Virginians anticipated an invasion by British troops to enforce imperial control by recruiting slaves with the promise of freedom. While the majority of the book looks beyond the period of the American Revolution to the War of 1812, the following excerpt sets Lord Dunmore’s 1775 proclamation as the precedent to British actions nearly 40 years later. Therefore, when the British returned to the Chesapeake during the War of 1812, invading plantations and freeing slaves, Virginians faced another wave of fear of this “internal enemy” that further deepened the state’s commitment to slavery in the early decades of the 19th century. As the book’s title suggests, white Virginians viewed their enslaved populations as an “internal enemy,” enticed by the British to run away from their masters and mount an armed rebellion against them during the American Revolution. Drawn from new sources, Alan Taylor's riveting narrative re-creates the events that inspired black Virginians, haunted slaveholders, and set the nation on a new and dangerous course.Alan Taylor’s The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832 addresses the paradoxical and complex subject of slavery in a state dedicated to ideals of liberty and freedom, yet that still enslaved two-fifths of their population.

Jefferson's startling observation registered a turn in the nation’s course, a pivot from the national purpose of the founding toward the threat of disunion. His vision of a cataclysm to come proved prescient. I considered it at once the knell of the union.' The notes of alarm in Jefferson's comment speak of the fear aroused by the recent crisis over slavery in his home state. Instead they turned south, their interests aligning more and more with their section.In 1820 Thomas Jefferson observed of sectionalism: 'Like a firebell in the night awakened and filled me with terror. It also alienated Virginians from a national government that had neglected their defense.

Tidewater masters had long dreaded their slaves as 'an internal enemy.' By mobilizing that enemy, the war ignited the deepest fears of Chesapeake slaveholders. They enabled the British to escalate their onshore attacks and to capture and burn Washington, D.C. As guides, pilots, sailors, and marines, the former slaves used their intimate knowledge of the countryside to transform the war. The runaways pressured the British admirals into becoming liberators. Over many nights, hundreds of slaves paddled out to the warships seeking protection for their families from the ravages of slavery. Frederick Douglass recalled that slaves living along Chesapeake Bay longingly viewed sailing ships as 'freedom’s swift-winged angels.' In 1813 those angels appeared in the bay as British warships coming to punish the Americans for declaring war on the empire.

The internal enemy by alan taylor