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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