Not having time to consult Virginia newspapers for the period to look
for local accounts, and surprised that no other list members have yet
commented publicly on this request, let me react this way in hopes of
stimulating some more discussion:

Rumors or fears of subversive activities by enslaved people seem to have
been quite common during the colonial period and right up through the
Civil War. Sometimes rumors or news showed up in the newspapers, and
sometimes there are records of prosecutions in the county court records
or letters from local magistrates or militia commanders sent to the
governor asking for arms to put down or guard against an uprising.

We did a small exhibition at the Library of Virginia not long ago on
this very topic, for which see
http://www.lva.lib.va.us/whoweare/exhibits/DeathLiberty/index.htm

So far as I know, nobody has made an attempt to catalog these episodes,
if that is what they should be called. Some were no doubt baseless fears
or rumors. But enough prosecutions of enslaved people for crimes that
could be termed insurrection took place (see Phil Schwarz's TWICE
CONDEMNED) to suggest to me that a good many white people could be
legitimately worried about what enslaved people might be up to.

The memory in Virginia of large-scale elopements of enslaved people
during the American Revolution was doubtless still fresh, and with a
British force coming back to Virginia, white Virginians would easily
have imagined that a tactic of war would be for the British to encite
revolts or mass running away. It had happened before, already.

All of which is to say, I'd be surprised if  a New York newspaper had to
make up something.

Brent Tarter
The Library of Virginia
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Visit the Library of Virginia's web site at http://www.lva.lib.va.us


-----Original Message-----
From: John Weiss [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 
Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2003 9:41 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Rumoured insurrection near Hampton, early 1813


In 1813, soon after the first appearance of the British fleet in the
Chesapeake in the War of 1812, issue no 427 of 'The War' contained this
item on page 180: << NEW-YORK TUESDAY MORNING, APRIL 6, 1813 Latest from
the Chesapeake. It is said that an intended insurrection among the
Negroes in the vicinity of Hampton has been frustrated. Two thousand
were embodied and partly organised, when a captain of a vessel
discovered them exercising near the shores of the Chesapeake. The
ringleaders are secure, and all suspected Negroes committed to prison.
>>

I have found no other reference to this intended insurrection - does
anyone know of local reports? The first British first ships had appeared
around February 8th, and the main squadron in the following month, on
March 4th, anchored in Lynhaven Bay (i.e. Lynhaven Roads). There were
plenty of slaves anxious to take their freedom by way of the Royal Navy,
and there is evidence of a long-standing belief that the British King
would one day come to liberate them; and apart from documented help
given by Blacks to the British as guides and pilots, the flow of
refugees to British ships started on March 10th, amounting by the end of
June to nearly, and I should say merely in view of the size of the
rumoured insurrection, two hundred.

I should welcome any information on what event might have inspired this
news item. After all, there were barely more than 2000 slaves in the
whole of Princess Anne county in 1810, and even if you take in Norfolk
and Nansemond as well, would not the movement of 2000 towards a
gathering have been somewhat noticeable, and not just by the captain of
a vessel?

It might have been good to be able to link this to the burning of The
Pleasure House, for which my enquiry last month produced a wide range of
helpful responses, but that event was late in 1813 (and not in 1814 as
mis-stated in my subject line for that enquiry). And as for the sacking
of Hampton, in which the British apparently "invited escaped slaves who
had flocked into Hampton from the surrounding area to join in the
festivities", this did not happen until June 1813, so there is no
connection there. [Donald E Graves, "Worthless is the laurel steeped in
female tears; an investigation into the outrages committed by British
troops at Hampton, Virginia, in 1813", Journal of the War of 1812, VII,
1, p11.] If the New York paper did not invent the whole story, what was
its foundation?

John Weiss
Independent scholar, London

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