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Historical Highway Markers69 Slaves Escape to FreedomJ-109
About 2,400 enslaved African Americans in Virginia escaped to the British during the War of 1812, encouraged in part by a proclamation issued on 2 Apr. 1814 offering them freedom and resettlement in “His Majesty's Colonies.” Three enslaved men from Corotoman, a plantation two miles west of here, fled on 18 Apr. 1814. Several days later, they guided British barges back to carry off friends and relatives, including 46 children, the largest group of slaves to leave a Chesapeake Bay plantation during the war. Some settled in Nova Scotia or Trinidad. British reparations later compensated some owners for departed slaves, including, in 1828, those from Corotoman.
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References/Bibliographic Citation: Proclamation, Alexander Cochrane, 2 April 1814. John Richeson to St. George Tucker, 20 April 1814 and 22 April 1814. William Lambert to the Governor [James Barbour], 22 April 1814 and 29 April 1814. Joseph C. Cabell to John Hartwell Cocke, 30 April 1814, 22 May 1828. Deposition, John Richeson “List of Negroes Carried Off,” NARA Deposition, William H. Richardson, “List of Negroes of Dr. Charles Carter,” NARA Addison Hall and James Kelley, “Evidence in the Claim of J.C. Cabell and S.G. Tucker” and “Evidence in capture and carrying away of the slaves by the British forces,” 28 Feb. 1828, NARA. Alan Taylor, The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832 (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2013). Craig M. Kilby and Myron E. Lyman Sr., “The War of 1812 in the Northern Neck,” Northern Neck of Virginia Historical Magazine (2013). Stuart L. Butler, “Slave Flight in the Northern Neck during the War of 1812,” Northern Neck of Virginia Historical Magazine (2007). |