Captain Robert Niles and the Connecticut State Navy

2016 ◽  
Vol 89 (1) ◽  
pp. 84-108
Author(s):  
Sheldon S. Cohen
Keyword(s):  
American Revolution ◽  
West Indies ◽  
The West

Captain Robert Niles (1734–1818) commanded the schooner, Spy, in the Connecticut state navy during the American Revolution. He gathered intelligence, protecting his state's coast, transported supplies, and traded for contraband in the West Indies. In 1778 Niles sailed Spy to France, delivering a copy of the American-ratified Franco-American Treaty. After the war, he continued maritime pursuits, went bankrupt, endured family tragedies, yet remained active in civic and religious affairs.

Antislavery

2018 ◽  
pp. 187-208
Author(s):  
Deirdre Coleman
Keyword(s):  
American Revolution ◽  
West Indies ◽  
White Woman ◽  
African State ◽  
West Indian ◽  
The West ◽  
Public Places ◽  
Plantation Slavery

Smeathman arrives in the West Indies mid-1775, just as the American revolution begins. He makes numerous comparisons between tropical nature in its ‘rude’ (African) state and its ‘cultivated’ (West Indian) version, He also observes the various societies of the different islands and, appalled by the cruelty of plantation slavery, starts to reconsider Quaker Fothergill’s plans for ‘legitimate’ African commerce. The flogging of slaves in public places shocks him into sketching two of these scenes, one of which is particularly chilling because it is conducted by a white woman. Smeathman decides to return to England and compile his ‘Voyages and Travels’, a book which would reveal the truth about ‘those little known and much misrepresented people the Negroes’.

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