Rhode Island’s slavery? Research slavery in Connecticut and New London County and you will find:

By 1774, New London County had become the greatest slaveholding section of New England with 2,036 slaves, it accounted for almost one-third of all the blacks in Connecticut. All of New London County profited from shipping it’s barely comestibles to the Caribbean as food for slaves; and the real truth about the Amistad:

The Amistad was moved from New York to New London because Connecticut was the only remaining slave state in New England in 1839. The slave trade was outlawed by international law, yet it was the black captives who we jailed. We set the white slavers free.

The president of the United States did everything he could to undermine a positive outcome for these black prisoners, and prolonged their incarceration with two appeals. We made it happen.

Our own Roger Sherman played a key part in fashioning the “Dark Bargain” in our constitution, making slavery above the law through 1808 in trade for benefits for New England’s maritime traders. 

Maybe this legacy continues, and it is a cargo of hypocrisy that keeps sinking the Amistad. 

Barry Boodman

Mystic