Corps of Colonial Marines

This article is about the historical British Army regiments. For other uses, see Colonial Marines (disambiguation).

Corps of Colonial Marines
A British Colonial Marine in a light coloured fatigue uniform, worn for performing ordinary duties and a common sight on Tangier Island in Chesapeake Bay but on the battlefield, the red coat of the service uniform would have been worn
ActiveFirst Corps:

1808–1815
Second Corps:

18 May 1814 – 20 August 1816
Country United Kingdom
Branch Royal Navy
TypeMarine Infantry
Size
Garrison/HQFirst Corps:

Guadeloupe
Second Corps:
Tangier Island/Cumberland Island
Negro Fort

Royal Naval Dockyard, Bermuda
PatronSir Alexander Cochrane
EngagementsFirst Corps:

Napoleonic Wars

Second Corps:
War of 1812

First Seminole War

Commanders
Notable
commanders		Second Corps:
Major George Lewis

The Corps of Colonial Marines were two different British Marine units raised from former black slaves for service in the Americas, at the behest of Alexander Cochrane.[1] The units were created at two separate periods: 1808-1810 during the Napoleonic Wars; and then again during the War of 1812; both units being disbanded once the military threat had passed. Apart from being created in each case by Cochrane, they had no connection with each other.

The first Corps was a small unit that served in the Caribbean from 1808 to 12 October 1810, recruited from former slaves to address the shortage of military manpower in the Caribbean. The locally-recruited men were less susceptible to tropical illnesses than were troops sent from Britain. The Corps followed the practice of the British Army's West India Regiments in recruiting former slaves as soldiers. In the previous year, the Mutiny Act 1807 emancipated all slaves in the British Army and, as a result, subsequently enlisted slaves were considered free on enlistment.

The second, more substantial, Corps served from 18 May 1814 until 20 August 1816.[2] The greater part of the Corps was stationed at St. Augustine on the Atlantic coast, with a smaller body occupying the future Negro Fort, on the Apalachicola River in remote northwest Florida.[3] Recruits were accepted from among escaped slaves who had already gained their freedom on coming into British hands and who were unwilling to join West India Regiments.[4] The establishment of the force sparked controversy at the time, as the arming of former slaves was a psychological as well as military threat to the slave-owning society of the United States.[5] As a consequence, the two senior officers of the Corps in Florida, George Woodbine and Edward Nicolls, were demonised by Americans such as Hezekiah Niles in his Baltimore publication, the Weekly Register for their association with the Corps and inducing slave revolt.[6][7][8][9]

At the end of the War of 1812, as the British post in Florida was evacuated, the Corps' Florida detachment was paid off and disbanded.[10] Although several men accompanied the British to Bermuda, the majority continued to live in settlements around the fort the Corps had garrisoned.[11] This legacy of a community of armed fugitive slaves with a substantial arsenal was unacceptable to the United States of America.[12] After the Fort was destroyed in the Battle of Negro Fort of 1816, the former Marines joined the southward migration of Seminoles and African Americans escaping the American advance. Members of the Colonial Marine battalion who were deployed on the Atlantic coast withdrew from American territory.[13] They continued in British service as garrison-in-residence at Bermuda until 1816, when the unit was disbanded and the ex-Marines resettled on Trinidad.[14]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference TheWire2016-02-05 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Mills, T.F. "Corps of Colonial Marines, Royal Marines, 1814–1816". Land Forces of Britain, The Empire and Commonwealth. Regiments.org (archived version). Archived from the original on 20 September 2007. Retrieved 3 February 2013.
  3. ^ Heidler, p434
  4. ^ McNish Weiss, John (June 2012). "'Averse to any kind of controul': American refugees from slavery building the new Royal Naval Dockyard at Bermuda". Archived from the original on 3 March 2014. Retrieved 20 February 2013. Letter from Sir James Cockburn on the subject of the Colonial Marines mentions the "strong & determined prejudices of these men against the West Indian corps, & the high ideas of superiority which they attach to themselves over the African negroes who chiefly compose those regiments; with whom, I am assured, no inducement could probably tempt them to indiscriminately mix & enlist themselves in the same corps
  5. ^ Owsley & Smith, p105
  6. ^ "Niles' National Register, volume 7". 23 June 1814. p. 348. [Woodbine] was actually raising a military force enlisting all red, black and white persons that chose to come forward to the red cross of British humanity
  7. ^ "Niles' National Register, volume 7". 5 February 1815. p. 364. Woodbine was coming on in the rear, at the head of 600 Indians, and that the settlements on the St Mary's and Satilla rivers were breaking up in consequence. On the 21st it appeared ascertained that the enemy's force was about 2,000 men, part blacks
  8. ^ "Niles' National Register, volume 8". 15 July 1815. p. 285. [Colonel] Nicolls continues at the British Post...with the Indians heretofore in hostility against the United States, exercising over them an assumed superintendancy, and directing their conduct in relation to our people.. we can never rest contented and see a British officer (especially of Col. Nicolls' stamp) acting as their superintendent, civil and military
  9. ^ "Niles' National Register, volume 8". 15 July 1815. p. 284. Major Nicholls [sic] was tried in May 1812, on thirteen charges - the first of which was cruelty to a private...by beating...For all of these charges, he was only reprimanded..though the court [disapproved] .. in severe terms on the violence he had evinced on those several occasions.
  10. ^ Landers, p125
  11. ^ Owsley & Smith, p107
  12. ^ Rodriguez (Ed), p346
  13. ^ Nicolas, p288
  14. ^ Rodriguez (Ed), p66