Between Two Empires: The Battle for Freedom in the Atlantic World with Matthew Taylor

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The forgotten liberation of thousands stands at the intersection of British military history and the African diaspora. When historian Matthew Taylor stumbled upon brief mentions of Black soldiers in British uniform during the War of 1812, he brought to light an extraordinary story of self-emancipation that would reshape communities across the Caribbean. The Colonial Marines—a unit of formerly enslaved Americans who joined British forces—represents the largest successful liberation movement between the Haitian Revolution and British abolition. This story reveals the remarkable agency of enslaved individuals who recognized opportunity amid conflict and negotiated their freedom through military service.

Following the war, approximately 900 Colonial Marines and their families resettled in southern Trinidad, organized by military companies—which explains why communities today still bear names like "Third Company" and "Fourth Company." These settlements became known collectively as the "Merikins," maintaining distinct cultural practices including Virginia Baptist traditions and specific rice cultivation techniques from Georgia. This history offers a powerful lens for understanding Caribbean identity formation beyond simplified national narratives. The Colonial Marines story reveals how liberation movements connected Africa, the Americas, and the Caribbean through networks of resistance and community building that continue to shape identities today.

Matthew Taylor is a historian & author of Black Redcoats: The Corps of Colonial Marines, a history of African-American escapees from slavery who became British Marines in the War of 1812 (1812-1815). This all-volunteer unit formed a unique & powerful force which had a significant impact on that war, and who secured free futures for themselves & their families in British territories even as the British Empire remained slave-holding. Matthew's work has been called exciting & ground-breaking, and is currently under consideration for a PhD by prior publication.

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Produced by
get to continue a conversation Istarted a few episodes ago, you
know, as we started talkingabout Caribbean military
histories, you know, the impactof the British Empire and all of

(00:43):
those things which we'lldefinitely still get into today.
As we talked about a fewepisodes ago the West India
Regiments, we briefly mentionedthe War of 1812, really pointing
to some of the similarities inthe recruitment of Black
soldiers.
And well, today, you know, I'mreally excited to have our
guests join us today becauseMatthew Taylor, as you will get

(01:05):
to hear from in a moment, was alistener who had tuned into that
episode and was, like you know,wow, like I do, the War of 1812
.
You know, I could definitelycontribute to this conversation.
So, matthew, I'm really reallygrateful to have you and you
know certainly share yourexpertise with us on the subject
.
And so, with that, I'll startright off, you know, introducing

(01:26):
Matthew Taylor to the show.
Matthew is a historian and theauthor of Black Redcoats, the
Corpse of the Colonial Marines1814 to 1816.
And so you know, as always,matthew, as I said, it's really
great to have you and, of course, why don't you tell our
listeners a little bit moreabout yourself and what brought
you really to this amazing andreally in-depth study of the

(01:47):
colonial Marines?

Speaker 3 (01:50):
Oh, it's a genuinely kind of peculiar story.
I'm not a historian by trade.
I have a life and a job and allthis kind of stuff.
History is merely an interestof mine.
The reason I wrote BlackRedcoats is I discovered one day
, purely by accident, a shortnote on like a website about an
interesting military engagementbetween escaped African-American

(02:13):
slaves and the Americanmilitary, and it turned out
there was a British angle tothis story which genuinely
shocked and interested me.
I think of myself as a bit of aguy who knows his British
military history and I wentdigging and these days I feel we
live in quite a goodinformation age.
Now If you want to know verygranular historical information,
you can half the time just findthe book and grab it.

(02:34):
And there you are.
And I was genuinely shocked todiscover that there was no book
about this.
So I kept reading up anddigging in archives and articles
and eventually there was justquite a magical day where two
things struck me.
The first was that I felt Idiscovered a surprisingly big
element to a largely forgottenwar which revolved around the

(02:57):
emancipation of enslaved people,turning my kind of British
military history that I waslooking into into simultaneously
also a part of the africandiaspora history and the history
of emancipation, which made thekind of the kind of hobbyist
part of me hit me who was justdoing this, because I like
knowing about a niche militarysubject, um get filled with this

(03:18):
desire to go.
Actually, this is an importantpart of several narratives
african-american, afro-caribbean, afro-canadian as well as
linking back into therelationship between britain and
african and african derivedpeople and the history of the
british imperialism and britishslavery, as well as american
slavery, and we're fired up bythat awareness.

(03:40):
I I genuinely did feel I waswriting something quite out of
out of the blue.
It just fully took me and thevarious bits and bobs I'd put
together over a couple of yearsI smashed together into a book
in remarkably quick time.
I did it the hard way around.
I wrote the book and I had togo back finding all the
references knocking over partsof paper in my house.
I knew I read that somewhere,kind of thing.

(04:02):
But when it was all put togetherI had, I believe, a remarkably
interesting bit of militaryhistory but also an incredible
bit of history of the Africandiaspora in the Western
Hemisphere, linking togetherwhat are now a multitude of
disparate Afro-Caribbean,afro-canadian African-American
communities who actually allhave an incredible shared
history, because it all happenedkind of in a war that is not so

(04:25):
well known, basically anywhereoutside of Canada.
It was all kind of hidden underthat cloak.
You wouldn't go looking for ablack emancipatory history in
the War of 1812 in the way thesethings tend to be indexed and
recorded.
So my quest at present, nowthat my book is out purely
self-promotional, of course isto get this story out there and
say, actually, everyone, thereis an incredible Black

(04:47):
liberation story inside this warstory and I really want people
to know more about it because itchanges how you read the war,
if you see what I mean.

Speaker 2 (04:57):
Certainly, and I think even for us on the other
side well, I'm on the other sideof the pond over here, right,
what you said about you knowthis awareness of the War of
1812 is certainly true.
You know, it was mentioned verybriefly in my, like high school
, US history education, but itwas certainly more dominated by
the history of the AmericanRevolution, right?

(05:18):
So the War of 1812 kind ofserves as this little blimp
following the AmericanRevolution from 1775 to 1783.
And there were a few factorscertainly influencing the War of
1812.
There were certainly somepolitical issues that existed
between the two, from thingslike you know, British imposed
trade restrictions, Americaopposed British trade with

(05:44):
Native Americans there are amultitude of factors that really
led to the War of 1812 andAmerica's declaration of war.
And so could you underscore forus what some of these things
looked like?
You know this sort ofrelationship between the US and
the UK at the time and whatreally ignited the War of 1812.

Speaker 3 (06:03):
Yeah, certainly, as you say, the narrative of the
War of 1812 yeah, certainly, asyou say, like the narrative of
the war of 1812 is interestingall over.
I mean here in the unitedkingdom, the war of 1812 is
basically unknown, apart fromwhen we occasionally remember we
built the white house.
Wow, I like that.
The wider yes, the widercontext of that is more or less
completely alien, if you knowwhat I mean.
Um, the war of 1812 is crucialfor the story of canada, canada,

(06:26):
so the awareness of it incanada is is much bigger,
largely focused on their borderwhere they were defending
themselves from the unitedstates.
And in the united stateshistory generally speaking and
you've got lots of veryintriguing kind of mythologizing
about it, right, yeah, as kindof a second war of independence,
or I mean, I think the partthat's most interesting to me as
, like a foreign observer, iswhere the war of 1812 is often

(06:49):
talked about.
In american history.
It's often presented as a warthat was fighting an existential
threat, despite the fact it wasa war started by the united
states.
There's normally you don'tstart a war to fight an
existential threat.
The essential threat turns upfirst.
If you see what I mean and that, as we'll go into that.
Actually, it actually hides alittle bit of what I think about

(07:10):
this war in terms of how itstarted.
Actually, you're right to saythere was the united kingdom.
The british empire was involvedin the huge napoleonic wars
against france, a truly globalwar against napoleon.
But um, within that, the unitedstates was suffering from both
french and british traderestrictions because we're two
massive power blocks that are atwar, or the united united

(07:31):
states just wants to make moneyand is being restricted by both
sides.
Um, in american history there'sa lot of focus put on the
impressment of sailors, becausethe united states was still a, a
revolutionary state, reallystill kind of normalizing its
relationships with the empire.
It had left all kinds of like,really kind of like you know,
tetchy technical arguments aboutwhat is an American citizen

(07:52):
versus a British subject, can aBritish subject surrender that,
surrender that status in favorof American citizenship?
All these kinds of like veryboring, legalistic arguments
which really just hide the factthat the royal navy, as a global
military force, was in constantneed of new sailors.
Anyone, anyone with any skillat sailing is a valuable
resource in the world, andamerican sailors are at least

(08:14):
sailors who claim to be american, speak english.
They're an obvious good grabresource and normally I said
normally that kind ofimpressment, as it was called is
is normally talked about as thereal starting gun of this war.
But to be completely fair, thiswas a time of truly terrible in
British.
We'd been doing that for yearsand the United States had just
got over it.

(08:35):
The primary reason I believe theWar of 1812 began is one you
intimated.
There In the northwest west,around the Great Lakes, we saw
the rise of Tecumseh and hisbrother and Tenskawatoa, who
were two Native American leaderswho managed to put together a
pretty solid Native Americanconfederacy, and that Native

(08:55):
American revivalist movement hadindirect British support.
It certainly wasn't an arm ofBritish policymaking but it had
British support because they'retrading back and forth with our
Canadian authorities and whenAmerican forces fought that
group, when they capturedequipment that was British and
so on, the threat of NativeAmericans armed by Britain

(09:20):
became even though it's a veryquestionable point, it became in
American political life oh God,the Brits are arming the
savages against us and there waslots of classic racist
preconceptions about this meanswe're all going to die and in
American political life that gotallied to, they're trying to
strangle us with traderestrictions, they're stealing

(09:41):
our sailors and now, finally,they're arming horrible,
monstrous people on our border.
And now, finally, they'rearming horrible, monstrous
people on our border.
We've got to go to war.
We've got to go to war to seethem off.
The time it happened 1812, is,I think, a bit of a giveaway
about the real aims here.
1812, napoleon is just about toinvade Russia with half a
million men.
It looks like Napoleon is atthe maximum extent of his power.

(10:03):
He, half a million men, itlooks like Napoleon is at the
maximum extent of his power.
He's our big enemy.
The entire British empire isstretched, holding back this
peer competitor.
So this is the perfect time fora small, scrappy and
revolutionary state to get someconcessions out of us.
And I believe that the Americanpolitical establishment at the
time, which wasn't uniform, itwas largely factional, but
faction in charge of america atthe time thought ah, if we, if

(10:25):
we launch ourselves into canada,we can remove the source of aid
to native americans by justkicking british influence out of
north america, the continententirely, there'll be no more
direct connectivity.
And then maybe we could, youknow, maybe we could use that
land as a negotiating tactic toget better terms, maybe even
give it back back.
Maybe not, but I think the ideagerminated that the Brits are

(10:48):
really busy fighting a muchbigger war.
If we pull off some lightningvictories in the early stages,
we'll be at the negotiatingtable in a really strong
position.
Luckily, from my Britishperspective, it didn't play out
that way.
The Canadians, for variousreasons, put up a significantly
better resistance than wasanticipated.
But that's not to understatethe fact that the british empire

(11:11):
wasn't a very weak position.
There was virtually no regularbritish military in canada
because we didn't see a threatand we were still heavily
stretched.
So, as we go into the storywe're going to talk about, the
british empire decides toretaliate to the American
invasion of Canada with what inmany ways, was the only thing we
could do.
We used our significant navaladvantage.
We were going to send a fleetinto the Chesapeake Bay, which

(11:33):
of course is looked on byVirginia and Maryland, the real
heartland of the United States.
At this point, virginia is verymuch the ideological
underpinner of the entireAmerica project and the idea is
we send a fleet into there andno bones about it, we're going
to launch a terror campaign.
We're not going in to captureland or retake America.
We're going in to interdicttrade, attack towns, set fire to

(11:56):
things and bring a war to thecenter of American political and
social life in the hope it willinduce political change, in the
hope that people will turnagainst the president and
Congress and say we need to getout of this war.

Speaker 2 (12:10):
You know.
First off, thank you forunderscoring, you know, this
wider history of the War of 1812and how those who we will talk
about in terms of the colonialMarines really get involved.
I think, at least for me, whatyou're saying has brought us to
a point of understanding thatthe enslaved people who were in

(12:31):
the US at this time, britain hadcertainly for those who
listened to our West IndiaRegiment episode learned that
Britain had a track record ofsort of saying you know, if you
come I don't know if work isnecessarily the right word but
if you come and serve as part ofour British troops, right, we
will give you freedom in a sense, right, and this is definitely

(12:55):
similar and was also the casefor the War of 1812.
And so can you talk a littlebit about how and why, beyond
just, you know, of course,freedom, but sort of cementing
this legacy that the UKestablished of, you know,
granting those who are notnecessarily within their actual
colonies freedom for theirservice?

Speaker 3 (13:18):
Yes, certainly During the War of Independence,
particularly as the militarysituation turned against us, we
began this process.
Lord Dunmore and Clinton andpeople like that, offered
freedom to American slaves ifthey would escape from their
masters and join British forcesto fight initially, and then
later it just became a blanketoffer of freedom.

(13:39):
If you flee American territory,we will find freedom for you.
There is an interesting tensionthere where on the british side
there is a definitive this isentirely a military military
need you know anything thatundermines the opponent?
And slavery is an obviousweakness in a society.
Society that creates is anautomatic third party who have
not interested in being loyal.

(13:59):
But you know I mean.
So you exploit that obvious.
But there was also, also inBritish culture at that time, an
emerging political and socialmovement which would eventually
become full-scale Britishabolitionism, aided by the fact
that, by pure accident, slaverynever really got established
here in Britain on the homeisland.
It was entirely an offshorething.

(14:19):
You know, out of sight and outof mind, if you see what I mean,
which makes it much easier tobe very moral about slavery when
you don't have to deal with itday to day, if you see what I
mean.
But that freedom giving in theWar of Independence and it's one
of those things wherereconstructing it as a historian
today is difficult becausewe're working in the histories
of people whose lives wereunrecorded.
But that freedom giving in theWar of Independence definitely

(14:43):
appears to have enteredAfrican-American, enslaved
African-American kind of oralhistory and the culture, the
culture that is onlycommunicated in plantation slave
cabins when people are at rest.
That something is differentabout the Brits.
It's interesting because therewas no doubt whatsoever that

(15:06):
enslaved african-americans werevery aware that in the caribbean
british slavery was still goingstrong because there was lots
of movement of people betweenthose in the years up until the
end of the international slavetrade.
So you know, various people invirginia or whatever might have
began their lives as enslavedpeople in jamaica or somewhere
like that before being sold inthe American market.
So it's not like they wereblind to the wider context.

(15:27):
But I think this idea thatthese two slightly different
groups of white people, britonsand Americans, have a tension
between them which gives us theopportunity to find freedom for
ourselves, was always was there,if you see what I mean.
So a good example of like howthis is kind of it's underneath

(15:49):
the wider history, which islargely speaking the white
directed history, is whenBritish forces came into the
Chesapeake in 1813.
So far I have found zeroreference to enslaved people in
any of the planning.
The mission is to attack America, to damage it economically, to
set fire to towns, to causeterror, to bring on political

(16:11):
change, and enslaved people justdon't appear at all.
They don't, you know, they'reinvisible to the.
You know the largely whitearistocratic leaders of British
policy, as they are to whitearistocratic American leaders,
but instantly.
This is why, whenever I'mtelling this story, I always
push back against the idea.
This isn't a benevolent Britscoming along and freeing people
story.

(16:32):
So British military arrives inthe Chesapeake Bay for a pure
military objective which ishurting the United States, and
enslaved African-Americans cometo British forces and offer
services in exchange for freedominstantaneously.
So British forces arrived inFebruary 1813, and literally in

(16:52):
I think it was the 11th of March1813,.
So within about two and a bitweeks, nine African-American men
stole a boat, sailed out to oneof our warships, hms Victorious
, signed up, became part of thecrew and they served for seven
or so months and then HMSVictorious went back to Halifax
in Canada and they were releasedfrom service as free people.

(17:15):
That was then followed by whenBritish forces went on land to
raid and loot and so on, africanaborigines would just come to
them and just ask to be takenaway.
Within this um, we see the thelength and breadth of the talent
, skill and utility of of allthese people.
And the hms borias and hmsmohawk both benefited from a

(17:38):
black pilot.
So he was an enslaved black manwho had been part of a fishing
fleet.
He escaped, used his knowledgeof the local rivers and the
depths and so on to guideBritish warships to areas we had
no idea we could go, if you seewhat I mean.
And this changes the paradigm.
So our initial attacks on theAmerican coast, this area,
they're all American War ofIndependence, redux.

(17:59):
We have a little bit of successon the american coast, this
area, they're all american warof independence, redux.
We have a little bit of successon the coast.
You get further inland, you getambushed by militia.
You know the local farmers,they know it all better.
They're sniping from behindtrees, all the classics.
But when african americans cometo us in great numbers, that is
instantly flipped because thereis a secretive, underground
world of movement andinformation sharing amongst

(18:20):
african-americans um, which ispartially part of resistance to
slavery, and now british forceshave access to that.
So you get some reallyintriguing ones, where american
commanders who are previouslyquite boisterous about fighting
the brits, uh, they now say oh,it's happening to us, we're
being ambushed by british forcesand there's no bones about it.
They point straight atafrican-americans.

(18:40):
They say it's happening to us,we're being ambushed by British
forces, and there's no bonesabout it.
They point straight atAfrican-Americans.
They say it's the knowledge andintelligence of
African-Americans that pullsBritish forces up levels against
us, if you see what I mean.

Speaker 2 (18:53):
A war in itself.
You know, of course there were,as you pointed to, certain
successes and achievements oneither side, but ultimately,
again, right, it's not as loftyin memory compared to, like the
Revolutionary War, in a sense,right, but these colonial
Marines, as you discussed for us, really were integral in the

(19:18):
ways that the British were ableto succeed.
But I think, you know, in asense, there is this really
interesting moment, and this isprimarily where the Caribbean
starts to become central to thisstory, right, there's this
really interesting moment whenVice Admiral Sir Alexander
Cochrane so this is, you know,almost at the end of the war now
he issues a proclamation thatreally went against British

(19:40):
orders, giving the Marines thefreedom to choose between
enlisting or, you know,resettling in somewhere else in
the, you know, some otherBritish colonies.
And I found that, you know,again, there's an interesting
distinction between the colonyMarines and the West India
regiments, because they did givethem an option to join the West
India regiments and, to anextent, a lot of people declined

(20:04):
.
They chose freedom, they choseto resettle, right, and so this
proclamation not only reallyimpacted and was received poorly
by the British military, butalso impacted the US military
who tried to sort of falselypromise the same thing in some
regards.
But could you really help usunderstand this moment?

(20:27):
You know that Cochraneestablishes and then how this
eventually then leads to theresettlement of colonial Marines
and their families in theCaribbean.

Speaker 3 (20:37):
Certainly Well, cochrane's proclamation is
remarkably interesting.
So the whole time from 1813into 1814, as British forces are
raiding and fighting theChesapeake as well as bringing
in largely young men who arebecoming colonial Marines, and
we form those a unit and welater integrate that unit into
the Royal Marines as well.
So it's an interesting note inthat it might be the first

(20:58):
British military unit to beformally racially integrated
integrated there's a bit of anargument there because it was.
It was never as hard segregatedas you might, as you might
imagine, but it's an interestingpoint.
But while the whole time theseyoung men are coming to us and
becoming the black red coats ofmy book and having this
remarkable kind of psychologicaleffect on the united states,
because you know they're bothescaped, enslaved people.

(21:18):
So it's the image of thenightmare slave revolt, but also
the uniform of the foreign kingwe've recently got rid of.
So it's a real duality ofnightmares there.
The whole time, civilians,african-american, enslaved women
, children, very old people andthose who simply don't want to
serve in a military crisisthey're fleeing the British
forces as well and I think thisis a pure historical

(21:41):
happenstance.
The combination of officerspresent in the chesapeake were
inclined to humanity to thesepeople who are fleeing, fleeing
that flame.
They were playing um, largely,I think, think, because cochrane
and his, his subordinatecorburn, were both so focused on
damaging the united states thatthey rightly said every single

(22:01):
person who leaves the UnitedStates is a win for us, as a
propaganda measure, as aneconomic damage.
So they turned happily tobringing in as many people as
were happy to come in.
Tangier Island, which is inVirginia but is in the middle of
the Chesapeake Bay, basicallygot turned into a refugee
reception center for AfricanAmericans fleeing slavery in
Maryland and Virginia.

(22:21):
And that means that Cochrane'sproclamation goes against stated
British policy which is,generally speaking, not to
encourage widespread slaveuprisings, partially because
we've got our own slave colonies, you know.
And there's also a kind of aEuropean angle on if Britain
encourages a savage uprising ofenslaved people, that'll damage

(22:44):
us, because we're fightingNapoleon in order to fight for
civilization and humanity.
If you see what I mean.
He's a hideous dictator, so wecan't undermine that by kicking
off savage wars elsewhere.
But the proclamation is in manyways it's just a recognition of
what's already happening.
By this time we've already gotat least a few thousand people
out of the united states.
Covenant proclamation isliterally just formalizing a

(23:05):
situation that already existed.
And, um, indeed, as you pointout from london, the order, the
orders were actually quitecharmingly bureaucratic.
The orders were anybody whowants to come and fight for us,
stick them in the west indiesregiments, because we've already
got those.
That's where black people serve, so they should go into there.
And also there's a great lineabout also don't liberate too

(23:26):
many people, because liberatedpeople we have a responsibility
to look after and that meansthat's a cost of money and we
don't want to spend too muchmoney.
But ironically, by saying wehave a responsibility to them,
you kind of already set acontractual standard there, if
you see what I mean.
They're not just entirely atyour mercy, you're indicating a
responsibility towards them.

(23:47):
The West Indies regiments, forreasons discussed in your
previous episode, was not anappealing prospect to many.
A small number ofAfrican-Americans did join.
From looking at the stuff I'vegot, I think mainly young men
who just fancied a military life.
You know there's always someonethat appeals to and off they
went.
But the open-endedness of WestIndies service, the idea you

(24:09):
could be in the regiment yourentire life and also your legal
status, is still a bitquestionable in terms of where
you are in the hierarchy ofBritish imperial power.
That just didn't seem to appealto the colonial marines and the
wider black refugees as theybecame known in British reports,
kind of maintain a coherentwe're Americans, not necessarily
identifying as Americans insupport of the United States,
but we're a different group here.
And the way this order wascreated, as it was just a

(24:34):
recognition of the reality bythis time British officers in
the Chesapeake they're writingwhat looked to me like back
coveringcovering letters likewell, you know, I raided this
town and I left with 60 enslavedAmericans.
Ten of them are going to besoldiers, all the rest are their
families.
But there was no way they weregoing to come if we didn't bring
their family.
They're kind of cleaning theirhands of it and saying it isn't

(24:54):
my fault, if you see what I meanthat.
If you see what I mean, thataspect of the British military
operation ironically becomesmore and more important by the
very end of the war.
There's a really fantasticincident, which technically took
place after the war ended,where British forces liberated
some enslaved people in Maryland.
The slave owner came out to theBritish fleet and said the

(25:15):
war's over, give me them back,because that's war loot and
we're not at war anymore.
And not the officers as such,but the crew of the ship.
It was HMS Havana.
The crew of the ship said tothe officers of the ship we will
put our hands in our pocketsand give this guy all the cash
on the ship to go away, ratherthan give these people back.

(25:36):
And the captain of that shipwrote that in a report to his
commander saying well, what canI do?
So we, you know, we sent himoff.
Um, there is quite a charmingcoda to that.
In the two of the enslavedpeople in that raid uh were, I
think, george and george andlucy hall, and they are the
parents of william hall, who wasthe first black recipient of
victoria cross, which isbritain's highest award for
gallantry.
He, um, he was born in canada.

(25:58):
Um, this disconnect between kindof wider british imperial
policy and cochrane'sproclamation, it doesn't appear
to have had a massive likeripple effect in british life.
In the context of the hundredsof thousands of people trapped
in slavery, we're talking meremere thousands, if you see what
I mean.
So it was a small pocket LikeCochrane didn't take any stick

(26:22):
for going too far or anythinglike that either.
He was able the whole time tosay this is a brilliant military
opportunity where we have here,by denuding the United States
of a core part of its economy,and sure it leads us with a
long-term issue of what do we dowith these people, in the
context of them being blackpeople, and we've got a very

(26:43):
clear slave.
Um, so they've society in ourown colonies in this region, but
didn't seem to ruffle too manyfeathers, thankfully.
But I said, I think that wasprimarily because it was a
recognition of what was alreadyhappening.
Lots and lots of people werealready in our hands and what
you know, what can you do?
You can't give them back toyour enemy, because that would
obviously undermine our honourmilitarily as well as our trust

(27:04):
of an ally.
But similarly, we can't thenjust say drop them into the
British slave system, becausethat would be a betrayal that
would equally undermineBritain's position.

Speaker 2 (27:14):
This really brings us to what I really find
interesting about this historyand the position of the colonial
Marines, because they go on tocreate these vast communities in
places you know, like Trinidad,tobago, you know Nova Scotia,
as you mentioned, sierra Leoneand all these other places that

(27:35):
we've talked to briefly indifferent aspects throughout the
show in terms of Caribbeanmigrations to other parts of the
world.
But this is a particularinstance where you see not just
the soldiers but, of course, asyou mentioned, their families
also coming with them.
For instance, almost 900 peoplego to Southern Trinidad as part

(27:57):
of this resettlement from theAmericas to Trinidad and Tobago
due to British colonialism.
Right, similar things happen,as I mentioned, in Nova Scotia
and other places.
So could you talk to us a bitabout you know, these actual
communities that are born in,you know parts of the Caribbean
as a result of you know thebritish really having this

(28:19):
almost ironic lenient sense, asyou mentioned, right, because,
again, um, slavery is stillexisting in these colonies and
what this then um creates interms of, again, these new free
peoples, free communities, whilealso, um, there are almost 20
more years of of enslavementstill happening in the region.

Speaker 3 (28:41):
Indeed, as I say, this wave of refugees, the black
refugees of the war of 1812,the line I always like to hammer
is that the African-Americanpeople who self-emancipated
because again they came toBritish forces and by their
presence negotiated the terms ifyou see what I mean, benevolent
Brits didn't just offer thisAll the people escaped in the

(29:03):
War of 1812 from slavery.
That is the largest successfulemancipation of enslaved people
in American history between theWar of Independence and the end
of the American Civil War, inkind of Western hemisphere
history.
The largest between the HaitianRevolution and the end of
British slavery.
So there's like a 20, 30 yeargap between Haiti and the end of
British slavery.
Right in the middle of ityou've got this emancipation,

(29:25):
which is big and forgotten aboutbecause it happened in a war,
that wave of refugees, as yousay.
It creates a great arc aroundthe periphery of the United
States, from Nova Scotia acrossto Sierra Leone, down to the
Bahamas and down to Trinidad.
The Trinidadian connection isthe most directly connected to
the unit because black refugeesin the War of 1812 were

(29:46):
dispersed continuouslythroughout the war and that
included colonial marines whosigned off and said I'm done and
they went to Canada or wherever, but a core number of the unit.
Several hundred people remainedin British service and were
moved to Bermuda at the end ofthe war, where they were on the.
They were held at the royalnavy dockyard there it looks
primarily so.
They were ready in case warkicked off of america again,

(30:07):
like if all the treaties stillfell apart.
And what happened?
We could rock right back in andstart all the same trouble all
over again with this unit.
But as the situation cooleddown, what to do with them as a
group came up and it was decidedto set to settle them in
Trinidad.
Because Trinidad was arelatively relatively new
British gain, captured from inrecent years.
In large parts it was stillundeveloped and that we can

(30:29):
perhaps point a little bit tothe fact because it was a recent
British gain.
It was essentially a militarydictatorship and the British
governor of Trinidad wascompletely in charge.
There was no likerepresentative council which in
every other there was norepresentative council which in
every other island that had arepresentative council possibly
a representative of the largelywhite landowning, slave-owning
class, so represented theirviews.
There was nothing like that inTrinidad.

(30:50):
There was just the Britishmilitary governor and he was in
charge.
So he said well, I've got alarge internal area area of the
island in the south, near Moruga, needs development so we can
put these people there.
And the slave owners of traindad did actually complain and
did say hang on, this isdangerous, you're bringing all
these free black people withmilitary training.
He, um, he waved them off in away which I think is emblematic

(31:10):
of this kind of sometimes tomodern eye seems very peculiar
british ambivalence aboutslavery.
He waved off all the slaveowners by saying well, these
people, these people, they'regoing to be free farmers,
they're going to be landownersin themselves.
They'll have as much to lose ina slave uprising as anyone else
their property rights and so on.
Those are the kind of thingsthat get threatened in
revolutions, if you see what Imean.

(31:31):
So they'll be on theestablishment side if that
should ever happen.
But in any way you can't tellme what to do because I'm
entirely in charge.
They pushed them aside Whilesome black refugees, largely
from Florida, had already beensettled in the area around Port
of Spain.
The colonial Marines were allput in this one particular area
of Trinidad, organized by themilitary company they arrived in

(31:52):
, which is why you've got thecompany villages like 3rd
Company and 4th Company, wherethe towns are literally called
after that.
Everyone was given little plotsof land which they could
develop.
There's an interestingcomparison here because black
refugees who arrived in NovaScotia they generally speaking
had a harder time.
They suffered what you can onlydescribe as a mixture of
indifference and neglect fromBritish colonial authorities.

(32:14):
We've got lots of writtenrecords from former officers of
the colonial marines, sergeantsand corporals you know, saying I
served, I served ably and I wasoffered support to get my life
up and running.
And I'm not getting it.
Give me it.
There's also an interestingelement, that one point london
literally wrote to the governorof nova scotia and reminded the
governor of nova scotia that wehad a contractual obligation to

(32:36):
help these people get theirlives set up.
But they were, they were kind ofleft at kind of a precarious
life on the edges of the whitesociety even over scotia, which
are still very proud of theirfreedom, though that kept them
going quite hard, hardy, andfeel that a lot in trade.
They got full support from the,from the colonial authorities
with their regular, regularrations until they'd become
self-sustaining.

(32:57):
Lots of tool and equipmentproviding a single white man was
kind of given like asupervisory role, but he was.
He was largely just anintermediary between the
colonial governor and whatappears to have been a kind of
council of former officers.
The former sergeants andcorporals of the cloyam raids
became like the constables oftheir new communities and

(33:19):
because they were kind of in theinterior of the island they
managed to maintain a quiteinsular community away from the
coast, which was largely slaveplantation, and that community
became the Americans, as they'renow called, a recognized ethnic
group in Trinidad and Tobago.
All kinds of like charminglittle hints of their history.
They're very clearly to myAnglican eyes they're very

(33:40):
clearly Virginia Baptists, whilethe rest of the island is
Anglican or Catholic.
There's lots of rice dishes,including rice dishes made with
a type of rice that's fromGeorgia in the United States and
was weirdly for a long timeconsidered extinct until it was
rediscovered still being used bythe Americans.
There's lots of interestingconnections there where modern

(34:01):
Georgian African-Americansdigging back into their own
culture had to go to Trinidad tofind the more direct connection
.
If you see about theintercessionary period of
American history and theirarrival on Trinidad was a
central moment in thedevelopment of Trinidad as a
British colony and creates thisinteresting tension where you've

(34:21):
got a nominally slave culturewith a free black militarized
group.
There's definitely indicationsthat the military ethos retained
itself in that community forquite a while afterwards and
their insular nature eventuallyhides of, hides them, so that
you know they're a minoritywithin trinidadian to being

(34:44):
culture culture, so they kind ofdisappear for a long time.
They're just, they're just inthere in the hills, um.
And in the modern era, becausethe, because we now live in a
much more neglected world, thecommunity is dispersing,
dispersing and there's there's agenuine fear that certain
aspects of the unique nature ofthe American history might be
lost as the culture disappearsfrom its insular geographic home

(35:07):
.
I mean to give you a goodexample of that, matt.
I think I've been contactedmore by African-Americans who
are the children of Trinidadianimmigrants to America in the
20th century, who have thisheritage because they're trying
to find where they stand in theworld, if you see what I mean by
tracking this history back.

Speaker 2 (35:47):
I think that is part of one of the you know sort of
of these other places.
But here we have a moment whereAfrican Americans left the US
self-emancipated I want to, youknow, especially emphasize that
point resettled in places like,as we mentioned, trinidad, the
Bahamas and, you know, due toagain this continuing migration

(36:12):
appeal, have maybe moved back tothe US and are now trying to
connect these histories.
So I think that's just, youknow, one element of the ways
that we can definitely see theCaribbean as really being
central to this new worldparadigm that is sort of always
in conversation or talked aboutand I don't know to what extent

(36:34):
we've really underscored theways that you know the Caribbean
has played not just a factor in, you know, our own communities
but in other communities acrossthe African diaspora.
You know, to that point,because I'm always looking for
ways to put our listeners oninto understanding these

(36:55):
histories in different sort ofways what are some of your
favorite examples of how thishistory shows up of the colonial
Marines in popular culture morerecently today?

Speaker 3 (37:11):
It means, ah, to my intense, intense annoyance
bizarrely unknown.
I say that with genuine meaning.
I do find it strange that rightnow we're still in a period
where history in general, we'rereally on a quest to make
history much more multifaceted,to pull away from the dominant,
central, national narrative setby usually, usually,

(37:32):
establishment force to this iswhat happened, this is the story
, if you see what I mean I mean.
Instead, look at everyone'sexperience of history, of
history, and you know, empathize, put ourselves in their shoes
and imagine how we would haveacted in these, in these
contexts, and, you know, buildour histories back and not just
be told what the history is.
Um, the colonial marines, forme, um I, their lack of popular

(37:56):
culture resonance, I think, isevidence that we still got.
We still.
We need to work hard on that.
Because I mean to give you acore, exact, a core example.
When, when we talk about thehistory of western hemisphere,
slavery in general, most of itis a hideous blot on humanity.
It's a, it was an end, it was aseemingly set, you know,
endless crime against humanity,over and over again.

(38:17):
But within that, we celebrate,quite rightly, rightly, people
who resist, who resisted, andresistance to slavery, when
talked about is nearly alwayspresented as like this tragic
tale.
You know, resistance.
Resistance is always met byreaction.
The reaction is always hideousand hideous and intense.
If you see what I mean, youknow, with a few honorable

(38:38):
exceptions, the Colonial Marinesstory is a story of complete
success for enslaved people.
It is about enslaved peopleseeing a conflict between their
owners, their masters, and aforce that is not that different
from them and saying with ourown agency, we can find ways to

(39:00):
find freedom amidst this, andthey do it successfully.
And one of the other like kindof like really cool, kind of
micro things I always point outis that the colonial marines and
all the black refugees of warbeing told they didn't just run
away, they didn't just flee andeventually find freedom.
They fled in very, very largenumbers.
They became soldiers and theywent back and they got out more

(39:21):
people.
It isn't just an individualescaping in the night, it's an
individual escaping in the nightand he comes back and he's no
longer an enslaved boy, you know, in the racist language of the
time.
He's now a foreign soldier.
He kicks in the door, holds theslave owners and the enslavers
up, gets his kids, his wife, hisparents, wider family, out of

(39:41):
there.
Part of the joy of doing thehistory is the sheer number of
incredible time, incrediblestories that froze up.
I mean, I'll throw some names,just for.
There's a guy called WilliamKilgore.
William Kilgore personallyholds up his former slave owner
while rescuing his wife andfamily in tents.
There's William Deer, whoeventually goes on to run a pub
in Canada.
He requests and is given leavefrom the British attack on

(40:05):
Washington DC to go and get hiswife, nancy, from a farm.
It shows the level of agencythey had within the british
military.
This point point.
You know we're literally aboutto launch a very crucial
military operation.
But yeah, we can let you go anddo that, mate, if you see what
I mean.
Um, that again leads to acrucial popular history point
which is um, I would argue, andwe'll argue this forever, that

(40:27):
the destruction of washington dconly happened because of the
cloning of Marines.
It only happened because of thestrategic weakness slavery
presented in the Americanability to defend itself, so
which a foreign force, theempire of which I am a
descendant, exploited.
And I think that needs to bekind of brought in a little bit

(40:47):
more.
I would argue also, that's whythe war of 1812 ended in such
kind of a abrupt way ispartially because again to link
it back to the West Indiesregiments when the War of 1812
ended, a large number ofcolonial reigns had been based
on the island of CumberlandIsland, which is off the coast
of Georgia, and West Indiesregiments had been brought over
as well.
And we were going to attackSavannah, the capital of Georgia

(41:08):
, the capital of georgia.
And when you look at thenumbers, the british army, the
british army that was going toinvade georgia, which is at this
time 45 enslavedafrican-american, the british
army that was going to invadewas majority black, it was
mainly african-americans andmainly west indies regiments
through the trajectory of northamerican history would have been
incredibly different if a blackarmy had invaded georgia, if

(41:31):
you see what I mean.
And the Americans were notunaware of that and they were
terrified of the prospect.
And when the war ended, endedthe celebrations.
I believe, and the reason inAmerican history the war of Aang
Toa was regarded as thisexistential threat is because at
the time Americans in Virginiaand Georgia, those places, were
sat at home, thinking at anyminute we could have

(41:51):
simultaneous foreign invasionand slave uprising.
It's the nightmare scenario.
You know that would.
It would wipe away the country.
That part of the narrative hasbeen very, very carefully tamped
down, if you see what I mean.
Um, and then I was like just topull me back to the point.
This is the problem with thissubject.
It's so cool, it's?
You can just ramble about itforever.
Um, I think there is one thingabout the history of the

(42:13):
colonial marines in the modernworld which retains its
magnificent power, which is onTrinidad and Tobago.
You have African EmancipationDay, which celebrates the end of
British slavery.
The American community takespart in those celebrations and
they proudly have banners andflags that show that they became
free in 1816 when they arrivedin Trinidad, so they were free

(42:33):
two decades early.
But they nearly always have aseries of the community's
children dress up in little redcoat uniforms as little colonial
Marines, because these werepeople who fought for their
freedom and independence andthey gained it, and that's an
incredible legacy in the world.

Speaker 2 (42:54):
I agree, I think so, and I thank you tremendously for
sharing this story with us inthis history.
I think you know you'vecertainly, in that, answered my
last question in a roundaboutway, just in terms of the need
for greater awareness of thecolonial Marines.
But with that, before we close,what are your thoughts just on

(43:15):
how we re-understand Caribbeanidentity, for that matter, right
when they're, you know,particularly in this case, like
we can see with the Americancommunity in Trinidad and Tobago
, their origins start in the?
U, eventually grow out, and nowyou know many of who still
exist today, interned at Tobago,of course, and so how do you

(43:38):
then think that some of you knowthose complications and those
movements and migrations lead usto understand who we are as?

Speaker 3 (43:47):
a people.
I would argue that in theAfro-Caribbean community, which
I would include everybody whoselegacy includes attachments to
the Caribbean, it's a reminder,that kind of what you were
saying before.
The Caribbean, it's thecrossroads of the new world with
the old.
The Caribbean in general is aninterconnected lattice of

(44:09):
histories, is an interconnectedlattice of histories.
You've got modern nationalitiesand your right to be proud in,
say, jamaican or Barbadian orBermudian nationality.
The lattice-likeinterconnections between all
these island nations are toogreat to simply discount at any
time.
And the further connection tothe United States and the States

(44:30):
, central America and SouthAmerica, and then much further
afield back to Britain, to WestAfrica and so on.
You're not getting pulled awayfrom the Caribbean if you
connect yourself to Britain orSierra Leone or Liberia.
The Caribbean is a crossroads ofhistory, a crossroads of
civilizations.
History is built largely bycrossroads of civilizations.

(44:53):
You're not a periphery, you'recentral, because everybody has
to transit through you, if yousee what I mean.
I think people like um what'shis name?
Uh barrow, the first, the firstpm of uh barbados, I think was
a was a big believer in thebeliever in this idea.
It's to not fall for the trapof we're all small, little
islands, which means we aresmall in the world, if you see

(45:16):
what I mean I certainly agreewith that point, um, one that
has always stuck with me.

Speaker 2 (45:21):
In terms of strictly facts, it's not just about, uh,
bringing ourselves together as aregion, but also connecting the
greater diaspora, um, because,of course, as we talked about
today, there are certainly partsof our people who have moved
there, and even beyond thatright, all of these things,
these stories and thesehistories of self-emancipation,

(45:41):
of liberation, of peoplefighting for their freedom very
intentionally, is something thatreally draws us all together
and so, for all of our listeners, if you want to learn more
about the Colonial Marines, Ithink again is a tremendous
story that too often goesoverlooked and one that of
course, intersects with theCaribbean, be sure to grab

(46:03):
Matthew Taylor's book BlackRedcoats the Corpse of the
Colonial Marines 1814 to 1816.
I will link it in our show notes, as well as several other
articles and things where youall can learn more.
Again, matthew, I appreciateyou so much joining our show to
talk really about this passionand investigative and really

(46:25):
intense but captivated sobeautifully, I think, in your
book, especially having read itmyself.
So I appreciate you for joiningus and for our listeners.
We hope you enjoyed thisepisode.
Till next time, look for more.

Speaker 1 (46:39):
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