Dark Work: The Business of Slavery in Rhode Island

A historical study of Rhode Island's role in the slave economy and of the experiences of enslaved and free black Rhode Islanders.

Historians have written about the slave economy and its vital role in the early American economy, but this book tells the story of one state in particular whose role was outsized: Rhode Island. Like their northern neighbors, Rhode Islanders bought and sold supplies and slaves that sustained plantation throughout the Americas; however, nowhere else was this busine...