Black Redcoats: The Corps of Colonial Marines, 1814-1816

During the Anglo-American War of 1812, British forces launched hundreds of amphibious raids on the United States.The richest parts of the United States were slave-states, and thousands of enslaved African Americans fled to British forces in what was to be the largest emancipation of enslaved Americans until the abolition of slavery in the USA.From these refugees from slavery, the British built a force - the Corps of Colonial Marines.Black redcoats, they were a fusion of two great American fears, the return of the British King and an uprising by their own oppressed slaves.The Corps of Colonial Marines turned Britain's campaign on America's coasts from one of harassment to one of existential threat to the new nation.Although small in number, the Colonial Marines - fighting to liberate their own families as much as for Great Britain - exerted a massive psychological impact on the United States which paralysed American resistance with fear of a widespread slave uprising, and allowed Britis