Stephen Beauchamp (b. circa 1794 - d. ?)
MSA SC 5496-014969
War of 1812 Escaped Slave, Somerset County, Maryland, 1814
Biography:
On October 15, 1814, twenty-year-old Stephen Beauchamp fled his enslavement on Thomas Beauchamp's farm. Stephen escaped with his brother, Elijah Beauchamp, and a third slave, Jack Teagle, to the British frigate Regulus1 under Captain Robert Ramsay.2 The ship lay in the Tangier Sound at the time, off the coast of Somerset County.
Following their escape, Stephen and Elijah Beauchamp both served under the British in the Sixth Company of Colonial Marines. In November of 1814, the slaveholder Thomas Jones of Somerset County saw Stephen on Tangier Island “in British uniform and in the British ranks."3 Jones also reported seeing Thomas King Carroll's slaves "Dollar and Hezekiah," John P. Gale's slaves David and Nathan, Isaac Beachamp's slave Mentor Beauchamp, and William Sudler's slaves from Anne Arundel County. They had all enlisted around the same time.4 Jones later testified that he spoke with them, "having known them well when in possession of their Masters and inquired of them if they would return." He did not report their response.5
Following the War of 1812, Stephen, Elijah, and Mentor Beauchamp settled
in Trinidad in the Company Villages, on the sixteen acres of land that
the British had promised each soldier's family.6
1. Claim of Samuel Beauchamp,
Case 784,. 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.
3.
John McNish Weiss, The Merikens: Free Black American Settlers in Trinidad:
1815-1816 (London, UK: McNish & Weiss, 2002) 43.
2. Admiralty-Office. The
Navy List (London, UK: H.M. Stationery Office, 1814) 66.
3.
Michael Crawford, ed., The Naval War of 1812: A Documentary History.
Vol. 3 (Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, 2002) 163 and 165.
3. Claim of Samuel Beauchamp.
3.
U.S. Census Bureau (Census Record, MD) for Thomas Jones, 1810, Somerset
County, Great Annamessex Hundred, Somerset County, Page 1, 12th line from
bottom [MSA SM61-57, M 2061-4].
4. Claim of Samuel Beauchamp.
Weiss, supplement
2, pg. 3.
5. Claim of Samuel Beauchamp.
6. Weiss 43.
3.
Wiley Hall, ed., "The Colonial Marines," The Maryland Natural Resource
11.4 (Fall 2008): 9. Maryland State Archives.
3.
Junius P. Rodriguez, ed., "Black Freedom Fighters (War of 1812)." Encyclopedia
of Slave Resistance and Rebellion. Vol. 1: A-N (Westport, CT: Greenwood,
2007) 66.
Return to Stephen Beauchamp's Introductory Page
|
Tell Us What You Think About the Maryland State Archives Website!
|