Archives of Maryland
(Biographical Series)

Charlotte Dunn (b. circa 1797 - d. ?)
MSA SC 5496-014965
War of 1812 Escaped Slave, Kent Island, Queen Anne's County, Maryland, 1813

Biography:

Born around 1789, Charlotte Dunn was the slave of Jane Gardner. She was enslaved on the farm of Jane's guardian, Robert Gardner of Calvert County.1
In 1810, Charlotte was one of ten slaves on Gardner's Kent Island farm.2

In August 1813, British forces took sixteen-year-old Charlotte and another slave, Milcah Luddy, from Gardner's farm. Robert Gardner's 1821 claim for compensation described the events surrounding the slaves' escape or kidnapping:

British troops under the command of Sir Sidney Beckwith accompanied by the naval command of Admiral Warren took possession of Kent Island and continued to occupy the same until about the twenty second day of the same month ... during the same time the British took from him one Negro woman Slave named Milcah aged twenty one years of the value of Three Hundred and fifty Dollars [and] one other Negro woman slave named Charlotte aged 16 years of the Value of three hundred and fifty Dollars.3
Gardner's claim did not state the name of the ship that Charlotte and Milcah boarded. However, it may have been Admiral Warren's ship, the San Domingo, which was anchored off Kent Island in August 1813. The San Domingo was still receiving black refugees in 1814.4
 


Footnotes

1.     Claim of Robert Gardner, Case Files, compiled ca. 1827 - ca. 1828, documenting the period ca. 1814 - ca. 1828, *ARC Identifier 1174160 / MLR Number PI 177 190,* National Archives, College Park.

2.     U.S. Census Bureau (Census Record, MD) for Robert Gardner, 1810, Queen Anne's County, district not stated, Page 20b, Line 9 [MSA SM61-55, M 2061-2].

3.     Claim of Robert Gardner.

4.      Definitive List of Slaves and Property/, compiled ca. 1827 - ca. 1828/ *ARC Identifier 1174162 / MLR Number PI 177 192,* National Archives at College Park.
         John McNish Weiss, The Merikens: Free Black American Settlers in Trinidad 1815-1816 (London, UK: McNish & Weiss, 2002) 33.
 

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