The final day of the Raiders and Invaders Weekend on Sunday was billed as “Fun throughout St. Mary’s County.” From a concentration on Leonardtown the first two days, activities switched to a number of venues including Sotterley Plantation, Greenwell State Park, Historic St. Mary’s City, St. Clement’s Island Museum, Piney Point Lighthouse, Museum and Historic Site, Patuxent River Naval Air Museum, Port of Leonardtown Winery, Slack Winery at Woodlawn Farm, Christ Episcopal Church in Chaptico, Point Lookout State Park and Summerseat Farm
At Historic St. Mary’s City David and Ginger Hildebrand presented two concerts of period pieces on historic instruments. And St. Mary’s City Laboratory and Curator of Collections Silas Hurry presented an illustrated lecture entitled “Property Gone to the British.”
Hurry’s lecture in the auditorium carried on the same theme of the historic re-enactment at Sotterley of the “Choice,” which vividly portrayed the choices that the area’s slave population had to make when offered freedom by the British invaders.
According to Hurry, Maryland’s slave population declined only slightly (one-half of one percent) in the decade that included the War of 1812. But at some plantations, such as Sotterley, the numbers were considerably higher. According to historian and author Ralph Eshelman, in a lecture Saturday in Leonardtown, 48 of Sotterley’s 59 slaves defected.
Hurry, in his lecture, said 200 years ago, the summer of 1814 was a busy time along the Potomac River. From painstaking research, Hurry has been able to find records of three plantations in the St. Mary’s City area from which slaves took the British up on their offers.
The Treaty of Ghent which ended the war was signed on December 24, 1814. It provided for reparation for land owners whose slaves defected, underscoring the fact that they were considered property. The affidavits were from landowners John Mackall, James Adderton and Robert Lilburn.
Some of the slaves who joined the British naval forces were transported to Tangier Island, VA to become part of the Colonial Marines. They were trained at Fort Albion on Tangier. After the war the newly-freed men and women were transported to Trinidad. Some were from St. Mary’s County. Another contingent of former slaves was transported to Halifax, Nova Scotia
Hurry also reported on two little known historic facts. Although the British did pillage and loot along the Potomac and Patuxent shores, they often did pay for what they took. There was one report that the person responsible for a looting party on St. Ignatius Church was reprimanded and sent home and the stolen items were returned.
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