The British West Indies Regiment (BWIR) would not be the only black unit from the Empire to arrive in Europe during the war years. Manpower was so sorely needed as to require conscription in the United Kingdom by the beginning of 1916, so further black troops from the Empire should, in theory, have been welcome. The Atlantic slave trade had produced a far-flung African Diaspora beginning in the fifteenth century, the dispersal of people of African descent through the slave trade representing one of the largest forced migrations in human history. The descendants of black slaves formed the basis of many of the British dominion troops who would answer the call, including black Bermudians and Canadians as well as servicemen directly from the African continent. The next to arrive after the BWIR in late 1915 was a black contingent from the tiny island of Bermuda in March 1916, followed by the South African Native Labour Contingent, arriving in France in October 1916 and black Canadians arriving in Britain in March 1917 prior to being shipped off to France. Each of these countries of the British Empire would have to deal with their own issues of black recruitment and conscription.

BLACK BERMUDIAN TROOPS

Situated in an isolated position off the coast of the United States, north of the Caribbean islands, the Crown Colony of Bermuda was Canada's nearest British neighbour. With the outbreak of the war, this tiny island was determined to make a contribution. The Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps (BVRC) had been an all-white, racially segregated reserve for the Regular Army infantry component of the Bermuda Garrison since 1894, but calls for the formation of a corps of coloured volunteers were heard in the Royal Gazette as early as November 1906. In March 1916, the first of the Bermuda Contingents of the Royal Garrison Artillery (BCRGA) taking part in overseas service during the war comprised four white officers and 197 largely black troops similar to the West Indian model. Initially, there seems to have been some resistance to volunteer recruitment, which the Commanding Officer of the BCRGA, Major Thomas Melville Dill, blamed in a letter to Governor Sir George Bullock written in France on 1 April 1917 on the African Methodist Episcopal Church working behind the scenes to discourage black recruitment.