FIRESIDE CHAT: The Hated Cage: An American Tragedy in Britain’s Most Terrifying Prison

November 17th, 2022, 7:00 p.m. ET

Virtual & Free

In the final months of 1814, the twentieth largest American city was actually in southwest England: more than five thousand American prisoners of war were stranded in Dartmoor Prison, a giant facility built by the British to house PoWs from the Napoleonic wars. In The Hated Cage, Nicholas Guyatt, Professor of North American History at the University of Cambridge, tells the extraordinary story of the American presence at Dartmoor, and brings to life the desperate but lively worlds built by the prisoners during their years of captivity. With a particular focus on the interactions between Black and white prisoners, it asks a fundamental question: as Americans back in the United States debated whether Black and white people could live alongside each other in freedom, did Dartmoor prove that they could forge a shared existence in captivity?

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