Video Tag: Rhode Island

In League with Liberty: The Persistence of Patriots of Color and the Formation of the First Rhode Island Regiment of the Continental Army

Robert Geake
February 16, 2023

As states struggled to fill enlistment quotas in late 1777, the Rhode Island General Assembly, drawing from a proposal from Rhode Island general James Varnum, voted to allow the enlistments of indentured servants, indigenous peoples and former slaves. With that, the First Rhode Island Regiment, known as “the black regiment,” was formed. Although met with […]

The Burning of His Majesty’s Schooner Gaspee

Steven Park
June 9, 2022

On June 9, 1772, a group of prominent Rhode Islanders rowed out to the British schooner Gaspee, which had run aground six miles south of Providence while on an anti-smuggling patrol. After threatening and shooting its commanding officer, the raiders looted the vessel and burned it to the waterline. Despite colony-wide sympathy for the raid, neither […]