The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832

Summary

Alan Taylor examines how enslaved Virginians seized the chaos of the War of 1812 to flee toward British forces and freedom. He shows white slaveholders living in constant fear of the people they held in bondage, an internal enemy within their own households and fields. The study matters because it links wartime escape, planter anxiety, and the long arc of slavery in the early republic into one tightly drawn account.