Robert Archibald
Robert Archibald was the second son of David Archibald, Esq. and Elizabeth Elliott. He was born in Londonderry, Ireland on 22nd January 1745 and brought by his parents to New England c.1757. The family moved again to Nova Scotia on 13th December 1769. The family were what is best described as “landed gentry” - both prominent and wealthy - with many of them becoming appointed in various official and government roles.
In 1759 General Jeffery Amherst, Commander-in-Chief of the British Army in North America, requested that New England militiamen be deployed in military installations around Nova Scotia. Governor Lawrence then combined the recruitment of militia units with recruitment of settlers (to repopulate the farmlands formerly occupied by the recently-exiled French-speaking Acadians) and gave the task to Captain Alexander McNutt of the Massachusetts Provincial Militia. David Archibald’s militia service ran from 28th April until 30th November 1760. I can’t find dates for Robert’s service but, as far as I can tell, he had no military career as such, apart from his time as Colonel of the local militia.
A militia unit formally recognised as a supplementary annex to the “regular” military would usually be entitled to the same pay as regulars, more suitably trained and equipped, and could be required to serve outside their home region if necessary. Locally-raised militia were commonly under the independent command of local landed gentry and it was often the case in those days that prominent and wealthy citizens would be invited to raise such forces under “honorary” or self-claimed titles such as “Colonel”. The British government would pay the wages for such units and usually provide firearms, but the costs of recruitment, training, provision of uniforms etc. would often be the responsibility of the commanders of the units. Often, such families would, usefully, be in possession of horses which the government also did not provide.
Samuel Ball
Samuel Ball was born in South Carolina, probably on one of the Comingtee rice plantations on the Cooper River, originally settled by the retired sea Captain John Coming. Some sources say he was born in 1765, but more likely it was earlier than that. Even so, his known history suggests he couldn’t have been old enough to have participated in the French and Indian War.
Ball was born of enslaved parents of African descent and his ‘holder’ may have been Elias Ball, whose family emigrated from Devon, England and purchased tracts of lands in the same area in 1703 and 1704 to establish plantations. The Ball family was related to the Coming family by marriage and, in addition to their own plantations, had engaged in partnership with the Comingtee plantations after the death of John Coming in 1694, when his widow was struggling to run them herself.
Although not ‘freemen’, the African and African-American workers were scarcely considered as slaves (particularly those who had established themselves as trustworthy), but rather as dependents attached to the family that ‘owned’ them and it’s possible that Samuel Ball (or his parents) had adopted the Ball family name in recognition of that. This is he, in later life:
In November 1775, the Governor of Virginia John Murray declared that any slave who joined the British forces and stood against the rebel insurgency would be given his freedom. Lured by that promise and the prospect of being granted land, a little later the teenage Samuel Ball signed up with Lord Cornwallis in South Carolina. Cornwallis was in command of the 33rd Regiment of Foot at the time. Ball then served under General Clinton in New York and was finally ordered to Bergen Point in the Jerseys under Major Thomas Ward. Slaves who volunteered to fight with British forces came to be known as ‘Black Loyalists.’
Ward’s forces, commonly known as ‘Ward’s Green-Coats’ were supplemented by men of families who had fled to New York in 1779/1780 after having their property seized by rebels, along with many escaped slaves. Many of them were ill-prepared for combat and commonly engaged in pioneer duties including procurement of lumber and firewood which were in desperately short supply. The evidence that Ball, with greater experience, may have been a grenadier is based on a single artefact (an inscribed pistol or rifle butt which may, or may not, have belonged to him) found on Oak Island.
Men such as Ball wouldn’t have been paid more than about two or three pence per week for military duties, but Ward’s Green Coats became notorious in the area for terrorisation and pillaging. They quickly realised that they could exploit the situation by raiding rebel-held areas to steal livestock, horses and personal possessions which they then sold for personal gain. Ward himself orchestrated many such raids, dividing the proceeds among his men as well as profiteering from the lumber operation. That may explain why Ball was apparently in a good financial state when he was discharged.
After being discharged, Ball was evacuated to Shelburne, Nova Scotia as one of the three thousand Black Loyalists who were settled in Canada at the end of the war. The Black Loyalists founded the nearby community of Birchtown which became the largest settlement of free black citizens outside Africa. After a long wait, they were ultimately granted land, but less generously than their white counterparts, and faced massive discrimination generally. Ball settled on Oak Island in 1787 on the land granted to him, where he ran a cabbage farm alongside other crops, and raised cattle. In 1809 he successfully petitioned the government for the land grant to be increased by 4 acres and had also supplemented it further with land purchases.
