| Gaspee affair | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the American Revolution | |||
 An 1886 engraving of the burning of Gaspee by the Sons of Liberty | |||
| Date | June 9, 1772 | ||
| Location | Near Gaspee Point, Rhode Island | ||
| Caused by | Opposition to the Royal Navy's enforcement of custom laws in Rhode Island ports | ||
| Methods | Arson | ||
| Resulted in | Gaspee burnt | ||
| Parties | |||
| Lead figures | |||
The Gaspee affair was a significant event in the lead-up to the American Revolution. HMS Gaspee was a Royal Navy revenue schooner that enforced the Navigation Acts around Newport, Rhode Island, in 1772.[1] It ran aground in shallow water while chasing the packet boat Hannah on June 9 off of Warwick, Rhode Island. A group of men led by Abraham Whipple and John Brown I attacked, boarded, and burned the Gaspee to the waterline.[2]
The event sharply increased tensions between American colonists and Crown officials, particularly given that it had followed the Boston Massacre in 1770. Crown officials in Rhode Island aimed to increase their control over the colony's legitimate trade and stamp out smuggling in order to increase their revenue from the colony.[3] Concomitantly, Rhode Islanders increasingly protested the Stamp Act, the Townshend Acts and other British policies that had interfered with the colony's traditional businesses, which primarily rested on involvement in the triangular slave trade.
Along with similar events in Narragansett Bay, the affair marked the first acts of violent uprising against Crown authority in British North America, preceding the Boston Tea Party by more than a year and moving the Thirteen Colonies as a whole toward the coming war for independence.
- ^ Bartlett: Destruction of the Gaspee – "His Britannic Majesty's Schooner Gaspee." Accessed June 9, 2009.
- ^ "John Brown, American Raider on English Ship Gaspee". Joseph Bucklin Society (Gaspee.Info). Archived from the original on January 5, 2009. Retrieved May 27, 2009. This version of the story is told by Ephraim Bowen and John Mawney in William R. Staples' The Documentary History of the Destruction of the Gaspee. The only other testimony from a contemporary is that of Aaron Biggs (sometimes Briggs), an escaped slave who told a slightly different version of the story. His telling of the events was later discredited, however, when it was found that it had been given under duress. (Bartlett, John Russell. A History of the Destruction of His Britannic Majesty's Schooner Gaspee, in Narragansett Bay, on the 10th of June 1772 (Providence, RI.: A. Crawford Greene, 1861), pp. 84–87). There is also testimony from the crew and officers of the Gaspee, who reported a larger number of attackers and more boats.
- ^ Staples, William (1845). The Documentary History of the Destruction of the Gaspee. Providence: Knowles, Vose, and Anthony. p. 3.