After the Slave Trade Act of 1807, there was a shortfall of around five thousand members at the start of the War of 1812, and the war offered hope of new recruitment from slaves fleeing the United States. The Regiments were later involved in the War of 1812, both on the Atlantic coast and in the Gulf of Mexico, taking part in the disastrous British attack on New Orleans. Three companies of the First WIR repulsed a French attempt to recapture the island of Marie-Galante in August–September 1808, together with members of the first Corps of Colonial Marines recruited from local fugitive slaves. In 1800 there were 12 battalion-sized regiments located in the British West Indies. The new West India Regiments saw considerable service during the period of the Napoleonic Wars. Soldier of the 3rd West India Regiment, 1863 Free black Caribbean soldiers played a prominent and often distinguished role in the military history of Latin America and the Caribbean. They served against locally recruited French units that had been formed for the same reasons. The black Caribbean soldiers by contrast proved better adapted to tropical service. The WIR soldiers became a valued part of the British forces garrisoning the West Indies, where losses from disease and climate were heavy amongst white troops. Thereafter all recruitment for the various West Indian regiments that fought in World War I and World War II were West Indian volunteers, with officers and some senior NCOs coming from Britain. By 1816 the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the reduction of the West India regiments to six led to the closure of this depot. In 1812 a West African recruiting depot was established on Bance Island in Sierra Leone to train West African volunteers for the West India Regiments. In 1808 the Abolition Act caused all trading in slaves to be "utterly abolished, prohibited and declared to be unlawful". In 1807 all serving black soldiers recruited as slaves in the West India Regiments of the British Army were freed under the Mutiny Act passed by the British parliament that same year. Ī revolt of the 8th West India Regiment in 1802 occurred when its soldiers took over the Fort Shirley garrison on Dominica for three days in protest over working conditions, and fears over being potentially sent to work in the cane fields. The eighth of the newly raised regiments (Skerrett's) was disbanded the following year but the quality of the new corps led to a further five West India Regiments being raised in 1798. This constituted about 7% of the enslaved Africans imported into the British West Indies during this period. Between 17, an estimated 13,400 slaves were purchased for service in the West India Regiments at the cost of about £925,000.
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In addition to incorporating into the 1st West India Regiment the Carolina Corps that had been in existence since 1779, the original intention was both to recruit free blacks from the West Indian population and to purchase slaves from the West Indian plantations. Major Thomas Huxley, 2nd West India Regiment (1795-1802), Old Burying Ground (Halifax, Nova Scotia)Įight West India Regiments were commissioned between 24 April and 1 September 1795.
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