The BoRIA Post

Black Rhode Islanders Before, During, and After the Revolutionary War

• By the mid-18th century, enslaved people lived in every Rhode Island county and in nearly every incorporated town. On the eve of the Revolution (c. 1774–1775), Rhode Island had the highest proportion of enslaved people in New England, with approximately 3,700–4,400 enslaved Africans and African Americans, alongside an estimated 300–500 free Black residents, together comprising about 6–7% of the colony’s total population of roughly 59,000. 

• About half of enslaved Black Rhode Islanders lived on the Narragansett plantations, large agricultural estates that functioned as pseudo-Southern plantations, producing livestock, grain, and export goods; conditions there were generally harsher and more coercive than for enslaved people in urban Newport or Providence, where maritime labor, skilled trades, and domestic service—while still brutal—sometimes offered greater mobility and access to manumission.

• Enslaved and free Black Rhode Islanders contributed to the war effort in many essential roles beyond infantry service, including as sailors, privateers, dockworkers, teamsters, craftsmen, laborers, and pilots, particularly vital to Narragansett Bay commerce and coastal defense.

• Black women played critical but often undocumented roles during the Revolutionary era, working as domestic servants, laundresses, cooks, nurses, seamstresses, agricultural laborers, and maritime workers, sustaining households, military camps, and port economies; some used wartime disruption to secure freedom for themselves or their children, while others remained bound to patriot or loyalist households.

• Black men from Rhode Island served in multiple military contexts, including local militia units, Continental regiments, artillery companies, and aboard privateers—often integrated with white soldiers well before formal enlistment policies changed.

• In 1778, Rhode Island authorized the enlistment of enslaved men in exchange for freedom, forming what became known as the 1st Rhode Island Regiment (aka Black Regiment). Approximately 120–140 Black soldiers enlisted alongside Native American and white soldiers, making it one of the most racially integrated regiments in the Continental Army.

• As a regiment, the 1st Rhode Island fought at the Battle of Rhode Island (August 29, 1778), defending the American rear guard during the withdrawal from Aquidneck Island, and later served in the southern campaign, including the decisive Battle of Yorktown, where Rhode Island troops were part of Washington’s allied army.

• Before the regiment was formed, and outside it, individual Black Rhode Islanders served in other Continental and militia units, meaning some may have participated in earlier campaigns, including operations associated with the Battles of Saratoga, though not as members of the 1st Rhode Island Regiment, which did not yet exist.

• By the end of the war in 1783, Rhode Island’s enslaved population had declined sharply, and by the 1790 U.S. Census the state recorded 952 enslaved people and approximately 3,500 free Black residents, reflecting emancipation through service, manumission, flight, and wartime disruption.

• In the postwar decades, many Black Rhode Islanders relocated internally from rural plantation districts to Providence and Newport, seeking work in maritime trades, domestic service, and skilled labor as the plantation economy collapsed.

• Others left Rhode Island entirely, relocating to Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, or Nova Scotia, particularly Black Loyalists and veterans seeking land, pensions, or more stable legal protections.
  
  

Joe Studlick