Tag: Slavery

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Lemuel Haynes: An Abolitionist Voice in the Revolution

The Paradox as Context The literature of the Revolution is replete with references to the Founding Fathers’ recognition of the anguishing contradiction between the ideals they ostensibly endorsed in the Declaration of Independence—specifically Thomas Jefferson’s rhetoric about human equality and inalienable rights—and the commitment many of them made to sustaining the institution of human bondage […]

by David Price
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The Federalist Papers

Aside from the commercially inspired Mount Vernon Compact of 1785, the first public acknowledgement of the enormous inability of Congress to govern the peace in the new United States was the calling of the Annapolis Convention for September 1786. William Grayson, writing to James Madison that May, sounded upon the grievances of an ineffective Congress, […]

by Jude M. Pfister
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Liberty’s Chain: Slavery, Abolition, and the Jay Family of New York

BOOK REVIEW: Liberty’s Chain: Slavery, Abolition, and the Jay Family of New York by David N. Gellman (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2022) America’s Founders are routinely criticized for creating a republic that tolerated, and often defended, African slavery, but at least one of the Founders, New York’s John Jay, inaugurated a family tradition of anti-slavery […]

by Jeff Broadwater
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George III’s (Implicit) Sanction of the American Revolution

In Summary View of the Rights of British America (1774), Jefferson wrote of King George III’s unwillingness to use his “negative” to veto unjust proposals. Two years later, Jefferson echoed this sentiment in his first draft of Declaration of Independence. Here, Jefferson listed a “long train of abuses & usurpations,” at the hand of King George […]

by M. Andrew Holowchak
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This Week on Dispatches: Christian McBurney on How Rhode Island Prevented an Enslaved Family from Being Transported to the South

On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews Rhode Island and Revolutionary War historian Christian McBurney on uncovering the extraordinary story of a man from North Carolina who traveled north in 1779 in order to obtain slaves and how his scheme was thwarted by the courts, setting a legal precedent in Rhode Island. New episodes of […]

by Editors
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Rhode Island Acts to Prevent an Enslaved Family from Being Transported to the South

The American Revolution spurred the world’s first significant movement to abolish slavery and the African slave trade.[1] Before then, there was virtually no antislavery activity in any of the thirteen colonies of North America, or for that matter, anywhere else in the world. There was some limited antislavery dialogue in England, but its abolitionist movement […]

by Christian McBurney
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Washington at the Plow: The Founding Father and the Question of Slavery

BOOK REVIEW: Washington at the Plow: The Founding Father and the Question of Slavery by Bruce A. Ragsdale (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2021) In Washington at the Plow: The Founding Father and the Question of Slavery, Bruce Ragsdale provides an in-depth examination of George Washington’s passion for agriculture and the way it changed his […]

by Kelly Mielke
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Loyalist Slave-Owning Refugees in Postwar Jamaica

The two forces of paternalism and slavery shaped the lives of Loyalist slaveowners in the postwar British Empire. Historians rarely connect these forces in attempts to understand the relationship between refugees, colonial hosts, and British officials. In the postwar era, British officials treated Loyalists as an itinerant population to resettle to aid imperial expansion. In […]

by Patrick E. Brady
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Best of Dispatches: Michael W. Twitty on the Legacy of African American Cuisine

Over the next several weeks, we’ll be looking back in the Dispatches archives to replay a selection of notable interviews. In this episode, first aired in March 2019, host Brady Crytzer interviews writer, culinary historian, and educator Michael W. Twitty, about the legacy and influence of enslaved Africans on American and world culture and cuisine. He is […]

by Editors
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The Mount Vernon Slave Who Made Good: The Mystery of William Costin

William “Will” Costin was found dead in his own bed on the morning of May 31, 1842. Washington City’s leading newspaper, the Daily National Intelligencer, reported the passing of this “free colored man, aged 62 years,” then praised Costin’s years of service to the Bank of Washington, the capital’s largest. Costin’s job sounds modest today—he […]

by David O. Stewart
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The First Efforts to Limit the African Slave Trade Arise in the American Revolution: Part 3 of 3, Congress Bans the African Slave Trade

In October 1774, in a stunning and radical move, delegates of the First Continental Congress signed a pledge for the thirteen mainland colonies not to participate in the African slave trade. Perhaps equally astounding, Americans largely complied, turning the pledge into an outright ban. Congress’s ban and widespread compliance with it during the Revolutionary War […]

by Christian McBurney
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The First Efforts to Limit the African Slave Trade Arise in the American Revolution: Part 2 of 3, The Middle and Southern Colonies

The first article of this series discussed the increasing chorus of American Patriots in New England raising their voices against the African slave trade. This article focuses on the Middle and Southern Colonies, as well as a few select thinkers from Philadelphia. Those who opposed the African slave trade in colonies ruled by royal governors […]

by Christian McBurney
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The First Efforts to Limit the African Slave Trade Arise in the American Revolution: Part 1 of 3, The New England Colonies

The American Revolution changed the way Americans viewed one of the world’s great tragedies: the African slave trade. The long march to end the slave trade and then slavery itself had to start somewhere, and a strong argument can be made that it started with the thirteen American colonies gaining independence from Great Britain, then […]

by Christian McBurney
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This Week on Dispatches: Dean Caivano on American Colonists’ Growing Resistance to Tyranny

On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews Dean Caivano, Lecturer of Political Science at California State University, Stanislaus, on the growing resistance to tyranny as colonists reacted to the prospects of their lives being reduced to a state of political and economic domination by Parliament and the Crown. Thousands of readers like you enjoy the articles published […]

by Editors
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Tapping America’s Wealth to Fund the Revolution: Two Good Ideas that Went Awry

“Unless some great and capital change suddenly takes place,” Gen. George Washington wrote from Valley Forge on December 23, 1777,[1] to Henry Laurens, the recently-appointed president of the Continental Congress, “the Army must inevitably be reduced to one or the other of these three things. Starve—dissolve—or disperse, in order to obtain subsistence.” A week later, […]

by Tom Shachtman
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The Fear of Domination: Resistance Against Tyranny

The threat of continued oppression and an encroaching condition of slavery was central to the American colonists’ call for separation from Great Britain and the corresponding shift to direct resistance. While the lack of effective political representation was crucial, importantly the colonists held other more acute concerns than the issue of representation in Parliament. Crucially, […]

by Dean Caivano
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Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation: Information and Slavery

Lord Dunmore, John Murray, the 4th Earl of Dunmore (1730-1809) and Royal Governor of Virginia (1771-1776),[1] was an important political and military figure during the early stages of the American Revolution. One of Dunmore’s most controversial actions involved issuing a proclamation to free all slaves and indentured servants of rebels who would rally to the […]

by Patrick H. Hannum
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Milton’s Odyssey: The Revolutionary and Post-Revolutionary Service of Georgia’s John Milton

Georgia’s fragile independence within the new American republic was shattered on December 29, 1778, when British troops attacked Savannah. Despite clear signs that the British were coming, the capital of the state on that December morning was caught by surprise. Panic set in as the redcoats approached the city. State officials and soldiers fled for […]

by R. Boyd Murphree
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Recognizing the Skirmish at Kemp’s Landing

November 10, 1775 was an important day in both Great Britain and America. Lord George Germain assumed duties as the Secretary of State for the American Department—“he was virtually War minister in the British cabinet”—and the Continental Congress authorized two battalions of marines, giving birth to the United States Marine Corps.[1] Two hundred and forty-three […]

by Patrick H. Hannum
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Slavery through the Eyes of Revolutionary Generals

Generally when people think about slavery in the United States, they harken back to the Civil War period when Northern states had abolished slavery and slavery was the center of the southern plantation economy. However, during the Revolutionary era, the noxious institution of slavery prospered in both Northern and Southern states. While there were substantially […]

by Gene Procknow
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Preventing Slave Insurrection in South Carolina & Georgia, 1775-1776

As the colonies of South Carolina and Georgia moved closer to open rebellion against Great Britain in the summer of 1775, leaders of the revolutionary movement found themselves facing a host of potential threats. In addition to the numerous loyalists in both colonies, the tribes of pro-British Indians on their frontiers, and the possibility of […]

by Jim Piecuch
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10 Remarkable Runaway Ads

A frequent discovery when reading 18th Century newspapers is the runaway ads. In an era when people could be owned by or contractually bound to others, individuals who absconded were often advertised by their masters. These ads give us amazing descriptions of individuals and show the society’s remarkable diversity of physical attributes, demographics, personalities, situations […]

by Don N. Hagist