About Christian McBurney

Newport never fully recovered as a thriving maritime port following the American Revolutionary War. Its merchants did well in the trade with India and China in the times around 1800. …
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One of my favorite hobbies is reading popular and top quality American history books by authors who have deservedly built national reputations. By popular history, I mean the author is …
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There is a recent welcome addition to the library of Rhode Island history books. It is Meet Me at the Biltmore, 100 Years at Providence’s Most Storied Hotel, by …
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My last article was on the story behind the recent identification of the remains of the wreck of a vessel off the coast of the Patagonia region in Argentina, which …
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Wooden ribs are found barely exposed from the sand on a beach at low tide in the Patagonia region of Argentina. With the combination of marine archeology, historical research and …
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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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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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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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In the first of my prior two articles on the history of mammals of Rhode Island, I addressed the wolves, moose, mountain lions and black bears that once roamed the …
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In my prior article, I address what large mammals roamed the lands of the Narragansett, Wampanoags and Nipmucs in what is now Rhode Island before Roger Williams’s arrival at Providence …
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