Abstract
Our final article, “‘Liberty is Sweet’: Rhode Island Black Pragmatists, the Revolution and the Atlantic World,” by Jane Lancaster, explores the scores of Black Rhode Islanders who joined the British during the war, and who left the country from New York on British ships at the close of the conflict. Many headed to British Canada, but several went to Germany, and one family evacuated with a British group to the Bahama Islands; another family emigrated from Canada to Africa. Lancaster mined a priceless ledger, “The Book of Negroes,” kept by the British in which officials recorded every single Black person who emigrated on their ships in 1783. This source provided granular data on the Rhode Island emigres; Lancaster has enhanced the information she has gleaned from the Book by scouring archives from Britain, Canada and Africa, as well as the U. S.
Recommended Citation
Lancaster, Jane
(2026)
"‘Liberty is Sweet’: Rhode Island Black Pragmatists, the Revolution and the Atlantic World,"
Newport History: Journal of the Newport Historical Society: Vol. 104:
Iss.
293, Article 6.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.salve.edu/newporthistory/vol104/iss293/6
