Freedom and Race in the War of 1812
…in four short stories
Essential Questions
What did the War of 1812 mean for Black Americans, the institution of slavery, and concepts of race? What changed?
Why did some Black Americans choose to fight for the Americans while others choose to fight for the British (while still others choose the Spanish side)?!
According to these four stories, how did “American identity” develop during the years surrounding the War of 1812? Is there a difference between “White American identity” and “Black American identity”?
Ned Simmons Peter Denison Charles Ball Prince Witten
Georgia Michigan Maryland Florida
“Main Menu of stories”
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Ned Simmons
Simmons was born in colonial South Carolina in 1763. He was forced to witness key battles of the Revolution while alongside his enslaver, Nathanael Greene (one of Washington’s top Generals). He served as a fifer.
After the war, General Greene bought a giant labor camp in Georgia and moved Simmons there.
At one point, Simmons was forced to carry President Washington’s bags while he visited.
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Ned Simmons
War of 1812
Like during the Revolution, when the British invaded during the War of 1812, thousands of Black Americans fled American labor camps and their enslavers to the safety of the British Army and many, including the now nearly 60 yr old Simmons, volunteered to fight under the for British commander Francis Cockburn. (the guy who would burndown the White House)
Simmons lived at the British fort on Cumberland Island and recruited other Black refugees to enlist in the British Army while their families were sailed to freedom in the Bahamas
Cumberland Island
Georgia
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Ned Simmons
Treaty of Ghent in 1815
In the peace treaty that ended the War of 1812, the Americans forced the British to pay for “property” that they took (aka, the people that they helped to liberate…)
Cockburn fought as hard as he could to make sure all 1,700 Black refugees at Cumberland Island made it safely to freedom and British territory, but 80 were forced to return back to American slavery.
Unfortunately for Simmons, he was forced to return to the Greene labor camp in Georgia.
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Peter Denison
Michigan Territory was declared “free soil” by the Founding Fathers in the passage of the Northwest Ordinance. This was one of the strongest anti-slavery statements in early American and indeed, world history at the time. Though the young Republic allowed and protected human trafficking, many Founders hoped the institution would eventually die out and declared that new American states would be free of the evils of slavery. For a brief time after Jay’s Treaty of 1794 and the start of the War of 1812, a sort of “reverse Underground Railroad” developed. Enslaved Black Canadians crossed the Detroit River INTO the U.S. for freedom in Michigan.
Freedom
Denison was a prominent Black Detroiter who fought for his civil rights in the Michigan courts
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Peter Denison
Prelude to the War of 1812
As hostilities between the U.S. and the British increased (especially after the Chesapeake Affair in 1807), Michigan territorial governor William Hull asked Denison to train and lead a Black militia to defend Fort Detroit against the British and their American Indian allies.
Hull eventually had to surrender
the fort without a fight.
Freedom
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Charles Ball
Ball was born in Maryland. Late in life, Ball published a narrative about his life.
When he was four, he and his mother were sold to different labor camps. His last image of her was her being beaten by her new enslaver as she wept and begged to stay with her child.
Ball was later trafficked further South down to Georgia where he describes he saw the “true horrors” of slavery in the Deep South. He eventually escaped and made his way back to Maryland.
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Charles Ball
Back in Maryland, Ball made a decent life for himself as a “semi-free” escaped fugitive. Between 1808-1813, he became a successful farmer and purchased his own farm and raised a family.
He was respected enough by white neighbors so that he lived in relative security of not being sold back to the Deep South.
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Charles Ball
War of 1812
The British invaded the Chesapeake region in the summer of 1813. They looted tobacco farms and liberated enslaved people. White plantation owners asked Ball to go to the British fleet and try to convince the enslaved to return. Zero people took up Ball on the offer.
A British officer asked Ball if he wanted to stay and become free on a British island but Ball said no, he was a free man.
In 1814, he volunteered to serve in the U.S. Navy’s Chesapeake Flotilla under Commander Joshua Barney. Ball wanted to prove that he deserved his status and wanted to prove he was just as tough and loyal as any other American.
(typically, free men of color were not called to volunteer but as the British forces came nearer to D.C., an exception was made).
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Prince Witten
Prince Witten’s love for his wife Judy, son Glasgow, and six year daughter Polly led him on a dangerous journey through the wilderness of Georgia into liberation in Spanish Florida.
When Witten learned of the possibility that his family would be sold and split up, he led them on the path of thousands of Black Americans before him.
Because of his skill as a carpenter, he was able to make good home for his family in St. Augustine.
When a Spaniard tried to make his wife Judy work in the fields, Witten sued and won in the courts. Black families had rights in Spanish Florida that were unheard of in Georgia.
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Prince Witten
Witten joined the Spanish Black militia that was key to guarding Spanish sovereignty and Black liberation in the territory.
White Americans in Georgia and South Carolina considered Black liberation in Spanish Florida to be a major threat to both white American values and the American economy.
American militias invaded Florida in 1812 with the hope of taking the territory and expanding slavery.
Modern day reenactors of Spain’s Black Militia in Florida
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Prince Witten
Florida's Black militia proved to be the deciding factor in defeating the American invaders and would- be-enslavers in 1812.
Witten was prompted to the rank of an officer in the Spanish military. During the fight, Witten and his men were joined by famous veterans from the Haitian Revolution.
In Spanish Florida, Witten was a full citizen. He received recognition and a medal from the Spanish King.
George Biassou, a leader of Haiti’s Revolution, fought alongside Witten in St. Augustine, FL
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What happened to these men after the War?
Ned Simmons: He was forced to return to his enslavers and lived another 40 years until the age of 100 and finally escaped during the Civil War and died a free man in a Union Army Camp. This story is too interesting for a brief summary. Click here for more.
Peter Denison: The sources run dry after he is excused from the Michigan militia in 1808. Did he fight in the War of 1812? On what side? All we know is that a few years later, he was resident of Canada on the other side of the Detroit River.
Charles Ball: Clearly, Ball made the wrong choice when he refused British assistance and tried to prove himself to his fellow Americans. A few years after the war, he was arrested as a fugitive slave and forced to return to Georgia. He never saw his family again.
Prince Witten: When Spain officially surrendered Florida to the U.S., Witten and his family moved safely to freedom on the Spanish island of Cuba.
Essential Questions
What did the War of 1812 mean for Black Americans, the institution of slavery, and concepts of race? What changed?
Why did some Black Americans choose to fight for the Americans while others choose to fight for the British (while still others choose the Spanish side)?!
According to these four stories, how did “American identity” develop during the years surrounding the War of 1812? Is there a difference between “White American identity” and “Black American identity”?
Decades passed after Simmons’s re-enslavement after the War of 1812. By 1860 and the time of the Civil War, Simmons was an elderly man, but the fight for freedom had reignited across the country. For a third time in his life, the chaos of war allowed him to escape. He eventually made it to a Union Army camp, a place where he could finally see that the Union forces were truly working toward emancipation. Imagine his journey, after all those years and struggles, finally reaching freedom in the Union army camp.
What’s most incredible about Simmons’ story is what happened next. At nearly 100 years old, he learned to read—a skill that had been denied to him his whole life. For Ned Simmons, learning to read was about more than just letters on a page; it was about claiming a freedom of the mind, a powerful statement of his unbreakable spirit. His story is a testament to the strength, hope, and resilience that carried so many enslaved people through unimaginable hardships. Click here to go to the final discussion questions.
Simmons as a British soldier in 1812.