Black Freedom during the War of 1812: From the Chesapeake, Cumberland Island, and Beyond Part 1

By William F. Kelly, M.A.

On June 1, 1812, President James Madison requested that the United States Congress declare war against Great Britain on grounds related to American maritime rights, trade, and growing tensions with North America’s Indigenous populations.¹ When Congress narrowly approved the resolution two weeks later, the War of 1812 officially commenced.² With a significant portion of their military simultaneously occupied in continental European wars against Napoleon Bonaparte, the British government allotted what military forces they could to seize control of the waterways along the border between the United States and British Canada. For the first half of the War of 1812, most of the warfare raged over 300 miles north of the Chesapeake.

But as the Napoleonic Wars receded, the British government increasingly sent ships and soldiers to fight the Americans. By the spring of 1814, large imposing British ships of war equipped with dozens of cannons entered the Chesapeake Bay with smaller vessels in tow. Wasting little time, British vessels plied the Chesapeake’s riverways, deployed barges to navigate smaller inlets, burning and pillaging American property along the way. Instead of the war being 300 miles away, the increased British presence in the Bay meant the war now came directly to the fields, pastures, barns, tobacco warehouses, and homes of Chesapeake residents.

British boats and barges brought widespread destruction to the Chesapeake. For those enslaved in the region – and throughout North America – the incredible proximity of America’s adversary brought with it opportunities to seize their freedom. Black freedom seekers found success most often by escaping during British raids on local properties or paddling canoes to a British ship anchored nearby. Understanding that such an advantageous opportunity might be both fleeting and singular, 3,608 people broke free from their enslavement and boarded British ships during the War of 1812.

In April 1814, the British military began constructing a fortress and barracks on Tangier Island. They based their choice of Tangier Island upon two main reasons. First, the centrally located island provided a 360º view of its surroundings on a clear day. Second, as British Rear Admiral George Cockburn observed, Tangier Island was “surrounded by the districts from which the negroes always come.” The island quickly became a central destination to which enslaved Blacks could calibrate their freedom seeking.³

"Many Black freedom-seeking men enlisted in a segregated unit of the British military known as the Colonial Marines. As soldiers, they were armed and uniformed in a fashion similar to the Colonial Marine depicted above

Credit: Don Troiani

One month after the British established a base at Tangier Island, twenty-one-year-old Robert Colburn escaped from his enslaver in Somerset County, Maryland. Less than one week later, two more freedom seekers – David Gales and Nathaniel – also escaped to Tangier Island from their enslavement in Somerset County. Little is known about the strategies and methods of their escapes. However, records show that Colburn and Gales almost immediately enlisted into the British Colonial Marines: an all-black regiment comprised primarily of newly freed men that consistently fought in decisive battles during the War of 1812. Colburn and Gales also likely participated in British raiding parties, destroyed the property of white enslavers, and liberated dozens of enslaved people during their service. David Gales, for his part, rose to the rank of corporal on Christmas 1814.⁴

On December 24, 1814, after months of negotiations, the United States and Great Britain signed a treaty of peace to end the War of 1812 in Ghent, Belgium. However, the war could not officially end until both national governments ratified the Treaty of Ghent. Hampered by the lack of instant communication, word of the successful treaty did not reach those fighting the war in North America for weeks. In the meantime, the war raged on.

By the end of 1814, Great Britain’s war aims shifted from the war-torn and all-but-abandoned Chesapeake to the Gulf of Mexico. British forces amassed off Jamaica in anticipation of an attack on New Orleans. To divert American attention, British military leaders charged Rear Admiral Cockburn with seizing Cumberland Island, a small coastal outpost near the Florida-Georgia border. On January 10, 1815 – two days after the Battle of New Orleans – British forces landed on the island’s northern shore. Robert Colburn, David Gales, and around 1,500 other Black and white troops marched inland and seized the island from its inhabitants. Quickly, Cockburn established his headquarters at Dungeness Plantation, while soldiers erected fortifications, barracks, and a wharf.⁵

Nearly two months elapsed before the hostilities ceased. President James Madison signed the Treaty of Ghent upon receipt and sent it to the United States Senate for official ratification as quickly as he could. The Senate then unanimously voted in favor of ratification on February 16, 1815. And on February 17, Secretary of State James Monroe transmitted the Senate’s ratification to the British minister in Washington, D.C., officially ending the War of 1812.⁶

Between the British’s arrival at Cumberland Island on January 10, 1815, and the ratification of the Treaty of Ghent over one month later, Black refugees continued to land on Cumberland Island. Their presence augmented the Black population that arrived with the initial British ships and the Black population that had been initially enslaved on Cumberland Island when the British arrived. But when Great Britain and the United States ratified the Treaty of Ghent, British forces began evacuating the island with Black refugees on board their vessels. For the United States, attention turned to recovering lost property which, for American white enslavers, included freedom seekers still residing on Cumberland Island.

Sources:

¹“June 1, 1812: Special Message to Congress on the Foreign Policy Crisis -- War Message,” Miller Center, University of Virginia, accessed 30 July 2024, https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/june-1-1812-special-message-congress-foreign-policy-crisis-war; “Curriculum: President Madison’s 1812 War Message,” National Endowment for the Humanities: EDSITEment!, accessed 30 July 2024, https://edsitement.neh.gov/curricula/president-madisons-1812-war-message.
² “Summer 1812: Congress stages fiery debates over whether to declare war on Britain,” National Park Service, 24 May 2016, accessed 30 July 2024, https://www.nps.gov/articles/mr-madison-s-war.htm#:~:text=On%20June%201%2C%201812%20President,warfare%20on%20America's%20western%20frontier.
³ Cockburn to Cochrane, 02 April 1814; Cockburn to Warren, 13 April 1814, Naval War of 1812, III: 43-49.
⁴ Box 7, Case 705, Gale, John P.; Box 7, Case 705, Coulbourn, Edward; " Documents furnished by the British government...," 19, 23, 25, 29, 55, 57.
⁵ Mike Bezemek, “A Chance for Freedom,” National Parks 95, no. 2 (Spring 2021): 57–59; Mary Ricketson Bullard, Black Liberation on Cumberland Island in 1815 (DeLeon Springs, FL: E. O. Painter Printing Co., 1983): 54-79.
⁶ “The Treaty of Ghent,” Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve, National Park Service, accessed 30 July 2024, https://www.nps.gov/jela/learn/historyculture/the-treaty-of-ghent.htm; “Treaty of Ghent (1814),” National Archives, accessed 30 July 2024, https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/treaty-of-ghent; “The Senate Approves for Ratification of the Treaty of Ghent: February 16, 1815,” United States Senate, accessed 30 July 2024, https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/treaties/senate-approves-treaty-of-ghent.htm#:~:text=On%20February%2016%2C%201815%2C%20the,1812%20came%20to%20an%20end;