Event record · political
Bermuda · Chesapeake
Cochrane issues his proclamation
2 April 1814
Britain formally offers reception, service, or resettlement to people willing to leave the United States.
Participants
- Alexander Cochrane
- enslaved Chesapeake residents
- British forces
- American slaveholders
Outcome
The proclamation offered reception, service, or resettlement to people leaving the United States.
Why it matters
It turned wartime presence into a dangerous opening through which thousands pursued freedom.
Location evidence
37.200, -76.000 · regional precision
Coordinates locate the named site, city, or broad region; they do not reconstruct unit movements.
Where it sits in the story
This record belongs to a connected military, political, and human sequence. The chapter supplies causes, consequences, competing perspectives, and the limits of the surviving evidence.
Follow the evidence
Evidence behind this event
- Black Freedom Seeking During the War of 1812, Part 1National Park Service · public history
Freedom seekers from the Chesapeake to Cumberland Island.
- Freedom Seekers and the Colonial MarinesNational Park Service · public history
British emancipation strategy and the Corps of Colonial Marines.