Dunmore's Proclamation

Okay kiddo, so a really long time ago, there was a man named John Murray, who was also known as the Earl of Dunmore. He was the governor of Virginia, which was a big colony in what is now the United States.

Now, Governor Dunmore was having some problems with a group of people called the patriots. They were upset with the British government because they felt like they were being treated unfairly. They wanted more control over their own lives, and they didn't like paying taxes to the British government without having a say in how the money was used.

So Governor Dunmore came up with an idea to try to stop the patriots from causing trouble. He wrote a proclamation, which is like a big announcement or message, saying that any slaves or indentured servants who were owned by the patriots could be freed if they ran away and fought for the British side.

Now, this was a really big deal because at the time, slavery was legal and there were a lot of slaves in the colonies. By offering them freedom, Governor Dunmore thought he could weaken the patriots' power by taking away their workers.

But the patriots didn't like this at all. They saw it as a threat and a betrayal. They didn't want to lose their slaves or have them fighting against them. So they fought back against Governor Dunmore, and the proclamation ended up causing even more tension and conflict between the patriots and the British.

So even though Governor Dunmore had a plan to try to win the war, it didn't work out like he thought it would. In the end, the patriots won and the United States became its own country with its own laws about slavery and freedom.