Join historian and Johnson & Wales University professor Michael J. Simpson for a special Veterans Day lecture exploring the remarkable life of Fortune Stoddard, a Black Revolutionary War veteran born enslaved in Middletown, Rhode Island, in 1757.
Drawing on military records, court documents, census records, and newly examined testimony surrounding an extraordinary 1781 murder trial, Simpson reconstructs Stoddard’s journey from slavery to service in the First Rhode Island Regiment and freedom. His story offers a window into Rhode Island’s often-overlooked history of slavery, Black military service during the American Revolution, and the complicated meanings of freedom, patriotism, and racial solidarity in the nation’s founding era.
The lecture will also explore the work of recovering Black lives from a fragmentary historical record and ask how one nearly forgotten Rhode Islander can teach us about the larger history of the American Revolution.
Wednesday, November 11, 2026 at 6:00 PM
Newport Vineyards, 909 East Main Road, Middletown, RI
Free and open to the public. Cash bar available.
This program is made possible through a grant from the Rhode Island 250th Anniversary Commission (RI250) to Middletown High School.
The event is presented in recognition of Veterans Day and honors the service and legacy of Fortune Stoddard and the soldiers who served during the American Revolution.
