Tavern Talk on Role of Black Newporters During the Revolution with Historian Jane Lancaster June 11

For Black people living in Newport during the Revolutionary War, the conflict was less about independence than escape. At the time, about 12 percent of the Newport population was Black, and nearly one-third of white households enslaved at least one person. In 1775, a British proclamation was issued that said any enslaved people owned by Patriots who joined British forces would be granted their freedom. The move wasn’t moral, but strategic. British forces needed soldiers and understood that by destabilizing the system of slavery, they’d weaken the Patriot rebellion.

Newport, which was occupied by the British from 1776 until 1779, became a magnet for self-emancipation as enslaved inhabitants fled in search of freedom. In 1779, as British forces were departing Newport, they doubled down on their earlier promise by issuing the Philipsburg Proclamation stating that escape alone – no military service required – was enough to secure freedom.

On June 11, Dr. Jane Lancaster, historian, author, and educator, will deliver a Tavern Talk at the Newport Historical Society exploring the decision enslaved Black people faced as British forces departed: remain enslaved in Rhode Island or seek freedom by joining the retreating British. “I’m going to tell the stories of the people who left, what we know about them, and why they decided to go,” says Lancaster, a primary school teacher who moved to Rhode Island from England in the late 1980s and later earned both a master’s and a doctorate in history from Brown University. During her studies, she encountered a manuscript titled “The Book of Negroes”, written in 1783 by British authorities as they evacuated Loyalists from New York. “This book lists the names of 3,000 Black people,” Lancaster said. “And 52 of them were from Rhode Island.”

Lancaster began to study those 52 people. “The majority of them went from Newport to Nova Scotia, and of those 40-odd, I was able to trace what happened to about 20 of them,” she says. Some were enslaved by the Loyalists and were forced to leave. Others emancipated themselves from Patriot owners and left of their own accord. Lancaster cites one family of three that went through Nova Scotia to Sierra Leone. That small family is the subject of Lancaster’s upcoming historical fiction novel.

However, some enslaved Newporters rejected the British offer. “There’s a very well-known enslaved person in Newport, Caesar Lyndon, who didn’t go.” Lancaster said. “Another enslaved person who belonged to the same family did go, but I suspect Caesar was living a good life. His enslaver died, and because he was literate, he became secretary to his enslaver’s wife. Staying was probably less risky than leaving as a refugee.” Because Lyndon was literate, he recorded his daily life and documented slave transactions, leaving behind a rare first-person account of the Black experience in Newport. He eventually won his freedom through a lottery system.

“I think it’s important to remember that during the Revolutionary War, about 20 percent of people were loyalists, 40 percent were Patriots, and 40 percent refused to cast their lot with either side. Instead, they chose to wait and see what happened,” Lancaster said. “By the end of the war, people said, ‘I’ve always been on that side.’ But they weren’t.” History neatly sorts people into sides, but for many in Newport, it was a matter of which outcome would let them live free.

Tavern Talk: June 11

How Liberty Is Sweet

Dr. Jane Lancaster on Black Loyalists during the Revolutionary War

Richard I. Burnham Resource Center

82 Touro Street, Newport

Details and registration at NewportHistory.org