Betty Stewart Coates
War of 1812 Refugee, Calvert County, Maryland
Born 1796
Betty Stewart Coates was an enslaved woman born in Calvert County, Maryland to Charles and Sarah Stewart. Betty and her mother Sarah were owned by Elizabeth Ballard of Calvert County. Betty’s father Charles Stewart was owned by Elizabeth Ballard’s son Levin W. Ballard. She had four sisters Eliza, Jane, Juliet, and Rebecca.
Betty married a free man, Jesse Coates, who was also known as Jesse Roberts. Betty and Jesse had one daughter Suckey Coates. In 1814, America was at war with the British. On April 12, 1814, British Admiral Alexander Cochrane issued the Cochrane Proclamation that offered immediate emancipation to any person wishing to serve in the British Military or relocate to a British territory. On June 6, 1814, with the help of her father Charles Stewart and uncle Adam Green (who was the brother of her mother Sarah Stewart), Betty Stewart Coates escaped from Elizabeth Ballard to British ships anchored in the Patuxent River at Lower Marlboro. Betty and her young daughter Suckey fled with her Stewart family, but her husband Jesse did not go with them.
After the War of 1812, it is known that Betty’s mother and father and a sibling were taken by the British ship the HMS Lorie to Halifax, Nova Socia, a British territory. It is not known what happened to Betty and her daughter Suckey Coates.
Following the war, Maryland slaveholders filed claims seeking compensation for the loss of their property, including slaves, tobacco, livestock, and household items. A Department of State commission decided that Maryland slave owners would receive $280 for each slave that they lost. Betty who was 18 years old when she escaped was valued at $300. Not feeling that they were given enough reparations for their loss of their slaved, Levin W. Ballard filed a claim for his mother Elizabeth Ballard. In the end the commission awarded Mrs. Ballard $3.640 for the loss of her 12 slaves.
Additional Information
Maryland State Archives, Betty Coates, MSA SC 5496-50840, War of 1812 Refugee, Calvert County, Maryland, Biography.
Percoco, James A.
2022 The British Corps of Colonial Marines: African Americans Fight for their Freedom. American Battlefield Trust. Washington D.C. Available at www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/british-corps-colonial-marines.
