Tag: Enslaved persons

2
Posted on

Eight Clues: Recovering a Life in Fragments, Arthur Bowler in Slavery and Freedom

In January 1792 forty-three-year-old Arthur Bowler left Halifax, Nova Scotia, on his second Transatlantic journey. Captured in Africa almost thirty years earlier, enslaved in Newport, Rhode Island, for nearly twenty years, a free man for ten, he was returning to Africa. He left fragmentary clues buried in archives on three continents which illuminate an “ordinary” […]

by Jane Lancaster
Posted on

The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley

BOOK REVIEW: The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley: A Poet’s Journey Through American Slavery and Independence by David Waldstreicher (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023) The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley by David Waldstreicher details the short but extraordinary life of Phillis Wheatley, a poet of the American Revolution years. Kidnapped from West Africa as a child and […]

by Nichole Louise
3
Posted on

Thirteen Clocks: How Race United the Colonies and Made the Declaration of Independence

BOOK REVIEW: Thirteen Clocks: How Race United the Colonies and Made the Declaration of Independence by Robert G. Parkinson (Williamsburg, VA: Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture; Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2021) The final grievance that Thomas Jefferson included in the Declaration of Independence used blatantly racist language, making it […]

by Timothy Symington
Posted on

This Week on Dispatches: Gregory J. W. Urwin on the American Slave Roundup after the British Surrender at Yorktown

On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews distinguished historian and writer Gregory J. W. Urwin about his recent JAR article, “The Yorktown Tragedy,”  examining George Washington’s order following the American and French victory at Yorktown to round up enslaved persons who had fled to the British, and return them into bondage. New episodes of Dispatches […]

by Editors
Posted on

This Week on Dispatches: Edna Gabler on the Silence of Slavery in Revolutionary War Art

On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews writer, editor, researcher, and JAR contributor Edna Gabler on her recent study of images of enslaved persons in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century portraits and paintings of Revolutionary War subjects. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, […]

by Editors
Posted on

Book Review: Running from Bondage: Enslaved Women and Their Remarkable Fight for Freedom in Revolutionary America

Running From Bondage: Enslaved Women and Their Remarkable Fight For Freedom In Revolutionary America by Karen Cook Bell (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2021) A “wench” name Lucia. A mulatto woman named Margaret. A well-dressed woman named Jenny. A woman called Bett. These individuals are the subjects of the first four chapters of Karen Cook Bell’s […]

by Timothy Symington
6
Posted on

Alexander Hamilton’s Missing Years: New Discoveries and Insights into the Little Lion’s Caribbean Childhood

Alexander Hamilton’s life has been documented extensively and his exploits as an adult are well known. His early childhood, however, has long been a subject of debate and, until recently, was largely shrouded in obscurity. Evidence published by historian Michael Newton in 2019 has provided new insights into Alexander Hamilton’s formative years. Despite this new […]

by Ruud Stelten and Alexandre Hinton