About Christian McBurney

Rhode Island history books keep flying off the presses!  This is not surprising, given the tremendously impressive and diverse history of Rhode Island.  It may be the smallest state, but …
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Esek Hopkins, the commander-in-chief of the Continental Navy during the American Revolutionary War, hailed from Rhode Island. He has two significant honorifics in Rhode Island. First, there is a statue …
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Last spring, Patrick Donovan, the talented and hardworking curator at the Varnum Memorial Armory Museum in East Greenwich, announced his discovery of  a handwritten letter from a formerly enslaved man …
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In light of the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, I thought it might be somewhat of a mildly amusing diversion to tell a few stories of my …
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Five years ago, my wife Margaret and I purchased a home on Queen River in West Kingston, north of historic Usquepaugh and its Kenyon’s Grist Mill. In that time, I …
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[From the editor:  This article first appeared on December 5, 2020. It has been updated by (i) deleting the article’s last paragraph and adding two new paragraphs, including about a …
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As you know, the Online Review of Rhode Island History (aka smallstatebighistory.com) focuses on Rhode Island history. We don’t like going over a state line — particularly now during a …
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In the first half of the nineteenth century, while most white New Englanders opposed slavery in the South, they nonetheless did not believe that their freed Black neighbors should be …
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[This is the last in a series of four articles honoring the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Point Judith. This article is mostly from part of a chapter written …
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[This is the third in a series of four articles honoring the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Point Judith. This third article is based on part of a chapter …
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