Dark Work: The Business of Slavery in Rhode Island

Tells the story of one state in particular whose role in the slave trade was outsized: Rhode Island

Historians have written expansively about the slave economy and its vital role in early American economic life. Like their northern neighbors, Rhode Islanders bought and sold slaves and supplies that sustained plantations throughout the Americas; however, nowhere else was this business so important. During the colonial period trade with West Indian planters provided Rhode Islanders with molass...