Richard Johnson, Author at

Academic Historian

Richard Johnson is Professor of History at the University of Washington, Seattle. He is the author of two books, Adjustment to Empire: The New England Colonies, 1675-1715 (1981) and John Nelson, Merchant Adventurer: A Life Between Empires (1991), as well as some twenty essays and articles on early American and early modern Atlantic history. He has served as Chair of the University of Washington’s History Department and twice been the University’s UW Alumni Lecturer. He received the University’s Distinguished Teaching Award in 2003.

Benjamin Banneker (1731-1806)

Benjamin Banneker, a free Black farmer, mathematician, and astronomer, was born on November 9, 1731, the son of freed slaves Robert and Mary Banneky, probably near the Patapsco River southeast of Baltimore, Maryland, where his father owned a small farm. For some years, Banneker seems … Read MoreBenjamin Banneker (1731-1806)

First Emancipation

From the late seventeenth century onwards, a few American colonists, mostly Quakers, had expressed their moral opposition to the spread of black slavery throughout British America. It was not until the coming of the Revolution, however, that the first concerted protests arose, first against the … Read MoreFirst Emancipation

Sally Hemings (1773-1835)

Sally Hemings was born into slavery in Virginia, probably at Guinea Plantation in Cumberland County, the youngest of six children of Elizabeth Hemings allegedly fathered by her white master John Wayles. Her mother was herself the child of an enslaved African woman and an English … Read MoreSally Hemings (1773-1835)

Lord Dunmore’s Ethiopian Regiment

John Murray, Earl of Dunmore, the last royal governor of Virginia, formed what he termed “Lord Dunmore’s Ethiopian Regiment” in the fall of 1775 from the several hundred slaves who escaped their servitude to join him, as he fled Williamsburg to organize a small army … Read MoreLord Dunmore’s Ethiopian Regiment

Henry Washington (ca. 1740-ca. 1801)

Henry Washington, slave, loyalist, and colonizer, was born in Africa, perhaps in the Senegambia (present day Senegal and Gambia). Transported as a slave to America, he was bought by George Washington in 1763 to work on a project for draining the Great Dismal Swamp in … Read MoreHenry Washington (ca. 1740-ca. 1801)

(1775) Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation

This historic proclamation, dated November 7, 1775 and issued from on board a British warship lying off Norfolk, Virginia, by royal governor and Scottish aristocrat John Murray, Earl of Dunmore, offered the first large-scale emancipation of slave and servant labor in the history of colonial … Read More(1775) Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation