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Race Relations

Indian Forts in Early Rhode Island
2 weeks ago

Indian Forts in Early Rhode Island

In Rhode Island history, little is said (or known) about the Native American defenses against the colonial settlers in southern New England. Human beings had learned, early on in their …
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Governor’s 1708 Report Tells Where the First Black Enslaved People Who Arrived in Rhode Island Came from and About the Arrival of the First Slave Ship from Africa
1 month ago

Governor’s 1708 Report Tells Where the First Black Enslaved People Who Arrived in Rhode Island Came from and About the Arrival of the First Slave Ship from Africa

[The following is perhaps the earliest official report on slavery in Rhode Island and the colony’s ties to the African slave trade. Historians and students of history of Rhode Island …
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A Book Review: Revolutionary Blacks: Discovering the Frank Brothers, Freeborn Men of Color, Soldiers of Independence by Shirley L. Green (Yardley, PA: Westholme, 2023)
3 months ago

A Book Review: Revolutionary Blacks: Discovering the Frank Brothers, Freeborn Men of Color, Soldiers of Independence by Shirley L. Green (Yardley, PA: Westholme, 2023)

This captivating book tells a new American story. It is the first book to detail the life, challenges, fears and hopes of a Black soldier in the Continental Army during …
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Gaspee Raid Inspires Boston Tea Party Raiders to Disguise Themselves as Narragansetts
5 months ago

Gaspee Raid Inspires Boston Tea Party Raiders to Disguise Themselves as Narragansetts

Last week, this website ran an article providing strong contemporaneous evidence that many of the men who broke open the tea chests and destroyed the tea inside them on board …
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Narragansetts (Not Mohawks) Blamed for Boston Tea Party
5 months ago

Narragansetts (Not Mohawks) Blamed for Boston Tea Party

In the evening of December 16, 1773, a band of Boston Whigs (commonly known today as Patriots) charged onto three merchant ships at a wharf in Boston Harbor and dumped …
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Lonnon Philips’s Sharecropping Agreement in 18th Century North Kingstown
8 months ago

Lonnon Philips’s Sharecropping Agreement in 18th Century North Kingstown

I am sure that the word sharecropping brings to most folk’s minds, images of the antebellum deep South, poor Black men and women toiling away for little reward, and merciless …
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“Hope Deferred”: George T. Downing and the Post-Civil War Civil Rights Movement
8 months ago

“Hope Deferred”: George T. Downing and the Post-Civil War Civil Rights Movement

Note: This article is the second in a two-part series on the career of civil rights reformer George Downing. Readers can access Part I at https://smallstatebighistory.com/george-t-downing-and-the-black-convention-movement/

My self-respect revolts at …
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George T. Downing and the Black Convention Movement
8 months ago

George T. Downing and the Black Convention Movement

Fear not; no antagonism of interest would be the result of admitting in common to your workshops the colored mechanic, of admitting his child as an apprentice.

(Appeal to …
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Teaching the Story of “Universal Liberty” in Revolutionary Rhode Island: A Review of Edward J. Larson’s American Inheritance: Liberty and Slavery in the Birth of the Nation, 1765-1795
1 year ago

Teaching the Story of “Universal Liberty” in Revolutionary Rhode Island: A Review of Edward J. Larson’s American Inheritance: Liberty and Slavery in the Birth of the Nation, 1765-1795

We live in a day wherein Liberty & freedom is the subject of many millions’ Concern; and the important Struggle hath already caused great Effusion of Blood; men seem …
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Rhode Island’s U.S. Senators and Congressmen Who Held Enslaved People
2 years ago

Rhode Island’s U.S. Senators and Congressmen Who Held Enslaved People

The Washington Post, in its January 16, 2022 edition, published a first-of-its-kind database revealing that more than 1,700 United States Senators and Congressmen once held enslaved people at some point …
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