The Newport Historical Society will offer an in-person lecture on Wednesday September 14, 2022 at 5:30pm with author Christian McBurney. He will discuss his new book Dark Voyage: An American Privateer’s War on Britain’s African Slave Trade. To purchase a copy, visit NewportHistoryShop.com.
Based primarily on a little-known primary source penned by a Newport captain’s clerk, The Journal of the Good Ship Marlborough, McBurney will chronicle the remarkable voyage by this Rhode Island privateer to Africa with the goal of advancing the cause of America’s War of Independence by attacking British slave forts and capturing British slave ships in Africa. The program will focus on the mastermind behind the voyage, merchant John Brown of Providence, the disturbing mixed motivations of Brown and his Rhode Island privateersmen, and the startling unintended consequences of the attacks by Marlborough and other American privateers in disrupting Britain’s huge slave trading industry. Marlborough also ran the British naval blockade of Narragansett Bay. Newport’s slave trade will also be discussed.
Christian McBurney has authored six books on the American Revolutionary War, as well as many articles on the Revolutionary War and Rhode Island history. He is president of the George Washington American Revolution Round Table of the District of Columbia and is the publisher and chief editor of the online journal at smallstatebighistory.com, devoted to Rhode Island history. While he practices law in Washington, DC, he and his wife have a second home in West Kingston, Rhode Island.
This event will take place at the Newport Historical Society’s Resource Center, at 82 Touro Street, Newport, RI. Admission costs $5 per person and $1 for NHS members. To register in advance, please click here.