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In the fall of 1963, I left my native New York City and became an undergraduate freshman at the University of Rhode Island. I chose URI for several reasons. First, …
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Occasionally taking rest breaks to play his violin or to sip tea in the stifling summer heat in Philadelphia, in 1776, Thomas Jefferson struggles to discover the precise mix of …
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Rhode Island’s role in the American Revolutionary War that raged from 1775 to 1783 is wide-ranging and complicated. It is yet another example of how Rhode Island’s history is way …
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In its September 1840 term, the Providence Supreme Court published an especially peculiar document. The court’s order in Burrillville, a seemingly-simple inheritance dispute, combined handwritten text with printed character in …
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Eric B. Schultz and Michael J. Tougias, authors of an excellent history of King Phillips’ War (also called Metacom’s War), accurately describe the war as “America’s Forgotten Conflict.”  It was …
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[Editor’s Note:  I first attended a tennis match at the Casino at Newport in 1969, when I was eleven years old. I had the pleasure of seeing stars such as …
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I am pleased to announce the release of my latest book!

The book is entitled Dark Voyage: An American Privateer’s War on Britain’s African Slave Trade (Westholme, 2022). The book …
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Marian Mathison Desrosiers, The Banisters of Rhode Island in the American Revolution: Liberty and the Costs of Loyalties (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2021).

In 2017, Marian Mathison Desrosiers, formerly a …
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On the night of June 17, 1863, a small group of men galloped for their lives out of Middleburg, Virginia. Tired, out of ammunition, and surrounded deep behind enemy lines, …
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This article is being published on the 250th anniversary of the seizure of the Gaspee.

“In a certain sense, the War for Independence began at sea when patriots clashed with …
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