Minty Gurry Caden
She escaped to the British during the War of 1812 to gain freedom and a new life in Canada.
(b. circa 1787 – d. ?)
Minty Caden -It is documented that in 1814 Middleham Parish parishioner Susannah Rawlings owned fourteen slaves. In July of 1814, during the War of 1812, three persons enslaved by Ms. Rawlings – Minty Caden, Alexander Covington, and Peter Newlings – escaped to the British forces anchored in the Patuxent River. Three additional slaves — Mary, Harriet and Sidney Mitchel – escaped from Susannah’s granddaughter, Juliet, who was living with Ms. Rawlings at the time.
The British forces were circulating leaflets advertising that they would welcome any enslaved person who came to them. The flyers promised the enslaved their freedom. The British knew that the local southern Marylanders would suffer great hardship if they lost their enslaved. This was a tactic against the local people who were fighting the British forces and ships. The locals were trying to prevent the British from sailing up the Patuxent River to Washington, D.C. Also, the British forces had learned that the enslaved people knew the Patuxent River very well and would be a valuable source of navigation information.
Minty was an enslaved woman who went by the surnames Gurry and Caden. She was born in Maryland around 1787. Minty first married Joe Gurry who was enslaved by Thomas Ireland. In July 1814, when Minty and the other slaves escaped from the Rawlings’ farm in Calvert County, another Calvert County resident, George Ireland, testified to seeing Minty “in the British service a washing,” perhaps meaning that she was working as a washerwoman for the troops. George Ireland was a neighbor of Susannah Rawlings.
After the war, Minty eventually settled in Halifax, Nova Scotia, along with thousands of other African American refugees who fled to the British during the War of 1812. The Halifax List, which recorded African American immigrants arriving between 1815 and 1818, listed her name as “Menty Caden” and her age as twenty-eight.
Additional Resources
Microsoft Word – Susannah Rawlings.docx (baysidehistorymuseum.org)
Microsoft Word – Juliet Rawlings.docx (baysidehistorymuseum.org)
Copies of original documents noted above can be found at Minty Caden MSA SC 5496-002509 (maryland.gov)
- Claim of Susannah Rawlings, Calvert County, Case No. 569, Case Files. Ca. 1814-28, entry 190, Record Group 76, National Archives, College Park.
- Claim of Susannah and Juliet Rawlings, Calvert County, Case No. 569, Case Files. Ca. 1814-28, entry 190, Record Group 76, National Archives, College Park.
