September 3 – October 5, 2012
John Hay Library

An exhibit in support of the First Readings 2012 program for the Class of 2016, which focuses on Charles Rappleye’s Sons of Providence.

Using materials from the Brown University Archives and the Hay Library’s extensive holdings of primary sources on Rhode Island history, the exhibit provides an overview of how slavery, the slave trade and emancipation functioned in the politics and social life of early Rhode Island, and the manner in which attitudes toward slavery shaped the founding and growth of Brown University in its first century.