Dartmoor Prison

Located in southwest England near Plymouth, Dartmoor Prison was the compound used by the British in the War of i8i2 (1812-15) to hold as many as 6,000 captured American sailors and privateersmen. American prisoners of war hated its desolate location on a barren moor. While many suffered illness and malnourishment, others set up trades and stores within its walls to service their fellow prisoners. In a world unto itself, the prisoners even established schools to teach navigation, dancing, and boxing.

The most famous section of the compound was Prison Number 4. In 1814 the British placed all of the African-American prisoners in this prison, along with whites who were considered undesirable by other prisoners. The black prisoners were led by Richard Craftus, a huge African American also called King Dick, and they were known for holding religious services and theatrical performances

In their prison house. The American prisoners were often unruly and challenged the authority of the British guards. Conditions became even more explosive after the peace agreement of the Treaty Of Ghent (December 24, 1814). Without an easy means of accommodating the prisoners and returning them to the United States, and preoccupied by the return of Napoleon to France in the spring of 1815, the British did not release their prisoners of war. The Americans rioted on April 4, 1815, when the British commissary attempted to serve them hard biscuits instead of the usual soft bread. The Americans won that confrontation, and the British found the appropriate bread for them.

On April 6, 1815, an incident along the wall of the prison, where some prisoners were thought to be trying to escape, led to a general alarm. Amid the confusion, and as the prisoners began to rush the gate, the British guards opened fire on the Americans, killing six and wounding many more. This event was called the Dartmoor Massacre and remained a searing testimony of British perfidy for the American maritime community. A joint American and British diplomatic commission, however, determined that no one was at fault, thus defusing a potentially divisive diplomatic incident immediately after the War of 1812.

Subsequently weakened by the Charles River Bridge Case of 1837.

Further reading: G. Edward White, The Marshall Court and Cultural Change, 1815-1835 (New York: Macmillan, 1988).

Decatur, Stephen (1779-1820) naval officer Stephen Decatur was a swashbuckling officer of the American navy in the early 19th century. Born in Maryland on January 5, 1779, Decatur grew up in Philadelphia in a seafaring family. He became a midshipman in the U. S. Navy in 1798 and fought in the Quasi War (1798-1800) with France. But he first gained fame in action off the coast of Tripoli in the war against the Barbary pirates, by which time he had been promoted to lieutenant. In 1804, the American frigate Philadelphia had run aground off Tripoli harbor and been captured. On the night of February 16, 1804, Decatur led a raid into the harbor to deny the vessel to the Tripolitans. He and his men entered the harbor on a captured schooner named the Intrepid, seized and burned the Philadelphia, and made a safe getaway.