The Corps of Colonial Marines were two Marine units raised from former slaves for service in the Americas by the British at the behest of Alexander Cochrane. The units were created at two different times, and were later disbanded once the military threat had disappeared.
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| - Corps of Colonial Marines
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| - The Corps of Colonial Marines were two Marine units raised from former slaves for service in the Americas by the British at the behest of Alexander Cochrane. The units were created at two different times, and were later disbanded once the military threat had disappeared.
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| Garrison
| - Guadeloupe
- First Corps:
- Negro Fort
- Royal Naval Dockyard, Bermuda
- Second Corps:
- Tangier Island/Cumberland Island
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| Branch
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| Country
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| Type
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| Dates
| - 1808(xsd:integer)
- --05-18
- First Corps:
- Second Corps:
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| Unit Name
| - Corps of Colonial Marines
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| Commanders
| - Major George Lewis
- Second Corps:
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| Battles
| - Battle of Bladensburg
- Battle of Fort Peter
- Battle of North Point
- Burning of Washington
- Second Corps:
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| Size
| - Battalion
- First Corps:
Company
- Second Corps:
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| abstract
| - The Corps of Colonial Marines were two Marine units raised from former slaves for service in the Americas by the British at the behest of Alexander Cochrane. The units were created at two different times, and were later disbanded once the military threat had disappeared. 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 slaves as soldiers. The second, more substantial, Corps served from 18 May 1814 until 20 August 1816. The greater part of the Corps was stationed on the Atlantic coast, with a smaller body occupying a fort on the Gulf coast in Florida. Recruits were escaped slaves who gained their freedom by joining the British but, unlike the men of the West India Regiments, the Corps' recruits were loath to view themselves as "slave soldiers". Previously disenfranchised, the offer of freedom appealed to them; however, the establishment of the force sparked controversy at the time (the arming of former slaves represented a psychological threat to the slave-owning society of the Americas). As a consequence, the two senior officers of the Corps in Florida (George Woodbine and Edward Nicolls) were demonised in Niles' Register for their association with the Corps and inducing slave revolt. 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. Although several men accompanied the British to Bermuda, the majority continued to live in settlements around the wooden stockade the Corps had garrisoned (which had become a symbol of slave insurrection). This legacy of a community of armed fugitive slaves with a substantial arsenal would lead to tensions with the United States of America. Those remaining later took part in the Battle of Negro Fort in July 1816, after which they 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. They would continue in British service as garrison-in-residence at Bermuda until 1816, when the unit was disbanded and the ex-Marines resettled on Trinidad.
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