Esek Hopkins (1718-1802) lived a long life as a public figure and sea captain and served as the first commander-in-chief of the American Navy. His current reputation is poor, however, after captaining the disastrous voyage of the slave ship Sally.
Was he a hero or a villain? Or something in between?
In 2020, the Providence School Board voted to change the name of Esek Hopkins School, which opened in 1916 on ground once occupied by Hopkins’ farm, but so far, nothing has happened. Who was Esek Hopkins? Why was he celebrated a hundred years ago, and why is he now in the throes of cancellation?
Over his 83 years, Hopkins was a sea captain for the wealthy Providence-based Brown brothers, a farmer, a merchant, a member of the Providence School Board, a freeman of the town of Providence, probably a slave-owner (the 1774 North Providence census shows four non-white people in his household), a deputy in the General Assembly, a brigadier general, and first Commodore of the United States Navy.
The only portrait of him is this (satirical) painting showing Hopkins in his 30s, with other merchants in a Surinam inn. Surinam (Dutch Guiana) was a favorite port for Rhode Islanders avoiding laws requiring them to trade only with other British colonies (aka smugglers).
During the French and Indian War (1757-64), Hopkins captained privateering ships, which pillaged other countries’ ships. He once captured a British ship with cargo valued at £6000, which paid for his new house and 200 acres of farmland in Providence.
Hopkins left the sea temporarily, moved to his farm, and became active in local government. He helped organize Providence’s first public school and was appointed the first schoolmaster.
However, in 1764, the cash-strapped Brown brothers hired Hopkins, new to the slave trade, to sail their brigantine Sally to Africa. They’d lost money on their previous slaving effort when French privateers had captured their ship and now wanted to make a quick profit by trying again.
Hopkins’ cargo was mostly rum, 17,274 gallons of it. He arrived off West Africa and acquired his first captives in mid-November, trading 156 gallons of rum and a barrel of flour for “1 boy” and “1 garle.” He eventually embarked on his journey to Antigua via the notorious “middle passage” in August 1765 carrying 156 men, women and children.
Four Africans died in the first week at sea, and the survivors staged an uprising. Hopkins noted in his log “Slaves Rose on us was obliged to fire on them and Destroyed 8 and Several more wounded badly.” He told the Browns that the slaves became “so Desperited” that “Some Drowned them Selves Some Starved and Others Sickened & Dyed.” By the time he reached Antigua after 57 days at sea, sixty-eight Africans had perished and twenty more died before they could be sold. Altogether, 60 slaves died, or 39%. (The average mortality for the Middle Passage was 15%).
Only two of the survivors were “prime” slaves, selling for £50 each, while others fetched as little as £5. The voyage was a financial loss to the Browns, and an appalling chapter in the history of our country.
In November 1765, when he discovered what had happened to the Browns’ investment, Moses Brown acknowledged to Hopkins the “Disagreeable nuse of yr Lusing 3 of yr Hands and 88 Slaves” Hopkins continued captaining Brown vessels until 1772, but never on another slave voyage. (After the Sally disaster, three of the four Browns decided to quit slaving for business reasons, while one of them, Moses Brown, later became an abolitionist. John Brown, however, sent out four more slaving endeavors.)
Hopkins retired again to his farm in 1772, but trouble with the British was worsening, and in 1775 he was recalled and appointed Brigadier-General in charge of the defense of Newport. Three months later he was appointed commander of America’s brand-new, and very tiny, navy which consisted of eight converted merchant ships. The British Royal Navy, meanwhile, had a worldwide fleet of some 250 ships, mostly purpose-built.
Hopkins’ orders were to “annoy the enemy” in Chesapeake Bay and ports further south, but deciding he was outnumbered by the British, he headed straight for the Bahamas, to seize gunpowder and “warlike stores.”
Meanwhile, Congress had authorized privateers to augment the tiny navy, their crews were better paid, and their owners stood to make large profits.
On December 7th, 1776 Hopkins and his small fleet were anchored near Providence when the British blockaded the entrance to Narragansett Bay. His fleet was stuck. Criticism of the Commodore grew, though Hopkins believed the loudest voices were encouraged by the privateering merchants who enlisted, he said, “idle and restless men” to attack him.
In mid-February 1777 ten junior officers sent a petition to the Marine Committee of Congress, asking them to inquire into Hopkins’ character and conduct. Three of the petitioners immediately told Hopkins they’d been induced to sign by “some Gentlemen of the town.” Nevertheless, one of the leaders abandoned his ship and traveled to Philadelphia and told the Committee that Hopkins was unfit to command, that his orders were at times “so unsteady that I have sometimes thought he was not in his senses.” Congress first suspended Hopkins and then, summarily, dismissed him. Angry and humiliated, he sued the petitioners for criminal libel, demanding astronomical damages of £10,000 (at a time when a carpenter earned about £250 a year).
The defendants petitioned Congress to defray their expenses. Ultimately, the United States government agreed to do so if the defendants gave information about “misconduct, fraud or misdemeanors committed by any officers or persons in the service of these States,” effectively making it the first “whistleblower” legislation.
Though he lost his case, his public service continued. He was re-elected a North Providence delegate to the General Assembly and served on the state’s Council of War. From 1782 until his death, he was a Trustee of Rhode Island College, which became Brown University two years after his death in 1802.
He was buried in a corner of his (now very shrunken) estate, at the junction of Branch Avenue and Charles Street. On the site— Hopkins Park—stands a heroic statue of Hopkins, created by Theo A.R. Kitson, one of America’s finest female sculptors.
But was Hopkins a hero or a villain? Or neither? How far should we apply 21st-century standards to the 18th century?
During the pandemic, the Providence Department of Arts, Culture and Tourism and the Parks Department sponsored the Haus of Glitter’s residency in Esek Hopkins’ homestead. The group produced an “activist opera” that “re-imagine(d) the narrative of Esek Hopkins,” as they saw it, relating to “the future of our community.” Haus of Glitter imagined “what life would be like today if colonization or slavery never happened by telling the story of a single Black person lost on the voyage [of the Sally], imagining her story, family, emotions and legacy.”
The Haus of Glitter, and others, have argued that a school with “Black and brown children” should not commemorate the name of a slave captain. Providence’s Magee Street, named for a slave trader, was renamed Bannister Street in 2018, commemorating Edward Bannister, the African American artist who lived in Providence in the late nineteenth century. Perhaps Hopkins Middle School students, 91% of whom are Latino, Black or Asian, and who are currently scoring poorly in standardized tests, could possibly be inspired to higher things if their school’s name celebrated a talented Black individual such as Bannister.
Sources:
Field, Edward (1898). Esek Hopkins, commander-in-chief of the continental navy 1775-1778,master mariner, politician, brigadier general, naval officer and philanthropist. https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/public/gdcmassbookdig/esekhopkinscomma00fieled/esekhopkinscomma00fieled.pdf
Voyage of the Slave Ship Sally https://cds.library.brown.edu/projects/sally/ Christian McBurney,Providence Merchant John Brown Gets Rich Privateering in 1776 and 1777 https://allthingsliberty.com/2022/10/providence-merchant-john-brown-gets-rich-privateering-in1776-and-1777/
Steve Boisson, The First Whistleblowers https://www.historynet.com/the-first-whistleblowers/6
Jane Lancaster PhD is a historian and former public school teacher (in the UK) who lives in Providence. She is an award-winning historian and has taught at RISD and Brown, and even (once) in Taiwan.
