The Second American Revolution: Rhode Island’s Role in the Abolition Movement in the North, 1763 to 1784
The American Revolution gave rise to the Western Word’s first abolition movement, which occurred in the North. Rhode Island in 1774 enacted perhaps the first anti-slave trade law in the second half of the eighteenth century in the Western World, despite Newport dominating the African slave trade among the thirteen North American mainland colonies. One enslaved man from Boston who led efforts in 1773 and 1774 to persuade the Massachusetts legislature to ban slavery later moved to Rhode Island and served in two Rhode Island regiments during the Revolutionary War. Rhode Island’s Black Regiment, which permitted enslaved men to gain their freedom by enlisting, can be partly viewed in this antislavery context.
Christian McBurney is an independent historian who has authored nine Rhode Island history books, four of them on the American Revolutionary War. His books include The Rhode Island Campaign: The First French and American Operation in the Revolutionary War and Dark Voyage: An American Privateer’s War on Great Britain’s African Slave Trade. Christian is also the founder and publisher of a leading Rhode Island history blog at smallstatebighistory.com and is President of the George Washington American Revolution Round Table of Washington, D.C. Christian resides with his wife near Bethesda, Maryland, and they have a second home in West Kingston, Rhode Island.
Wednesday, February 25th
6:00 – 7:00 pm
Lecture in Harrison Room
Free
