American Revolution and Revolutionary War

[Note from the editor: The Society of Friends, informally known as the Quakers, in the seventeenth century had a major influence in Rhode Island, particularly in Newport County—the towns of …
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The Providence City Archives houses more than 24,000 cubic feet of archival material throughout the city, and only 75 percent of it has been accounted for thus far, so the …
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From December 1774 to March 1776, Captain James Wallace of the British Navy patrolled Narragansett Bay.  He had two objectives:  first, to minimize smuggling that evaded imperial custom duties; and …
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Most of this article is an inventory of the items that Newport merchant John Manley owned at the end of 1776 at his modest home in Newport on Touro Street, …
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Christopher Greene was one of Rhode Island’s greatest heroes of the Revolutionary War, but his life was tragically cut short.  He was appointed a lieutenant in the Kentish Guards, an …
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Stephen Hopkins (1707–85), statesman, pamphleteer, and signer of the Declaration of Independence, was born on March 7, 1707, in Providence easterly of a former Indian village called Mashapaug. This site …
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“Long did I endeavor with unfeigned and unwearied Zeal, to preserve from breaking, that fine and noble China Vase the British Empire: for I knew that being once broken, the …
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Filmmaker Ken Burns has never been shy about tackling big topics, especially the conflicts that have defined us as a nation. In 1990, Burns’s epic documentary on the Civil War …
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Hostilities between the New England colonies and Great Britain did not break out until April 19, 1775, at the Battle of Lexington and Concord. But Rhode Island’s government took a …
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I love history firsts. The American Revolutionary War began on April 19, 1775, at the Battle of Lexington and Concord. This was the sharp beginning of America on its road …
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