A season for celebrations

A Season for Celebrations

Sherri V. Cummings

Bristol Middle Passage Board of Directors

Summer is a season for celebrations … where family and friends come together to remember the past and make new memories for future generations. What better way to kick off the season than attend Bristol’s Fourth of July celebration - “Americas oldest continuous Fourth of July celebration since 1785.”it is believed the celebration began when Reverend Henry Wright, a veteran from the American Revolution, conducted patriotic exercises for revelers to see. 

The pageantry, sermons, and civic pride embedded in those early observances affirmed the town’s deep commitment to the ideals of the American Revolution. Yet beneath the ceremonial cannon fire and public prayers was a telling silence—one that omitted the service and sacrifice of African American veterans who had also fought for American independence. In 1778, five African American men from Bristol, Plato Vandoorn, Thomas Lafavour, Prince Ingraham, Juba Smith and Frank Bourne, answered the call and joined the First Rhode Island Regiment, a regiment made up of Black, Native American and poor white men. The regiment fought in several key battles, including the Battle of Rhode Island and the Siege of Yorktown. Their enlistment often came with the promise of manumission or equal rights, promises that were rarely fulfilled. 

Bristol was not exempt from the broader racial contradictions of the Revolutionary era. Like many coastal New England towns, it profited from the transatlantic slave trade even as its white citizens celebrated liberty. Nonetheless, communities of color around New England found ways to celebrate the victories that expressed their ideals of freedom, equality and citizenship.

One such tradition is Quock Walker Day, observed on July 8, which honors a young man whose legal fight helped end slavery in Massachusetts in 1783. His court victory set a precedent echoed far beyond New England. Across the Black Atlantic, enslaved and free people took note of such moments. In 1804, the formerly enslaved people of Saint-Domingue declared the island’s independence and renamed it Haiti, establishing the first free Black republic in the Western Hemisphere. Haitian independence sent shockwaves across the Atlantic world—terrifying enslavers, and inspiring freedom seekers from Georgia to Boston. For Black New Englanders, Haiti stood as living proof that emancipation was not a gift, but a right to be claimed through resistance.

Years later, on August 1, 1834, the British Empire formally abolished slavery in the Caribbean, marking a powerful moment of Black freedom across the Atlantic. In many parts of New England, particularly among African American communities in cities like Boston, Newport, and Providence, Emancipation Day (August 1st) became an annual event. It was commemorated with parades, church services, and speeches linking Black struggles across borders—from Massachusetts courtrooms to Haitian battlefields to Jamaican sugar plantations.

These layered histories of emancipation—local, legal, and revolutionary—remind us that the meaning of freedom has always been contested and hard-won. Today, as Bristol continues its proud tradition of Fourth of July celebrations, remembering the contributions of African American veterans, freedom fighters like Quock Walker, and the global Black liberation movement invites a fuller, more inclusive telling of American independence.