FROM ENSLAVED TO "MERIKIN"

Check out this Lecture by Dr. Tayzhuan Glover on July 16, 2025.  It you are familiar witht he Merikins story and the relationship with Morugans in Trinidad, this may interest you. Sign up at EVENTBRITE

During the War of 1812 between the United States and Great Britain, hundreds of enslaved men, women, and children in the Chesapeake, Georgia, Florida, and Louisiana were able to secure their freedom by offering aid to the British. Following the war, many of these freedom-seekers were resettled in Nova Scotia and Trinidad. This presentation will use American and British colonial archives to follow the journey to freedom of the enslaved men, women, and children from Historic Sotterley who were resettled in Trinidad in 1815, where they laid the foundation for Trinidad’s “Merikin”  descendant community.

This is a FREE hybrid event, meaning participants can join us in-person OR virtually. Registration is required.

In-person participants are welcome to join us for a pre-reception at 6:30pm with cookies and drinks.

Register Here to Attend In-Person

Register Here to Attend Virtually

Dr. Tayzhaun Glover received a Ph.D. in History from Duke University in 2024. He also received a B.A. in Africana Studies, Anthropology, and French from Franklin & Marshall College in 2017. He is primarily interested in the seaborne mobility practices of freedom-seeking enslaved men, women, and children in the French islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe in the Eastern Caribbean, and the Americas, more broadly. He engages with questions about labor, geography, law, and European and Indigenous sovereignty to understand how enslaved people conceptualized refuge, liberty, and freedom based on their geopolitical knowledge of their worlds. His research has received support from Fulbright France, The McNeil Center for Early American Studies, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, the Duke History and African and African American Studies departments, and the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies. He is currently a Mellon Humanities Postdoctoral Research Fellow for the National Park Service where he researches and interprets the legacy of enslaved people from the Chesapeake who joined the Colonial Marines during the War of 1812.