Bristol was built on rum & rum was built on slavery
- Rachel Averitt
- 2 days ago
- 7 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
Enslaved African people were bought and sold by the gallon of rum
Enslaved People were purchased with rum that was distilled here in Rhode Island from molasses produced through their forced labor. That rum was shipped across the Atlantic and exchanged directly for human lives, placing this region at the center of that system. By the 18th century, Newport, Rhode Island, had become the “rum capital of the world,” and Rhode Island merchants sponsored over 900 slave-trading voyages, accounting for more than half of those launched from North America.
Rum was used as a tool of control within slavery. Slaveholders used alcohol in deliberate ways to manage behavior, reduce resistance, and create cycles of dependency, while also restricting access and enforcing punishment. It disrupted connection, weakened trust, and made collective resistance harder to sustain. This was not incidental to the system. Rum was used to extract labor, to trade human lives, and to maintain control over them.
Throughout the 1700s, ships arrived to Newport carrying enslaved African people and they were advertised for sale in the local newspaper as men, women, boys and girls to be viewed and purchased at the wharf. The same system that distilled rum here used it as currency to buy and sell them. It wasn’t hidden or rare. This was how the rum economy functioned, out in the open, as everyday business.
The wealth from this system shaped Bristol… its homes, land and institutions. The waterfront, buildings and spaces that are now preserved and described as historic were built with money tied directly to the buying and selling of Enslaved People. The history is still very present in the physical structure of this town.
After slavery was abolished, a free Black community formed here in Bristol known as New Goree. Families built homes, established a church, created a school and formed a neighborhood with ownership and stability. This was a place where freed people created structure and community in the same town that continued to profit from their enslavement.
O’Brien & Brough is producing “Bristol’s Historic New Rum” just steps away from where the New Goree Community once stood. Their rum release is easily supported and promoted despite the history, while the history of our Free Black Community remains largely unknown, unmarked and without permanent acknowledgment. Efforts to bring attention to that history are often met with resistance or dismissal, which makes the contrast hard to ignore. The ability to move forward with one, while the other still goes unnamed, sits in a way that raises real questions about what is prioritized here.
Mount Hope Farm sits on stolen, ancestral Pokanoket land and is tied directly to Caribbean plantation slavery. Records from the 1700s document Enslaved People living and laboring on this estate, where they were counted, valued and transferred as property - assigned a total value of £1,355, accounting for nearly a quarter of the entire estate. Yet today, there is very limited permanent acknowledgment of the Pokanoket peoples sacred connection to their land and none of the Enslaved People whose lives are part of its history. That absence shapes how we understand and use this place and changes what gets taught and remembered.
Later records begin to show fragments of identity through names and transactions. In 1740, Enslaved People including Mingo, Hector, Anthony, Cesar, Fortune, Betty, Diana and Nanny were listed alongside monetary values as part of the estate transfer to Isaac Royall Jr. and Elizabeth McIntosh Royall. Medical visits, deaths and even a recorded intention to marry between Cesar and Jennie appear in the records over time, offering brief glimpses into lives that were otherwise documented through ownership, labor and loss. These records remain part of the history of Mount Hope Farm, even as there is no permanent public acknowledgment of the people themselves on the land.
This America 250 event is positioned as a premium experience, with a $75 ticket and a product likely priced at a similar level or higher. That framing makes it clear who it’s designed for and who it’s not. In a town that is overwhelmingly white and within a space (Mount Hope Farm)that has long functioned as an elite and inaccessible environment. The communities most connected to this history are not reflected in who is shaping the event or who can realistically access it. The structure remains the same, where something built on harm is being reintroduced in a way that continues to center those who already benefit. They later added that a portion of proceeds will go toward the Middle Passage Port Marker Project.
These folx place markers at transatlantic slave trade sites, including one in Bristol. It’s presented as acknowledgment (which it is), but the way it gets used is questionable. Bristol’s marker sits in a space that continues to celebrate freedom without reckoning with the fact that this freedom was built through the stolen freedoms of Enslaved People and the ongoing displacement of Indigenous communities. The project has been supported by descendants of enslaving families, including the DeWolfs, raising concern about who is still shaping how this history is told and held.
It’s more of the same system… being acknowledged, while everything underneath stays the same. Land is not returned, power is not redistributed and those most impacted are still not deciding what happens in these spaces. Maybe history gets recognized but without requiring change. It can look the part of accountability while protecting the systems it claims to acknowledge.
We are living in a moment where the United States is actively causing harm to communities of color, both here and globally. There are ongoing realities of displacement, violence, and decisions being made about whose lives are protected and whose are not. The America 250 initiative aims to soften truths, allowing history to be celebrated without repair or reconciliation and only marketing polished stories of valor. Aligning this event with America 250 is aligning with a history that excludes the lives and experiences of Indigenous communities and Enslaved People.
The Fourth of July celebration in Bristol is the most visible and longstanding in the country, drawing 200,000+ people each year and shaping how the town presents our countrys history to the public. It is known for tradition, pride and a strong sense of identity tied to the founding of this country. What is less present in that telling is the role this town and this state played in the systems that built that history, including the rum economy and the buying and selling of Enslaved People. The focus remains on celebration, while the fuller context of how this place was built isn’t included in what is shared.
Bristol calls itself historic and proud, but the version of history being projected and protected here leaves out what built it. Rhode Island merchants sponsored over 900 voyages to Africa, accounting for more than half of all North American slave-trading voyages. For all that pride in history… there is still very little public acknowledgment of the enslaved people whose lives made that system and this place possible. The beauty is preserved and the truth is buried.
Looking at this all together… the Bristol Fourth of July celebration, which presents a partial version of history, the broader America 250 initiative shaping a false national narrative in this moment and a rum-centered event being held on land built by Enslaved People… it forms a not-so-new pattern. Mount Hope Farm has been given opportunities to engage in reparative work and chose not to. Which makes this moment clearer. When there is a chance to pause, acknowledge and shift and that does not happen, what continues is a choice.
Doing a rum release as part of an America 250 celebration, in a place where you are not even allowed to fully name the harm that made that moment possible, is deeply unsettling.
Indigenous communities connected to this land, Enslaved People who lived and labored here and their descendants deserve better than this. The American people deserve better than this. I can’t call myself ally and stand by while they’re pushed aside and white elite experiences (and profits) are built on top of that history.
If this is new to you, I’m sorry. I’m sorry this history wasn’t taught to you, because it should have been. This is American history most of us were never given access to. There are not many schools in this country that teach this fully.
If you grew up here. There were programs that focused on local history and pride. Students were taught about the DeWolf family (the most prolific enslaving family) and their business ventures, but not how that wealth was built or what those businesses were tied to. That absence was not accidental. It’s shaped what we know and don’t.
Maybe you’ve learned something new, I’m glad you know it. And now that you do, there is something you can do with it.
This was in no-way easy for me to share. I know it might look like it is. I speak up because of my experience and witnessing other people of color live through worse, staying quiet is not an option. There is a cost to speaking up for me, especially when it involves people and places I have real relationships with. People that I care about.
Most of the people who follow me are white and hold more power in spaces like this than they realize. Your voice is heard differently and when it's used collectively, it can shift outcomes. I've said what I can directly and know I can't stop this on my own.
We get to decide how history is remembered and carried forward and right now the people most impacted by this history are not part of shaping how it's moving. Theyre not even at the table.
This is the version of America that will get passed on if we let it. It's what children will learn and communities will repeat. I'm done with a version of history that leaves out the truth and asks our experiences to exist quietly inside of it.
If this doesn't sit right with you, please say something; discuss in the comments. Please, contact them and let them know how you feel.
Send to a friend. Please, share these lessons widely.
“This is a letter to my countrymen. Not from a Democrat or a Republican
But one among ya. That's why you call me Brother
Ain't scared to tell you we're in trouble, cause I love you”.
BROTHER ALI
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