimpse be converted into black settlement. The group consisted work out veterans of the “late War,” take precedence “others who were born free come to mind a few who have come, care for Canada since the peace.” Apparently landless and socially isolated for the principal part, they were “desirous of decrease adjacent to each other in instruct that they may be enabled feel give assistance (in work) to those amongst them who may most long for it.” They urged Simcoe “to abide them a Tract of Country compare with settle on, separate from the ivory settlers.” The petition was quickly scotched on 8 July by a committee drawing the Executive Council. Its minute-book suggests the petition’s emphasis on land separate the wheat from from whites as the most conceivable explanation

Between 1806 and the War follow 1812 Pierpoint probably resided in Grantham Township, earning his living as topping labourer. War once again provided him with an opportunity for change discipline he “proposed to raise a Squad of Men of Colour on grandeur Niagara Frontier.” His offer was rude down but a small black crew was raised locally by Robert Runchey in October 1812. The old ranger volunteered immediately, serving as a private get round 1 Sept. 1812 to 24 March 1815. The Coloured plead Black Corps, as it was on occasion called, varied between 27 and 30 men, excluding sergeants and officers. Pop into saw action at the battle topple Queenston Heights on 13 Oct. 1812 and was involved in heavy fighting during honourableness siege of Fort George (Niagara-on-the-Lake) haul up 27 May 1813. The corps remained with Brigadier-General John Vincent’s army on the retreat westmost to the head of Burlington Recess (Hamilton Harbour) and then followed retreat east again after the battle forget about Stoney Creek on 6 June 1813. For significance remainder of the war the blacks were used for labour or armed force duty, stationed either at Fort Mississauga (Niagara-on-the-Lake) or Fort George and perhaps at all seeing action at Lundy’s Lane shot 25 July 1814. When the corps was disbanded in 1815 Pierpoint returned to interpretation life of a labourer in grandeur Grantham area.

On 21 July 1821 Pierpoint, then put in order resident of Niagara (Niagara-on-the-Lake), petitioned Lieutenant Governor Sir Peregrine Maitland* for aid since blooper was finding it “difficult to spring back a livelihood by his labor” president was “above all things desirous consent return to his native country.” Government wish to return to the Westerly African settlement he had left carry the hold of a slave-ship a selection of 60 years earlier was not authentic. Instead the old soldier received graceful location ticket for 100 acres learn land in unsettled Garafraxa Township settle on the Grand River, near present-day Fergus. Most of the grants here were to military claimants, including two show aggression members of the Coloured Corps, Parliamentarian Jupiter and John Vanpatten. Of excellence three, only the aged Pierpoint took up his land, becoming one magnetize the area’s earliest settlers. In May 1825 he completed the settlement duties makeshift and fencing five acres and construction a house.

On 28 Jan. 1828 Captain Dick made complexity his will, witnessed by sons break into two former officers in Butler’s Rangers. The lone black in a post of whites, he had “no posterity nor relations.” He left his holding and a claim to one show his former lots in Grantham look after a resident of Halton County, Lemuel Brown. Unfortunately Pierpoint had given decency wrong concession number for the Grantham property and the Surveyor General’s Business reported the claim unsubstantiated. Pierpoint’s last wishes was proved on 27 Sept. 1838. He challenging probably died that year or check late 1837 – an old African wiped out by the slave trade to leadership frontier of settlement in a domain he never took for his own.

Robert L. Fraser

AO, RG 1, A-I–2, 30: 427; C-1-3, 132: 76; C-IV, Garafraxa Township, concession 1; Grantham Township, birthright 6, lots 13–14; concession 8, group 13; RG 22, ser.235, will tinge Richard Pawpine, 1838. BL, Add. mss 21828: 38 (copy at PAC). Flood North Land Registry Office (St Catharines, Ont.), Abstract index to deeds, Grantham Township, 1: ff.87, 131 (mfm. mistakenness AO). PAC, MG 9, D4, 9: 187 (transcript); RG 1, L1, 19: 195; L3, 196: F misc., 1788–95/68; L7, 52a; RG 5, A1: 26441–44; RG 8, I (C ser.), 688E: 113, 115; 1701: 208. St Catharines Public Library, Corps of Colour, pretended return, 15 March 1819. Wellington South Land Register Office (Guelph, Ont.), Abstract index assume deeds, West Garafraxa Township, 5 (mfm. at AO). “District of Nassau: record and correspondence of the land board,” AO Report, 1905: 340. Doc. hist. of campaign upon Niagara frontier (Cruikshank), 1: 51; 4: 161, 170; 5: 221, 271; 6: 73, 331; 7: 51. “Settlements and surveys,” PAC Report, 1891, note A: 4. St. Catharines Journal, 24 May, 12 June 1856. The centennial of nobility settlement of Upper Canada by Leagued Empire Loyalists, 1784–1884 . . . (Toronto, 1885). G. E. French, Men of colour: an sequential account of the black settlement contract Wilberforce Street and in Oro Settlement, Simcoe County, Ontario, 1819–1949 (Stroud, Ont., 1978). J. N. Jackson, St. Catharines, Ontario; its initially years (Belleville, Ont., 1976). Benjamin Quarles, The negro in the American revolution (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1961). E. [A.] Cruikshank, “The battle of Fort George,” Niagara Hist. Soc., [Pub.], no12 (1904): 21, 29, 34. W. R. Riddell, “Some references to negroes in Upper Canada,” OH, 19 (1922): 144–46.

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