Black Presence At The Battle Of Bennington: Fraunces Tavern’s Online Lecture

08/11/2020 in
Black Presence At The Battle Of Bennington: Fraunces Tavern’s Online Lecture

On Thursday, August 20 at 6:30p, Fraunces Tavern Museum will host a Zoom lecture on “The Black Presence at the Battle of Bennington,” by Vermont writer Phil Holland. Register here.

Holland, author of “A Guide to the Battle of Bennington and the Bennington Monument and Robert Frost in Bennington County,” will discuss the roles of Black Americans in this pivotal Revolutionary War engagement: from Sipp Ives, who fought and died as part of Seth Warner’s regiment of Green Mountain Boys, to the sources of wealth that funded continental troops.

 

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Join us on Thursday, August 20 at 6:30pm for The Black Presence at the Battle of Bennington, presented by Phil Holland. This illustrated talk explores the many forms taken by the Black presence at this critical patriot victory, from the Black soldier who died in battle as a member of Col. Seth Warner’s Continental regiment of Green Mountain Boys, to the sources of wealth that funded the New Hampshire troops at the battle. Register at the link in bio. Image: Prisoners Taken at the Battle of Bennington, August 16, 1777, detail. Leroy Williams (1878-1965). Courtesy of @benningtonmuseum • • • #MuseumFromHome #Museums #DigitalExhibition #DigitalContent #VirtualContent #History #CultureFromHome #NYC #MuseumsOfInstagram #NYCMuseum #History #AmericanHistory #VirtualMuseum #FiDi #Tavern #NYCTavern

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The Battle of Bennington, which took place in 1777 near the Vermont / New York State line, was a huge strategic success for the rebel cause, encouraging France to join forces with the Americans. Bennington Battle Day is even a state holiday in Vermont. But at the time Holland created the lecture, there was little awareness of how Black people helped shape this important event. 

“Military records in combination with early town histories furnish the primary sources for this presentation,” according to Holland. “Original discoveries, notably in the unpublished work of historian Lion G. Miles, to which he has given me access, in combination with scholarship old and new, from William C. Nell’s ‘Colored Patriots of the American Revolution’ to more recent studies… paint a more diverse picture of Vermont’s iconic battle and its Green Mountain Boys than that depicted in most histories.”

This talk is part of the Fraunces Tavern Museum’s evening-lecture series, hosted monthly with an array of authors and historians. Explore past recordings here

 photo: Bennington Museum

Tags: battle of bennington, Fraunces Tavern

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