by Taylor, Alan
The British countered that Royal Navy warships were their sovereign territory even when within American waters. They also insisted that the runaways had become free, and ceased to be property, by fleeing to those warships. Lord Liverpool assured Adams that fugitives “could not be considered precisely” as “private property; a table or a chair, for instance might be taken and restored without changing its condition, but a living and human being was entitled to other considerations.” Rejecting a discussion of human rights, Adams insisted on the legal letter of the first article in the Treaty of Ghent. Although privately opposed to slavery, Adams nurtured a powerful ambition for higher office in America, which meant that he could not appear soft on an important issue to southerners.30
Backing down, the British and American diplomats agreed to submit the dispute to the Russian czar, Alexander I, for binding arbitration. In the privacy of his diary, Adams found it “whimsical . . . that the United States and Great Britain, both speaking English,” should resort to a Russian to parse the meaning of their words in a treaty. Apparently the czar understood the American idiom better than the British, ruling for the republic and against the empire in April 1822. Relying on “the literal and grammatical sense of the first article of the Treaty of Ghent,” the czar insisted that the British had to compensate the Americans for the runaways who were on board their ships (if within American territorial waters) as well as in their occupied forts on February 17, 1815.31
To determine the compensation, the American and British diplomats established a joint commission composed of two commissioners assisted by two arbitrators—with Britain and the United States providing one of each. Convening in Washington, D.C., in August 1823, the commissioners required masters to submit documents attesting that the British had taken away their particular slaves at the end of the war. Whenever the two commissioners disagreed on the evidence, they assigned the case to one of the arbitrators chosen by lot. Because the British and American commissioners almost always disagreed, the process proved tedious and slow, with the nationality of the chosen arbitrator usually determining each decision.32
Rather than wrangle over the value of each slave, the commissioners agreed to set an average value per slave on a regional basis. Because slaves were more expensive in the Deep South, the board fixed the average value of a Louisiana slave at $580; an Alabama, Georgia, or South Carolina slave at $390; and a Chesapeake claimant could collect only $280 per slave. This average value applied regardless of the age, gender, or skill of the particular slave. With claims submitted for 3,601 runaways, the British faced a total liability of $2,693,120 if they had to pay interest from February 17, 1815.33
The British balked at the cost, particularly the interest, and the Americans wearied of the delay. Consequently, in November 1826 the United States accepted the British offer to settle the claims with a lump sum of $1,204,960, which the American government would then distribute through a new set of commissioners. Newly elected president, Adams appointed Langdon Cheves of South Carolina, Henry Seawell of North Carolina, and James Pleasants of Virginia. Thorough, able, logical, and tireless, Cheves became the leader.34
The lump sum became an apple of discord, pitting the Chesapeake claimants against their Deep South rivals for larger slices of a finite pie. “We always expected some resistance from the British Government, but never from our fellow-citizens,” lamented a Chesapeake spokesman. In fact, nothing could better ignite squabbling among Americans than a scramble for $1,204,960 cast into their midst.35
If the new commissioners adhered to the convention signed with the British in 1822, the fund would not compensate every master who lost any slave at any time during the war. On the contrary, the claimant would have to prove that the lost slave remained on an American island or aboard a British ship still within American waters on February 17, 1815. This strict definition would preclude compensation for the many slaves removed to Bermuda or Halifax during 1813 and 1814—or even January and early February 1815. Because those earlier runaways came from the Chesapeake, the tight definition satisfied the Deep South claimants, for almost all of their slaves had gone away after ratification on February 17. By excluding the many Chesapeake claimants, the Deep South claimants hoped to secure virtually the whole fund: interest as well as principal. If, however, the commission loosened the rules, the Chesapeake claimants would get more money, depriving the Georgians and Louisianans of interest on their losses. Citing their longer and greater sufferings during the war, the Chesapeake claimants insisted that they deserved much of the compensation fund.36
To support their cases, the Chesapeake claimants enlisted testimony from a few runaways who had returned to Virginia after the war. Defending black witnesses as reliable, Pleasants insisted, “[They] are intelligent, far more so than they are generally supposed by those whose opportunities have not led them to examine their characters closely. They are in general as moral as most other persons. They are strongly religious, as much so generally, I incline to think, as the white people. . . . They have their preachers, many of them quite respectable as teachers of religion & morals.” When in their own interest, Virginians could belatedly acknowledge what they usually denied: the ability, piety, and morality of their slaves.37
Of course, the Deep South claimants protested that no colored person should ever testify against the interest of a white man. Insistent that only a consistent assertion of racial inequality could preserve slavery, Cheves demanded, “Ought we not to beware lest we be stirring a volcanic fire?” But Henry Seawell sided with Pleasants to permit the black testimony. Then in May 1828, Congress intervened, directing the commissioners to compensate widely, to the relief of the Chesapeake claimants, rather than to concentrate the funds to reward their rivals in the Deep South.38
Compensation
Among the Chesapeake claimants, Joseph C. Cabell had the most to lose—or gain—for he sought compensation for all sixty-nine slaves from Corotoman: his own forty-two as well as the twenty-seven belonging to the late Charles Carter. Deeply in debt, Cabell was desperate. “God grant that it may succeed,” he assured William Wirt, “for the Vast increase of my difficulties by miscalculations . . . has placed me on the edge of a fearful precipice. . . . I acknowledge that, in my peculiar situation at this time, the claim is of vital importance.” To serve as his agent Cabell hired Wirt, an old friend who had become the attorney general of the United States. Unable to pay a retainer, Cabell promised Wirt 5 percent of any compensation.39
Leaving no stone unturned, Cabell investigated the diaspora of the Corotoman runaways, tracking down leads from Trinidad to Nova Scotia with the help of two free black sailors, Holland Wood and Thomas Wood. In May 1821 in Halifax, Holland Wood had spotted six former friends from the Corotoman estate. They reported that the refugee women worked as servants in the hotels, while the men repaired the road between Halifax and Windsor. Five years later in Trinidad, Thomas Wood recognized another six Corotoman runaways, including Dick Carter, who had vowed “I will follow my wife and children to death.” Happily in 1826, Dick Carter was with his wife, Sukey, the probable organizer of the escape. Cabell also hired Addison Hall and James Kelley, two leading men in Lancaster County, to question the slaves still at Corotoman to reconstitute their family ties and identify the surnames on British lists of runaways.40
Cabell won a sweet victory on May 21, 1828, when the commissioners approved $20,640 in compensation for the sixty-nine Corotoman slaves. After deducting expenses, including Wirt’s commission, Cabell reaped $18,000: a substantial fortune for that time. Writing to thank Wirt, Cabell exulted:
The recovery of the Corrottoman claims is in regard to Doctor Carter’s estate & my own, one of those strokes of good fortune, which are decisive in their consequences. Our estates were on the brink of ruin. . . . You can imagine the effect of $18,000 suddenly brought to the aid of two estates in Virginia pressed to the utmost & on the verge of putting up all the slaves to the highest bidder to be scattered to the four winds of heaven—land
s rented out to be ploughed to be barren or sold for a song—the improvements of 20 years all lost to the owners—the graves of ancestors trodden under the hoof of the herds of speculators. Then, look at the revenue—creditors paid off or satisfied—credit restored—owners looking up—improvements advancing—prospects brightening—the heart ache relieved.
Cabell’s windfall saved the Corotoman slaves from an auction that would have divided and scattered families. By rescuing Cabell, the award spared the Corotoman slaves from paying for the financial sins of their master. The sixty-nine runaways of 1814 made possible the infusion of cash fourteen years later that rescued Cabell from his many blunders. Instead of cursing the runaways, Cabell should have thanked them for providing the basis for his financial bailout in 1828. Virginia’s slave system generated an endless series of such ironies.41
APPENDIX A
Corotoman Enslaved Families, 1814
After the war, in a bid for compensation, Joseph Cabell gathered information on the family relationships of the Corotoman runaways. At his behest, two local notables, Addison Hall and James Kelley, “diligently enquired among the slaves” who remained behind to reconstitute “the names, surnames, nicknames & connections of the negroes” who had left. Their report revealed family dynamics and structures ordinarily opaque to uninterested masters. The following table documents the thick interweaving of connections among the runaways and illuminates the patterns of who chose to go or to stay. The record has gaps and oddities, including a surprising number of children by the same parent with the same age. Rather than indicating a spate of twins in the community, the matching ages represent guesswork by Hall and Kelley, for they had no plantation register to pin down birth dates.1
In the following table, an asterisk indicates an adult with a sibling among the escapees; the person’s age appears within parentheses; a name within brackets was a relative left behind; and an italicized name identifies a person who came from the Carter side of the estate’s partition.
FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS AMONG THE COROTOMAN REFUGEES, APRIL 1814
Husband: *Tom Saunders (29)
Wife: *Hannah Marx Saunders (28)
Children: 1. Delia Saunders (6)
2. [Tom Saunders Jr. (6)]
3. Jo Saunders (6 months)
Husband: Hostler Joe Cox (42)
Wife: *Franky Cox (38)
Children: 1. [Hearty Cox (15)]
2. Dean Bundy Cox (13)
3. Talbot Cox (11)
4. Nelley Cox (11)
5. Joe Cox Jr. (8)
6. [Nick Cox (7)]
7. Edinburgh Cox (4)
8. Peyton Cox (4)
9. Hollis Cox (2)
10. James Cox (10 months)
Husband: [*Charles Saunders (50)]
Wife: *Fanny Loney Saunders (42)
Children: 1. Dinah Saunders (16)
2. Fanny Saunders (15)
3. Henry Saunders (13)
4. Nancy Saunders (12)
5. [Elizabeth Saunders (8)]
6. [James Saunders (6)]
7. Charles Saunders (6)
8. Alfred Saunders (4)
9. Lucinda Saunders (1)
Husband: Jim Bully Cook (30)
Wife: *Betty Saunders Cook (31)
Children: 1. [James Cook (8)]
2. [Mary Anne Cook (6)]
3. Sarah Cook (6)
4. Sukey Cook (4)
5. Cordelia Cook (3)
Husband: *Dick Carter (45)
Wife: *Sukey Saunders Carter (32)
Children: 1. Morrow Carter (8)
2. George Carter (6)
3. James Carter (4)
4. Solomon Carter (2)
Husband: [Joe Brown]
Wife: *Aggy Brown (37)
Children: 1. Joseph Brown Jr. (8)
2. Edinburgh Brown (4)
3. Hollis Brown (3)
Husband: George Brown (35)
Wife: *Amy Saunders Brown (29)
Children: 1. Young Brown (8)
2. James Brown (6)
3. George Brown Jr. (3)
4. unknown infant (3 weeks)
Husband: *Ezekiel Loney (27)
Wife: *Nelly Marx Loney (23)
Children: 1. China Loney (2)
Husband: Spencer Philips Wood (26)
Wife: Betty Stevens Wood (27)
Children: 1. Willoughby Wood (6)
2. Radnor Wood (4)
3. Nancy Wood (1)
Husband: [unknown]
Wife: [*Nancy Cain]
Children: 1. Betsey Bush (13)
Husband: *Peter Craney (33)
Wife: [unknown and deceased]
Children: 1. [James (6)]
Husband: [Smith Peter Baton]
Wife: [Great Jenny]
Children: 1. Canada Baton (21)
2. [Letty]
3. [Jenny]
4. [Polly]
5. [Nancy]
6. [Julia]
7. [Rocksy]
8. [Nelson]
9. [Patty]
Husband: Henry Lee (33)
Wife: Unity Lee (34)
Children: 1. Criss Lee (15)
2. Henry Lee Jr. (12)
3. Emily Lee (8)
4. Nelly Lee (6)
5. Robert Lee (4)
Husband: [Old John Brown (60)]
Wife: *Sukey Saunders Brown (23)
Children: 1. Joe Brown Jr. (6)
Husband: [Israel Brown]
Wife: [Rachel Brown]
Children: 1. Charity Brown (15)
2. Tom Brown (11)
Husband: [unknown]
Wife: *Sarah Anne Saunders Moore (20)
Children: 1. [Eliza (unknown)]
Husband: [unknown]
Wife: Sukey Cook (38)
Children:
Husband: [unknown]
Wife: Merinda Saunders (16)
Children:
Husband: [*Old Sam Loney]
Wife: [Jenny Cook]
Children: 1. Nancy Loney (6)
2. Gabriel Loney (6)
Husband: [unknown]
Wife: [unknown]
Children: 1. Dinah Dennis (14)
Husband: [unknown]
Wife: [unknown]
Children: 1. Charles James (13)
SIBLING RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN ADULTS AMONG THE COROTOMAN REFUGEES, APRIL 1814
Fanny Loney Saunders (42)—Ezekiel Loney (27)—[Old Sam Loney]
Betty Saunders Cook (31)—Amy Saunders Brown (29)—Sarah Anne Saunders Moore (20)
Sukey Saunders Carter (32)—Tom Saunders (29)—[Nancy Cain]
[Charles Saunders (50)]—Sukey Saunders Brown (23)
Hannah Marx Saunders (28)—Nelly Marx Loney (23)
Dick Carter (45)—Peter Craney (33)
Franky Cox (38)—Aggy Brown (37)
Note: Names in brackets were those who stayed behind; those in italics came from the Carter side; names underlined were women.
Sources: Joseph C. Cabell to William Wirt, Oct. 8, 1827, JCC&CFP (38-111), box 19, SSCL-UVA; Addison Hall and James Kelley, deposition, Feb. 21, 1828, and Joseph C. Cabell, Argument in Support of the Claims of Joseph C. Cabell, St. George Tucker, Charles Carter and Others (n.p., n.d.), in RG 76, entry 185, box 3, folder 6, USNA-CP. For Great Jenny’s other children, see Cabell, “Account of Expences of the Removal of the Corotoman Negroes,” May 6–20, 1814, and “List of Negroes Hired in Lynchburg,” RABC, box 48, folder 5, HL.
APPENDIX B
Numbers
How many slaves escaped from the shores of the Chesapeake during the War of 1812? Historians usually rely on the “definitive list” compiled by the postwar commission established to compensate masters. That list records 3 from the District of Columbia, 714 from Maryland, and 1,721 from Virginia, for a total of 2,438. The Chesapeake region accounted for two-thirds (2,438 of the 3,580 total) of the wartime runaways as determined by the claims commission, with Georgia generating the next largest number of runaways: 833. The balance (319) fled in smaller numbers from Louisiana,
Delaware, South Carolina, and the territories of Mississippi and Alabama.2
The 3,580 total for the United States understates the true number of runaways, particularly in the Chesapeake, because the commission required claimants to submit complex documentation formally notarized by county magistrates. Owing to the dispersed settlement pattern, poor access to information, and shaky literacy of common whites, many Chesapeake masters failed to submit claims or had them rejected. Some “sufferers” had moved out of state, and others had died leaving tangled estates. In May 1815 from the Northern Neck, Walter Jones lamented, “The sufferers in this quarter have been careless in verifying their losses, as a late Law of the State directs.” In March 1828 on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, Thomas Badger stated “that he knows a great many slaves went from this shore, some of which have never been claimed at all.”3
In fact, about 5,000 (rather than 3,580) slaves probably escaped from the United States during the war. British records indicate that from 1813 through 1816, they relocated at least 4,192 American runaways to three colonies: Nova Scotia (2,811), Trinidad (1,000), and New Brunswick (381). An additional number, probably 300, became scattered throughout the British Empire, primarily as sailors, dock-workers, and the servants of military officers, raising the total to about 4,492. Moreover, that total does not include those who died during the war: some from combat and more from disease. And the 4,492 excludes the runaway Georgians who remained in Florida as maroons. Including the dead and the maroons raises the probable total to at least 5,000, a number suggested by Thomas Spalding in 1815 and recently confirmed by historian Thomas Malcomson from his careful research in British naval records. If we accept the claims commission’s calculation that the Chesapeake region accounted for 68 percent of the wartime runaways (and Virginia’s share was 48 percent of the total), and apply those percentages to the 5,000, we derive a revised estimate of 3,405 for the Chesapeake, including 2,400 from Virginia (rather than just 1,721 per the official list).4
On the one hand, the flight of 2,400 slaves caused a sensation as the greatest number to escape from Virginia in any two-year period between the end of the American Revolution and the start of the Civil War. On the other hand, their escape made little dent in Virginia’s total slave population, which continued to grow through natural increase. Indeed, many more slaves left the state by sale to the Deep South during the 1810s: at least 90,000, or nearly thirty-eight times the number who escaped from Virginia to the British. Despite the numbers of wartime runaways and of export sales, in 1820 Virginia had more slaves than ever before: 425,153, up from 392,518 in 1810. During the troubled 1810 the increase in the state’s slave population was about fourteen times the number of wartime runaways from Virginia. In sum, the importance of the wartime escapes lay primarily in the psychological and political overreactions provoked among the Virginians, who felt shocked by any surge in runaways as a dangerously slippery slope toward slave revolt. Despite their modest numbers, the wartime runaways terrified Virginians who dreaded slaves as their “internal enemy.”5