‘Creating insurrections in the heart of our country:’ fear of the British West India Regiments in the Southern US Press, 1839–1860

ABSTRACT In the decades leading to the Civil War, the United States and Great Britain faced a number of diplomatic crises, during which southern politicians often became alarmed at the prospect of British soldiers invading the southern coastline. The perceived threat was part of a wider southern paranoia over Britain’s role in what was seen as a conspiracy to demolish the southern American system of slavery for Britain’s ultimate economic gain. The alarm over an imagined British invasion was exacerbated by the fact that the anticipated invaders were free black men, the West India Regiments, stationed in the British West Indies. The tone of this paranoia was shaped by the memory of black participation in the War of 1812 and the fear that slaves would flee to British lines in any future conflict. An analysis of the discourse about these men in the southern press tells us much about the fears of southern slaveholders with regard to the trustworthiness of their own slaves and the ever-present threat of slave rebellion. Ultimately, the fears expressed about a disciplined black army led by an abolitionist imperial power reveal the true nature of southern anxiety over the stability of the South’s own form of white supremacy.

In the decades prior to the Civil War, the American slaveholding South became increasingly concerned about both its foreign and northern enemies and, crucially, the enemy within: its slave population. After Nat Turner's Rebellion of 1831, in which more than 50 white slaveholders and their families in Virginia were killed, the South experienced no actual large-scale slave rebellions. Yet while slaveholders tried to convince themselves that their slaves were faithful and trustworthy, rumours of poisoning, arson and planned slave rebellions circulated widely, leading to numerous slave insurrection panics. 1 The 1840s and 1850s saw a period of strong Anglophobia, with fears of British invasion on the south-eastern coastline and, in the aftermath of British abolition of slavery, the South became increasingly concerned about the relative geographical proximity of the British West India Regiments, formed of free black soldiers stationed in the Caribbean. Some of the regiments had fought on American soil during the War of 1812 and this remained fixed in the southern memory as a source of paranoia. An analysis of southern newspaper reports about a possible invasion by black troops demonstrates how this scenario was disseminated to a wider slaveholding public.
The southern press was important in popularising the fears of politicians. It has been well documented that American politicians, particularly southerners, were concerned about a possible invasion by the West India Regiments, yet there has been very little analysis of the way in which this putative invading force was portrayed in the southern press or exactly why it was considered so terrifying. Southern newspaper articles show how news about a possible invasion by the British West India Regiments perpetuated both a deep-seated fear of slave rebellion within the South, and a long-standing Anglophobia linked to the fear that the enslaved population would support a British invasion. Newspaper coverage gives us a better understanding of what slaveholders found so menacing about the prospect of the West India Regiments landing on the shores of the South, and a glimpse into southern anxiety over its own form of white supremacy and its long-term stability. Using fear of the West India Regiments as a case study, it is possible to analyse how southern Anglophobia addressed a southern idea of whiteness and a specific form of white supremacy.

Anglophobia and the fear of invasion by the West India regiments
From the late 1830s until the Civil War, diplomatic tensions between the United States and Great Britain were severe and, at moments, came close to war. Fear amongst southern leaders that the British would send an invasion force of black troops was part of an increasing Anglophobia, particularly in the South where southern slaveholders saw Britain's abolition of slavery in 1833 as part of a grand conspiracy designed to weaken the United States. 2 In 1842 the Washington, DC. Madisonian described British plans for 'the destruction of slave labor in America' in order for Britain to eradicate 'the cotton culture to which this country is the successful rival of her East India possessions.' 3 However, while Britain did attempt to use India as an alternative cotton source after 1830 and put obstacles in the path of Atlantic slaveholders after 1833, there is no evidence of a 'nefarious conspiracy that linked the two policies, unless, perhaps, it was the nefarious conspiracy of global capitalism itself.' 4 The fear that Britain had a plan to end southern slavery had developed into a source of great anxiety. In a speech to the Senate in January 1842 delivered in the wake of the antislavery convention in London in 1840, Virginian Henry Wise expressed alarm at the 'black army of sixty thousand men' that had been raised in Jamaica. He insisted that: English Abolitionists were moving on Jamaica, and contemplating to make their next demonstration on Cubawhile they were establishing lines of a commercial marine, connecting England and the West Indies with this country, and thus opening the way for a military marine to follow, which at the first sound of the tocsin would pour in armies of trained free blacks upon the whole South. 5 Concern that the British were working alongside American abolitionists to destroy American slavery was a constant theme whenever tensions rose with Britain in the decades prior to the Civil War. 6 This is exemplified in Wise's observations in the same speech that: 'English influence abroad was in league with the same English influence at home to dissolve this Union; that there was foreign conspiracy, aided by home agents, to effect a union between Abolitionists and dissolutionists in this country.' 7 Between 1838 and 1846, a number of 'Anglo-American' crises occurred, including the burning of the American ship, Caroline, by Canadian authorities (1837), the arrest and trial in New York of the Canadian, Alexander McLeod (1840) and ongoing disputes over the Maine and Oregon boundaries. 8 By the mid-1840s, political debate focused on the annexation of Texas in order to support the western expansion of slavery. Southern politicians used arguments about the threat of British abolitionism in order to gain support for their proannexation stance. 9 Such politicians used the reports of Robert Monroe Harrison, the US consul in Jamaica, to develop a theory that abolitionist Britain would use Jamaica as a base from which to attack the southern states. Harrison was concerned that the 'recruiting of blackguard negroes' to serve in the British army would be a danger to the South because, as he put it, 'these fellows will be excellent firebrands to be thrown ashore on our slaveholding states' during wartime. In 1841, Harrison argued that Britain would 'throw [an army] of 200,000 blacks' onto the southern coast. 10 Harrison was referring to the British West India Regiments, which were free black soldiers stationed in the Caribbean. 11 These soldiers, commanded by white officers, numbered around 1600 in 1835, significantly less than the number claimed by Harrison a few years later. 12 Yet their mere presence was enough to worry Southerners whenever diplomatic tensions mounted. War did not break out during the tensions of the 1830s, 1840s and 1850s, and the British did not send the West India Regiments onto southern soil; there was 'no immediate war plan in London to land West Indian troops on the Gulf Coast.' 13 Yet the idea was mooted amongst British politicians. Indeed, Matzke provides evidence that officials discussed using troops from the Caribbean in the southern states in order to 'distribute muskets to the Negroes in Syrian style'a reference to a tactic used by the British in the 1840s to arm Syrian rebels who supported the British campaign against Egyptian forces. 14 Conflict between Britain and the US seemed increasingly possible during the many periods of diplomatic tension, and southern politicians were enormously concerned over the vulnerability of the southern coastline. Fear of a British attack encouraged the 'distinctly southern naval activism' of this time. 15 Whether these fears were based on fact or fiction, they reflected a perceived need for accelerated armament of the US navy in order to secure the southern coast. The impending threat of British attack thus because 'both a goad and a license for the navalists.' 16 Southern politicians called for naval reform and modernisation, as did Abel P. Upshur, Secretary of the Navy, in his 1841 annual report to Congress. The ideas expressed by Upshur and other southern navalists continued to resonate into the 1840s and 1850s. 17 Aware that British steamships could access their coastline, southern Anglophobes continued to fear the specter of Britain's 'coloured battalions.' 18 To understand why black troops under the supervision of another white supremacist state seemed so menacing, we need to understand the use of black troops by the British as well as African American support for the British, since the American Revolution. Put simply, we need a better appreciation of the role of slave resistance in understanding Anglophobia. Taking issue with Eugene Genovese's assertion that slaves in the Old South 'experienced little or no exterior power except that of their masters,' Gerald Horne argues that a putative alliance between Great Britain and African Americans was 'probably the single most important threat to US national security' due to the fact that a significant proportion of the US populationits enslaved populationwas 'supportive of its external foe.' 19 That Britain could count on the support of the southern enslaved population was a powerful threat with historical precedent. Indeed, in a speech given in Birmingham, UK in 1846 at a time when the US and Britain seemed on the brink of war, Frederick Douglass told his audience that 'in the event of a British army landing in the States and offering liberty to the slaves, they would rally round the British at the first tap of the drum.' 20 This was indeed a well-founded claim, given that African Americans had fought for the British in both the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 and would subsequently flock to Union banners in the Civil War.
Anglophobia provided a psychological crutch in the daily lives of slaveholders in the decades leading to the Civil War. Its message to fearful slaveholders was that any real threat came from 'outside the society rather than from within.' Therefore, so long as there was no infiltration of abolitionist ideas to their slaves, slaveholders were safe and 'one need not fear external instigation of internal treachery.' 21 The real threat was from British and northern abolitionists who might trick otherwise happy slaves into rebelling. Indeed, 'the logic of Anglophobia … allowed southerners to continue belief in this fiction in the face of slave resistance.' 22 Furthermore, this Anglophobia must have reached new levels of fear when the 'outside threat' consisted of free black soldiers under the military command of white officers. The fear then was that the enslaved would escape to fight for the British and help end the institution of slavery. In this sense, Anglophobia became both a psychological crutch and a source of incredible paranoia; it allowed the daily life of the slaveholders to continue without fear of their slaves so long as no British invasion seemed imminent, whilst ultimately, it also provided the spectre of the destruction of their entire way of life.

The southern press and fear of the West India regiments
The southern press clearly supported the interests of the propertied elite. The majority of the readership of the southern newspapers discussed here comprised wealthy white males, evidenced by the money needed to afford the yearly subscription rates of most political newspapers. 23 Importantly, many of these men were slaveholders. It is worth noting that many southern elite women were also interested in the contents of the newspapers, listening when husbands and male relatives read pamphlets and newspapers aloud, and even reading the news to one another. 24 To maintain the financial stability of their newspapers, southern editors often had no choice but to structure their content in the interests of the elite. Indeed, these editors 'survived by joining, or at least integrating themselves with, the establishment.' 25 In this sense, the editors spoke for the slaveholders of the South; they were the 'voice of the politically active and economically significant segment of the community,' and served as 'weathercocks, indicating the prevailing views of the elite.' 26 The press, and its associated racialised media discourse, helped engender panic about slave insurrections in the antebellum South, and the underlying foundation of the panic was a long-standing social fear: an 'all-consuming, irrational fear that white people had regarding the potential or real violence that black people could inflict on them.' 27 The fear of slaves acting against white control was played out in the media, fanning public concern and encouraging the authorities to act in order to maintain their own economic and cultural interests. 28 The concern of Southern politicians about the possible invasion of the southern coastline by the black West India Regiments of the British Army is well documented, but there has been comparatively little analysis of the extent to which these fears were played out in newspapers. Rugemer believes it likely that the correspondence of Robert Monroe Harrison was leaked to the press. 29 He also argues that the fear of a British attack on the South 'using a black army from the West Indies was not uncommon.' 30 In addition, Karp's work on southern navalism shows how one prominent southerner in particular played a role in arguing for better naval defences in the press. In a number of articles in the Richmond Whig newspaper in 1838, Lieutenant Matthew Fontaine Maury, a Virginian oceanographer, naval scientist and defender of slavery who wrote under the pseudonym 'Harry Bluff,' argued that the southern coastline was vulnerable to attack by Britain. 31 As Anglo-American tensions increased in the early 1840s, Maury pressed his navalist campaign further in articles in the Southern Literary Messenger arguing that the southern coastline was vulnerable to the British 'black-a-moor regiments. ' 32 By examining articles in southern newspapers during flashpoints in diplomatic tensions between the US and Britain during the period 1839-1860, we can see how fear of an invasion by British black troops was a long-standing and recurring theme in the southern press. It is reasonable to assume that stories repeating alarm about an invasion of black troops along the southern coastline may have influenced readers' own anxieties and their perception of threat. An analysis of newspaper content suggests ways in which Anglophobia might have shaped slaveholders' feelings about the trustworthiness of their own slaves. It was not only during times of slave insurrection panics that the press used its power to perpetuate fear. Newspapers fed the minds of slaveholders with images of possible rebellion, conjuring up past memories which may have contributed to anxiety over the future of the system of slavery. The image of a black British army on the southern coastline, and its possible use as an invasion force, was another powerful theme in the construction of slaveholder fear.
The rank and file of the West India Regiments in this period were free black men, and this fact is important in understanding southern fears. In the antebellum South, being black was synonymous with being a slave. Studies of proslavery intellectual thought highlight antebellum debates over slavery and southern justifications for the enslavement of African Americans. 33 Within many proslavery narratives there was a clear racial defence of slavery that promoted a 'herrenvolk democracy,'justifying the enslavement of an inferior 'race' as the foundation for an egalitarian white democracy. 34 Whiteness was privileged, and attempts were made to reduce the status differences between whites in order to stress the social importance of race above class. 35 This was sharpened in the 1840s and 1850s by a greater emphasis on a scientific racism, which stressed the inherent inferiority of the 'black race' based on supposedly impartial scientific wisdom. 36 Yet the description in many newspaper reports of the West India Regiments as 'disciplined' was at odds with the racist stereotypes used by slaveholders to justify slavery. These black men were not docile or childlike; they were organised and potentially dangerous.
In recent years, significant scholarly attention has been paid to the arming of slaves and formerly enslaved individuals. 37 David Lambert has shown how this caused significant anxiety among white West Indians who opposed the establishment of the regiments largely due to an 'intense 'Negrophobia'' that was 'habitual among a white, slaveholding minority in colonial slave societies.' 38 The southern US press portrayed the black men of the West India Regiments as capable of enacting mass violence, and in doing so highlighted the many anxieties that white society had with the notion of the armed black man. 39 This was a black army under the supervision of white officers, fighting on behalf of another white state. The white man, the British manthe 'white officer and skilful general'used the black body as an extension of himself, not only as a physical force, but as a vehicle and translator of ideas of freedom with which to entice the enslaved of the South to rebel and to serve the British. These soldiers, as free black men, fighting in a way that mirrored white mass violence, would be symbols of freedom to the enslaved of the South. The disciplining of black men had essentially turned them into a 'white' army. Crucially though, this black force also had expert knowledge of the geography of the southern states. This combination of force and knowledge had been used to the detriment of slaveholders in the War of 1812, and they knew it could be used again.
Eugene Genovese describes southern slaveholders as 'historically minded people' who would have known that both slaves and free black men had been armed throughout their recent history. 40 Southerners not only knew of and had experienced the recent British arming of black males, but also actively feared further attacks because of this knowledge and experience. 41 Indeed, Britain knew the anxiety it caused in the southern states when it threatened the use of African American men in its numerous confrontations and disagreements with the US during the antebellum period. 42 Black soldiers had fought for both Patriot and British forces during the War of Independence, but rather more for the latter than the former. 43 Indeed, thousands of Africans had fled to the British side during the 1776 conflict. 44 It is unsurprising, then, that when London 'sought to shift the theater of conflict to the South this was further testimony to the idea that the enslaved were akin to a 5th column.' 45 During the war, runaway slaves were formed into a black regiment by the British in South Carolina. 46 The Carolina Corps, as they became known, gained an excellent reputation for their military prowess and the several hundred soldiers who were taken to the Caribbean by the British later formed part of the First West India Regiment. 47 Crucially, the use of slaves as soldiers by the British during the War of Independence helped to 'undermine the slave regime in both subtle and overt ways' as the use of black men 'exposed the contradictions within slavery' by signifying that slaves were 'capable of the courage and honour that the plantation regime sought to deny.' 48 The War of 1812 demonstrated to southerners the ability of British-led black troops to encourage slave rebellion. During the war, the South witnessed a huge amount of slave unrest and, again, thousands of the South's enslaved population fled to British lines. Some of these men returned as redcoats to fight in the Chesapeake and Georgia. Many were used by the British as spies, messengers and, crucially, as guides through terrain well known to them. This both 'maddened and frightened' their former masters. 49 The words of the British naval commander, Sir James Yeo, written in 1813, are powerful in that they represent a truism for decades to come: I am persuaded there is nothing that would cause more alarm and consternation than [the] apprehension of our Black troops being employed against them. The population of the slaves in the southern provinces in America is so great, that the people of landed property would be panic-struck at the sight of a Black Regiment on their coast and nothing would more effectively tend to make the war with this country unpopular than the knowledge of such a measure being in contemplation. 50 Although the British did not win the War of 1812, the ways in which African Americans aided the British left permanent scars on the minds of southerners, and the involvement of the British West India Regiments in the conflict was not forgotten, even decades later. 51 The Southern Banner of Athens, Georgia, printed a letter from Mr Poinsett, a South Carolina politician, in June 1840, which discussed the arming of state militias. This was deemed important because: Called by the voice of Congress to prepare to defend the country, taught by the events of the last war what might be expected from an enterprising and great naval power, and warned by the English press of the possibility in case of war with that country, of black regiments being landed within the territory of the Southern States and that the horrors of a servile insurrection might be added to the ordinary calamities of war, it became the duty of the executive to seek to organise and render efficient the only means of defence at hand. 52 In February 1856, The Savannah Georgian reprinted an article from a fellow Georgia newspaper, the Thomasville Watchman, entitled 'Defences of the Seaboard,' which read: In reference to depredations committed by the British on our coast, in the war of 1812 and '15 there are many now in the state of Georgia that have a feeling recollection. The British fleets entered the ports of Brunswick and St Marysthey invited the negroes to leave their masters and join their standard, enlisting the men in their black regiment and actually carried off several thousands of our slaves … . England is far more abolitionized now than she was then; for since that time she has abolished slavery in her West India islands, but a four days sail from us and has established regiments of negroes there. And now let me ask, has it occurred to our statesmen how exposed is our condition in case of a sudden descent of a hostile fleet upon our shores? 53 It is perhaps unsurprising that Georgia newspapers printed such articles, given that the West India Regiments had seen active service in the state during the War of 1812. St Mary's on Cumberland Island off the coast of Georgia was attacked by British forces in January 1815. These included the 2nd West India Regiment and refugee Colonial Marines who had been recruited in the Chesapeake. Of the 2500 British troops that landed, 1600 were black. 54 The 'catalytic impact of seeing (former) slaves now wielding weapons and holding frightened Euro-Americas at bay,' had a striking psychological impact on both slaveholders and the enslaved. They watched as up to 2000 slaves fled to British shipsso many that there was barely enough room for the British to take them all to Bermuda. 55 The vulnerability of the southern coast and fatal self-deception Concern over the vulnerability of the southern coast was seen in Florida newspapers. The News of St Augustine claimed in March 1839 that, 'a short time will determine whether we shall have alone to battle with the Indian (and this one war is quite enough) or be ready to repel the invasion and co-operation of her West India regiments with our present enemies.' 56  In July 1841, the Savannah Daily Republican reported twice on the 'ten thousand black troops in the British West Indies' who were 'disciplined and commanded by white officers and no doubt designed to form a most important portion of the force to be employed in any future contest that may arise between Great Britain and the United States.' 60 Once again, the number of West India Regiment soldiers was massively exaggerated. Fears concerning the vulnerability of the Florida territory is hardly surprising given that even after the War of 1812 had officially ended in February 1815, the British, based at the so-called Negro Fort at Prospect Bluff, had continued to recruit runaway slaves until May. The 5th West India Regiment was present at Prospect Bluff, and Nathaniel Millet has described how the presence of 'professional black soldiers' served to 'emphasise the correlation between formal military service and freedom in the minds of the former slaves.' 61 Perhaps the most fascinating thing about the southern newspaper coverage of the West India Regiments is the tone taken in those reports that attempted to allay fears. In what Eugene Genovese and Elizabeth Fox-Genovese described as 'Fatal Self-deception,' slaveholders tried to convince themselves that their slaves would always remain loyal to them. Slaveholders wished to present slavery as a benevolent, paternalistic institution. In reality, this romanticised picture only existed in the minds of slaveholders who perpetuated the myth because they needed to justify an exploitative system. 62 George. M. Frederickson has argued that the slaveholders of the South did not need to be paternalistic, as it was possible to rule by intimidation and coercion, and that rather than being paternalistic, powerful slaveholders were fearful and contemptuous of their slaves. 63 Combining Frederickson's argument with the Genoveses' idea of 'self-deceiving' slaveholders, a picture emerges of planters who perpetuated the myth of a paternalistic happy plantation life while simultaneously fearing their own slaves. 64 Slaveholders' worry over the trustworthiness of their slaves is crucial to understanding how they may have feared black men. Planter-slave relationships were complex power relations in which the slaveholders needed assurance that slaves were faithful. Ultimately, 'fear was the binding agent of the master-slave relationship:' the threat of planter violence left slaves fearful, yet the master also feared slave insurrection and other smaller scale acts of resistance. 65 Many slaveholders encouraged a dualistic image of the slave as a 'child' and a 'savage.' Under their guardianship, the brutal savage became a happy and docile 'Sambo.' 66 This contented figure was useful in convincing both themselves and hopefully the outside world of the morality of slavery, and helped calm the minds of nervous masters. 67 But, as the dualistic image propagated the belief that the slave's docility was a result of the slaveholder's firm control, inevitably a loosening of this control would lead the black person to revert to a 'bloodthirsty savage.' 68 In their writings, masters admitted that they believed 'duplicity, opportunism, and potential rebelliousness lurked behind the mask of Negro affability.' 69 In the white master's mind, therefore, the 'sambo' existed alongside the 'African savage, given to acts of incredible brutality.' 70 Masters could not reconcile the two sides of this dualism, nor could they reject either image, for the system depended on belief in both. 71 In the same manner, the southern press oscillated between a similar dualism in the way it discussed the possibility of an invasion by the British West India Regiments: paranoia on the one hand and over-confident self-deception on the other hand.
This 'Fatal Self-deception' can be seen in newspaper coverage that claimed that slaves would remain loyal to their masters if and when the West India Regiments landed on the South's coast. In July 1845, the Georgia Telegraph reprinted a letter, which first appeared in the Columbia South Carolinian, from Governor Hammond to an English abolitionist. It exclaimed: Should any foreign nation be so lost to every sentiment of civilized humanity as to attempt to erect among us the standard of revolt, or to invade us with Black Troops for the base and barbarous purpose of stirring up servile war … . Our slaves could not be easily seduced, nor would any thing delight them more than to assist in stripping Cuffee of his regimentals to put him in the Cotton field, which would be the fate of most black invaders. 72 The Savannah Daily Republican, in February 1846, reprinted the opinion of the Washington correspondent of the Charleston Evening News, who argued that in relation to the black regiments from the West India islands overrunning the South … . they who fancy that a slave insurrection will necessary follow an invasion of the South by Great Britain, mistake the slaves' character and attachments. Black regiments might be filled by a few vagabonds, but nine out of ten slaves would follow and fight for their masters. 73 In printing articles that featured these arguments, southern newspapers used the threat posed by the West India Regiments as a way of bolstering slaveholders' own self-deception about the loyalty of their slaves.
Some papers went further than this, claiming that soldiers of the West India Regiments would be caught, enslaved and used to populate the western territories. For example, in February 1846, Georgia's Albany Patriot contained an article reprinted from Alabama's Montgomery Journal, which argued that: The 'black regiments' … instead of freeing their sable kindred here, would find themselves 'put up to all they know' to save their own wool. We know nothing which would tend to bring our population into the field with such eagerness and unanimity as that capital idea of the negro regiments. Three or four thousand negroes to be had for the catching, do not turn up every day. They are the very fellows wanted in the new cotton fields of the west, and we opine most of them will be there within two months after landing, in fact the affair, instead of being a battle would only be the tallest sort of hunt. 74 The same level of over-confidence can be seen in a long editorial from the Baltimore Sun in January 1846. In a piece entitled 'The Madness of Fanaticism', the editor commented on a House of Representatives speech by Ohio politician, Joshua Giddings, in which Giddings discussed a resolution terminating the joint occupation of Oregon and advocating that the US take possession of the territory. Giddings warned that a war with England would destroy southern slavery. 75 The Sun printed an extract of the speech, remarking that the passage was 'worthy of special notice:' But this policy of adding territory to our original government, is the off-spring of the South. They have forced it upon the northern democracy. Their objects and ends are now answered. Texas is admitted. They have attained their objects and they now require the party to face aboutto stop short and leave the power of the nation in their hands. They now see before them the black regiments of the West India Islands landed upon their shores. They now call to mind the declarations of British statesmen that "a war with the United States will be a war of emancipation." They now see before them servile insurrections which torment their imaginations. Murder, rapine and bloodshed, now dance before their affrighted visions. Well, sire, I say to them, this is your policynot mine. You have prepared the cup and I will press it to your lips until the very dregs shall be drained. Let no one misunderstand me. Let no one say that I desire a slave insurrection: but sir, I doubt not that hundreds of thousands of honest and patriotic hearts will laugh at your calamity, and mock when your fear cometh. 76 In printing the words of Mr Giddings, the paper claimed that the fears described did not exist. Indeed, the editor exclaimed, 'Fanatical as all this is, how bitter, how vindictive and truculent a spirit it must have been to conjure up the fearful vision, and gloat with the appetite of the vulture over the obscene repast.' 77 Yet the fearful vision was deemed important enough to print. Perhaps the memory of Maryland's experiences in the War of 1812, when some Calvert County slaveholders found that all of their slaves fled to aid the British, was enough to 'torment their imaginations' further. In the rest of the state, slaves had refused to work, believing that their freedom was imminent, as the local militias desperately fought British redcoats and defended against slave rebellions. 78 As Gene Allen Smith remarks, the 'mere presence of the British fleet off the Chesapeake coast during 1814 … emboldened slaves to fight and flight while making the countryside virtually indefensible.' 79 Despite such examples showing a self-deceiving confidence in the ability of the South to prevent a slave insurrection in the event of a British invasion, there are far more examples of paranoia over the possibility of a black invading force. In July 1841, the Southern Whig, referring to the diplomatic tensions with Britain and to the possibility of war, criticised the British press for 'the threats of her journalists to send black regiments … . to incite a servile insurrection and give our families and little ones to the horrors of massacre?' The Whig's editor tried to allay the fears of such a scene by warning: the audacious British that we are not going always to indulge their insolence and that they must prepare for a fearful reckoning with us, the moment they touch our shores with the black minions … . England is hanging on our front and rear, threatening us with negro armies and black incendiaries. 80 Despite their professed confidence that a 'fearful reckoning' would welcome the West India Regiments should they invade the southern coastline, the writer still refers to the 'horrors of massacre' that they see as the inevitable outcome of servile insurrection. The reference to 'families and little ones' simply adds to the heightened levels of anxiety.
Southern newspapers also printed material that imagined what an invasion of black troops might mean for the South. Georgia's Augusta Chronicle in July 1842 printed an address given by Dr Blanchard Fosgate of Auburn N.Y. to Philadelphia's Franklin Institute in January 1842. Fosgate criticised British foreign policy towards the US: What is her position toward this country? … . By what means does England intend to enforce her schemes, relative to the United States? By operating on her fears. By exciting negro insurrections and Indian hostilities. … the military discipline of the but just liberated negro slaves in the West Indies began and has progressed with a steady and rapid pace. These black regiments commanded by white officers, numbered in the latter part of 1840, ten thousand soldiers, well drilled and equipped for immediate service. In this we clearly perceive the object of British benevolence. She is training her emancipated slaves for the purpose of creating insurrections in the very heart of our country.' 81 Fosgate continued by warning of 'the probable insurrections that would arise among our slave population upon the introduction of black troops on our southern coast … It is perfectly evident, that by her having an army of welldrilled black soldiers in this position, she can readily throw them into the territory of this nation and create bloody insurrections among the people.' 82 In making reference to Indian hostilities, Fosgate recalled the British involvement at Prospect Bluff in Florida during the War of 1812 in which Seminole Indians and runaway slaves helped the British. 83 Interestingly, the notion that 'just liberated' slaves had been so quickly 'disciplined' and 'well drilled' would have alarmed slaveholders, who feared their own slaves escaping to fight for the British. The notion that just-freed slaves could quickly be 'trained' as soldiers was a terrifying prospect. As previously mentioned, the West India Regiments had nothing like the 10,000 soldiers suggested by Fosgate, yet this exaggerated number must have sounded menacing to southern slaveholders and was far more than southerners could have quickly gathered to oppose them. 84 The fact that 10,000 soldiers are mentioned so many times in relation to the West India Regiments, suggests that the same misinformation circulated across the US for decades.
The Nashville Union in April 1846 printed from the London Naval and Military Gazette a stark warning to the US to: Beware how she lights the torch of war, lest it fire her own funeral pile, already laid in her slave states … . Let her see manifestoes distributed on her southern coast, and sent inland by means of balloons, proclaiming freedom to her thousands held in bondage in the so-called land of liberty. Let her see Charleston and Savannah occupied by our West India Regiments, and her black population flocking in crowds to have their manacles knocked off and join the ranks of their sable brethren. Then let her see an army, thus set free from slavery, marching northward. 85 Printing threats from the British press could be seen as a form of self-confidence, yet such a vividly described scenario must surely have alarmed some newspaper readers. It is here that Gerald Horne's argument is crucial. It is important not to underestimate the psychological impact of African American participation in the War of 1812 and the lasting anxiety this created. What is perhaps most interesting about these reports is not the fear expressed about what black soldiers might do to southern slaveholders but what effect they would have on southern slaves. What enslaved people would do to their own masters seemed far more terrifying.
In August 1841, The Daily Georgian, a Savannah paper, printed an article discussing Britain's maritime strength and described how a possible invasion by the West India Regiments might progress: Aside, however, from the danger common to us all as a nationwe, us Southerners, are … . peculiarly exposed to influences which threaten our destruction. The points of conflict with the South, are New Orleans, Mobile and Charleston or Savannah. This will link us directly, every two weeks with the West Indieswith Hayti, with Jamaica and with all the free black and apprentice system islands. The proximity with these obnoxious governments, will be within a few hoursthe intercourse uninterruptedthe temptation almost irresistible. It is well known, that the English have in the West Indies many regiments of black troops … . Is it not beyond the laws of reason, and human nature, to suppose that there will be no contaminationno corruptionno secret influencesno silently formed schemesno sapping of foundationsno fiendish underminingno ultimate explosion? ….. War is declared with America. The vessel that orders home the English minister, stops on its way at Kingston, or St Thomas; and while the steamer goes onward to the Chesapeake, others spread the news from island to island, from barracks to barracks; and (---) an order can be issued from the navy department, a vessel commissioned, or a post rendered defensible, twenty regiments of blacks are ready, or perhaps already embarked … This is no idle fearno extravagant assertion. God grant we may never realise its bitter truth … . There is no sympathy between England and America; there is positive enmity between Great Britain and the South … . 86 The mention of Haiti in this fearful scenario is important. The spectre of the Haitian Revolution loomed large in the minds of southern slaveholders and no doubt fuelled their fears. The year 1791 saw the beginning of the largest slave rebellion in history in the French colony of Saint Domingue, which led to Haiti's independence in 1804. The revolution was devastating for Haiti's white, slave-owning, French elites. Most of those who did not flee were killed. News from the island left southern slaveholders terrified and encouraged them in their conviction that emancipation would lead to the slaughter of whites and to economic ruin. 87 Slaveholders were right to fear the spectre of Haiti, considering that the revolution inspired two of the antebellum South's largest slave conspiracies, those of Gabriel Prosser in Richmond in 1800 and Denmark Vesey in Charleston in 1822. 88 For much of the antebellum period, the fear that the South would see its own Haitian Revolution provided the foundations for the 'emotional focus of southern attitudes,' as memories of Saint Domingue 'continued to haunt the southern imagination.' 89 The spectre of Haiti can be seen when an invasion by the West India Regiments was discussed in the newspapers. Slaveholders would have been accustomed to reading narratives that mentioned Saint Domingue, as the idea of Haiti's revolution became 'a compacted, recurrent intertextual discourse that exploded in newspapers anytime that later slave troubles occurred, summarising immediately for the reader what black-on-white violence meant.' 90 Haiti became 'embedded in the antebellum psyche,' meaning white fears of black violence were persistent. 91 The mid-1850s saw more tension between the US and Britain, particularly over Britain's Foreign Enlistment Act through which it attempted to recruit volunteers in the US for the Crimean War. 92 Once again, the threat of black troops in the South was discussed in the southern press, and more threats from the British press were reprinted. The Daily Morning News in Savannah in November 1855 reprinted a threatening article from the London Standard which claimed that: a few black regiments must be sent to the American continent and it is as easy as it must be painful to tell what would be the effect of their presence amid a population of their kindred and color, held in severe not to call it cruel slavery, by a handful of whites … 93 The following March, three southern papers, South Carolina's Charleston Mercury, and Georgia's Savannah Daily Morning News and Albany Patriot, all reprinted a selection of text from a pamphlet recently published in London. Interestingly, the Albany Patriot mentions that the pamphlet 'fastens upon the British Government and its agents, the charge of having knowingly violated the laws of the United States, in recruiting men for their military service,' which is presumably why the newspapers chose to reprint sections of it. However, the three newspapers also all printed the pamphlet's comments that the London paper, the Morning Post, had: recommend[ed] the ravaging the coast of America with our 200 gunboats and the sending an army of black soldiers to free the negroes of the South; or in other words, to massacre the male, and to violate the female, population of half the United States. 94 The pamphlet's language is interesting herewhen it says 'in other words,' it suggests that it is not only the army of black soldiers who will do the massacring and violating, but also the freed slaves. The armed black men of the West India Regiments were not the most menacing aspect of the described scenario and we can be sure that the author of the Morning Post article was aware of this by looking at the original article from which the pamphlet's author drew their conclusions. The Morning Post claimed that: … were a quarrel between the two countries unhappily to ripen into a war, an invasion of the Southern States with a free black army, declaring slavery abolished, would be a blow of crushing effect. Open as the seaboard of the United States is, no bombardment or destruction of maritime property could strike so deep into the very heart of the country as a measure which must at once give rise to a worse than civil, a servile war. 95 The author adds that this would 'lead to scenes of deplorable bloodshed.' The Morning Post writer makes it clear that many in Britain were aware of the unprecedented extent of support the British might expect from the enslaved population of the US in the event of an invasion: 'In the last war we could not resort to such an operation, for we had slaves of our own, and it would have cut both ways. Now our hands are untied and free to strike a deadly blow without fear of dangerous retort.' 96

Conclusion: Anglophobia and 'Negrophobia'
Newspapers both reflected and helped fashion slaveholders' views. The coverage given to the West India Regiments, and the prospect of black troops landing on the shores of the South, tells us a great deal about slaveholders' fears regarding their own slaves. Press discourse surrounding the West India Regiments suggests southern anxiety over the long-term stability of slaveholding society, and also gives us an insight into southern notions of geopolitics and the uses of Anglophobia. The spectre of slave rebellion hung over the South, especially after the Haitian revolution. It increased with every slave rebellion or foiled plot in the southern states. However, slaveholders wished to play down this threat, arguing that their slaves were happy 'sambos' whose natural savagery was kept in check by the paternalistic and benevolent control of their owners. In order for slaveholders to sleep easy in their beds and for them to maintain that slavery was moral, the threat to the southern system of slavery had to be seen as external rather than internal. Anglophobia, so often represented in the press, was therefore a useful tool for the slaveholder who could argue that the problem lay with British imperialists rather than within the southern system itself.
Fear of a British plot to ruin the slaveholding fortunes of the South was widespread. The War of 1812 marked a turning point, demonstrating to the South how vulnerable their slaveholding society could be when put under pressure from both internal and external forces. Horne argues that it was a 'familiar tactic in the Americas for colonising powers to ally with the enslaved of competing powers to the detriment of the latter.' 97 Yet the British took this one step further, using the black soldier as a symbol of freedom to lure the enslaved to their side. When 'fleeing slaves returned as British soldiers [in the war of 1812], carrying weapons and leading redcoats into the heart of American slave communities, it proved conclusively that slaves could not be trusted.' This only pushed the South's own white supremacist vision further, 'convincing southern slaveholders of the need to tighten their bonds of control.' 98 Outwardly abolitionist, imperial Britain continued to utilise brown and black bodies for its own benefit while, at the same time, condemning the South's slavery. This was done in the interests of Britain's own form of capitalism and construction of 'whiteness.' The southern press portrayed the West India Regiments as so menacing because the British foe had enabled black men to take on the characteristics of a disciplined and armed white army. Southern newspapers repeated stories suggesting this efficient and orderly force would invade, and that it would then urge and embolden the enslaved to rebel, thereby unleashing a cataclysm on the slaveholders and slaveholding system of the South. For the elites of the southern states, the threat from the black slave within which had hitherto been kept in check, combined with the machinations of the imperialist foe and his black troops abroad, created a perfect storm. Both in different but, for a short time, complementary ways challenged the form of white supremacy that underpinned the South and its collective psyche.