Slavery on the North Shore during the Revolution

Join author Claire Bellerjeau as she discusses her new book, Espionage and Enslavement in the Revolution: The True Story of Robert Townsend and Elizabeth. Discover the story of Elizabeth, nicknamed Liss, enslaved by the Townsend family of Oyster Bay, whose son Robert was Washington's spy in Manhattan during the Revolutionary War. As Robert and Elizabeth’s story unfolds, prominent figures from history cross their path, including George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Jupiter Hammon, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Benedict Arnold, John André and John Adams; as well as the Culper Spy Ring, the Boston Massacre, the Sons of Liberty, the Battle of Long Island, Franklin’s Paris negotiations, and the Benedict Arnold treason plot. Her escape with the British, re-enslavement, and struggle for freedom gives new insight into the country's founding era, from the perspective of an enslaved Black woman seeking personal liberty in a country fighting for its own.

Claire Bellerjeau is the co-author of “Espionage and Enslavement in the Revolution: The True Story of Robert Townsend and Elizabeth”, published in May of 2021. Bellerjeau is the founder of a non-profit organization called Remember Liss, with the mission to educate the community about the extraordinary life and times of an enslaved Black woman from New York named Elizabeth, or Liss. She formerly served as Historian and Director of Education at Liss’s birthplace, Raynham Hall Museum in Oyster Bay, New York. She has been researching the Townsend family and those they enslaved for over seventeen years, including curating a yearlong exhibit on the Townsend “Slave Bible” in 2005. In 2015, during a research visit to the New York Historical Society, she discovered what may be one of the earliest poems ever written by Jupiter Hammon, America’s first published African American writer. She has developed educational programs on the subjects of slavery in New York and the American Revolution on Long Island and is creating a new curriculum to share Liss’s story using primary documents from her research. Bellerjeau lives with her husband, Chris, in New York City.

This Event is sponsored by the North Nassau Deanery of The Episcopal Diocese of Long Island and hosted by St. John's Episcopal Church, Cold Spring Harbor, New York.