"Political Effects of Warfare and Occupation on Rhode Island's Recruitment and Abolition Policies"

During the Revolutionary War the Rhode Island colony faced a significant manpower shortage when fulfilling the requirements to the Continental Army. The colony’s Narragansett Bay was occupied by the British beginning in December 1777. The choice of the Rhode Island military leadership to propose a enslaved regiment was developed out of a sense of extreme anxiety and would later unintentionally promote further abolition within the state. Utilizing existing colonial history and military historiography as well as primary source letters, military records, and journals this essay follows the thread from post-Valley Forge enlistment to the creation of the Rhode Island State Constitution banning of slavery in 1842.