The Black Company of Pioneers, also known as the Black Pioneers and Clinton's Black Pioneers, were a British Provincial military unit raised for Loyalist service during the American Revolutionary War. The Black Loyalist company was raised by General Sir Henry as a non-combatant replacement force for the disbanded Ethiopian Regiment in Philadelphia in late 1777 or early 1778. Pioneers were soldiers employed to perform engineering and construction tasks. The Black Pioneers were an African American military unit, established, in May 1776, out of Lord Dunmore's disbanded Loyalist unit, the Royal Ethiopian Regiment. The Pioneers retained the Ethiopian regimental motto, which was embroidered on their uniforms: "Liberty to Slaves." Tens of thousands of slaves, up to one hundred thousand, escaped during the war and joined the British military; others simply moved off during the chaos. The British evacuated nearly 20,000 blacks at the end of the war. More than 3,000 of them were freedmen and resettled in Nova Scotia, many under the leadership of Stephen Blucke, a prominent Black leader of the battalion.