The Slaves' Gamble by Gene Allen Smith
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Why
would slaves fight for the United States, a nation that kept them in
bondage, during the War of 1812? Why did free blacks join with the
British or with the Spanish, or with Native American communities during
the conflict? These questions form the basis for Gene Allen Smith’s new
book, The Slaves’ Gamble: Choosing Sides in the War of 1812. In this
gripping story, Smith, a history professor at Texas Christian
University, recreates the growing conflicts between the fledgling United
States, Great Britain, Spain, and various Native American groups, and
shows how each group “tried to mobilize the free black and slave
populations in the hopes of defeating the other.” When the War of 1812
began, free blacks and slaves consciously chose the side they would
support, and those tenuous choices dramatically impacted their future
freedom and opportunity as well as the future of the United States.
This
book looks at African American combatants during the War of 1812 as a
way to understand the conflict as well as the evolution of racial
relations during the early nineteenth century. Black participants—slaves
and freemen both—had to choose sides and these choices ultimately
defined their individual and collective identities. Canadian slaves
escaped south into Michigan during the first decade of the nineteenth
century and joined the militia in Detroit and later surrendered with
General William Hull in August 1812; this contradicts common perceptions
that the Underground Railroad always ran north to freedom in Canada. In
fact, for a very few years during the late eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries the route to freedom proceeded south from Canada to
the free territories of the Old Northwest. Once the war ended, the
route turned north to freedom in Canada.
Along the Chesapeake Bay
during 1813 and 1814 many slaves joined the British Colonial Marines and
later marched with Redcoats on Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, while
others chose to remain with their masters. Maryland slave Charles Ball
consciously declared himself a freeman and joined Joshua Barney’s
flotilla in the Chesapeake. During the British 1814 Chesapeake campaign
Ball fought for the Americans at Bladensburg and in the defense of
Baltimore. During the fall of 1814 in New York City, Philadelphia, and
Baltimore, slaves and free blacks joined alongside white American
workers to construct defenses for those cities.
Later in 1814
along the coast of Georgia and South Carolina slaves had to choose
sides. Cumberland Island slave Ned Simmons immediately discarded his
shackles to join the British army, yet he was never transferred off the
island. When peace came he became victim of tense Anglo-American
negotiations. Stripped of his British uniform, Simmons was re-enslaved,
and did not secure his freedom until 1863; the centenarian Simmons died
only a few months after being liberated by Union troops.
Along the
Gulf of Mexico during the War of 1812 slaves found multiple
choices—some joined with the Spanish, some with Native American tribes
and others with the British. During the weeks before the climactic
January 1815 Battle of New Orleans, both the British and General Andrew
Jackson competed for slaves and free blacks. Two regiments of free men
of color volunteered to defend the city, and then Jackson promised
freedom to slaves who would labor on the American line. Jackson
ultimately secured their assistance with promises of equality and
freedom that never fully appeared.
During the years prior to the
War of 1812 African Americans had gained increased political, economic,
and civic rights; many of these concessions had been won by black
participation during the War for Independence and their support for a
new political system based on the primacy of the United States. Slaves
saw this jostling for their loyalties as “an avenue to freedom,” and
consequently joined armies or communities of Native Americans or
mulattoes on the fringes of society.
The War of 1812 did not
create opportunities for all slaves, as for the most part slaves fled or
joined militias only when hospitable troops were in the area. Those who
remained in the United States generally remained in bondage, while
those who took the chance to flee to British lines were mostly evacuated
from the United States. The latter group found freedom in British
colonies such as Bermuda, Canada, or Trinidad, where they and many of
their descendants remained impoverished economically. This gripping tale
of the evolution of race relations in early America reveals how these
people won their freedom.
By the time the War of 1812 ended the
United States had reaffirmed its political, economic, and cultural
freedom, and white Americans had finally realized that armed blacks
posed serious threats to the existing status quo, and that threat would
have to be eliminated. The optimism that had flowed from the
Revolutionary period into the War of 1812 era lost its influence on
American southerners who still maintained their human property, but
thereafter had to worry about holding onto it. In the end, the free
blacks and slaves who had sided with the Americans, like those who had
joined with the British, the Spanish, or with Native Americans, wanted
only one thing—their land of the FREE. Instead the War of 1812 confirmed
the security of the United States, and provided the last chance for
blacks as a group to secure their freedom through force of arms until
the American Civil War finally ended slavery once and for all.
The Slaves' Gamble is written by:
Gene Allen Smith
Professor
Dept of History
Texas Christian University
