In the summer of 1814, four men paddled a canoe from Sotterley Creek to find the British fleet. Weeks later they came back in British uniforms, and dozens more people left with them.
That account, as Historic Sotterley tells it, is part of the story behind a new exhibit now open in the Hollywood site’s Visitor Center. “Black Red Coats on the Chesapeake Bay: Freedom Seeking Soldiers from Tangier to Trinidad” explores the War of 1812 and the Colonial Marines, a British unit made up of formerly enslaved people from the Chesapeake region, and where its men and their families went after taking their freedom.
Sotterley names James Bowie, Peregrine Young, Joseph Wood and Ignatius Seale as the four men who made the first trip. By its count, 49 people in all chose to leave with the British. After the war, Britain refused American demands to return them, and families were resettled as free landowners in Nova Scotia and Trinidad.
The Colonial Marines grew out of a proclamation issued April 2, 1814 by Vice Admiral Alexander Cochrane that offered freedom to enslaved people who joined the British. According to the National Park Service, about 200 men from the Chesapeake region joined the corps and trained on Tangier Island, and the Marines took part in the British advance on Washington and the Battle of North Point. About 4,000 freedom seekers in all joined the British effort.
The story did not end with the war. Between 1815 and 1821, nearly 700 formerly enslaved people and their families were settled in six Company Villages in Trinidad. Their descendants are known as the Merikins, a name derived from “American,” and many still live in the original communities.
The exhibit was researched and developed by Dr. Tayzhuan Glover, an assistant professor of history at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a Mellon Humanities postdoctoral fellow with the American Conservation Experience, according to Sotterley. Glover, who holds a Ph.D. in history from Duke University, spoke at Sotterley in July 2025 about the journey of the enslaved men, women and children from Sotterley who were resettled in Trinidad in 1815.
“Historic Sotterley is excited to house this new exhibit designed by Dr. Tayzhuan Glover,” said Katherine Humphries, Sotterley’s interpretive programs manager. She said it “highlights not only the history of the Colonial Marines during the War of 1812, but also the years following the end of the war and how their story stretches from plantations like Sotterley to Nova Scotia, England, and Trinidad, reminding us that our local history is connected to a much larger international story.”
The exhibit fits a wider local effort to tell the stories of freedom seekers. At Mackall Plantation at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, 19 enslaved men, women and children freed themselves by joining the British fleet during the war, and all 19 later settled in Trinidad and Nova Scotia. Sotterley, which relied on enslaved labor for 165 years until Maryland’s emancipation on Nov. 1, 1864, has also been working with descendants of the people who lived there.
Visitors can see the exhibit during regular weekend hours: Fridays and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Sundays from noon to 4 p.m. The Visitor Center closes for the winter on Saturday, Oct. 31, and reopens in spring 2027. Historic Sotterley is at 44300 Sotterley Lane in Hollywood, and its phone number is 301-373-2280.
