Newport Slave Traders: A List

The Newport merchants who trafficked in human cargo were among the town's richest residents. Of the 135 taxpayers assessed in 1772 at 2 pounds or more, nearly half of the top 50 taxpayers were also slave merchants. Six were former slave captains, seven ran distilleries and 19 were major importers of molasses and rum. A dozen years earlier the list included the town's early slave merchants, including Godfrey Malbone, William Ellery and David Cheseborough and Abraham Redwood.

  Name                        Position on                 No. of slaves
                                 1772 tax list               owned 1774
     
     Aaron Lopez                     1                           5
     Joseph & William Wanton *       2                           6
     George Rome                     3                          13
     Jacob R. Rivera                 6                          12
     John Tillinghast                7                           1
     Simon Pease                     8                           6
     John Collins *                  9                          13
     Evan Malbone                   10                           7
     Francis Malbone                11                          10
     Samuel & William Vernon        14                          10
     John Scott                     15                           x
     Charles Wickham *              18                           3
     George Gibbs                   19                           6
     Benjamin Mason                 20                           7
     Edward Wanton                  21                           x
     Moses Levy                     22                           1
     John Mawdsley                  26                          20
     Caleb Gardner                  29                           2
     Thomas Richardson              31                           4
     Christopher Champlin           38                           2
     Jonathan Otis                  42                           3
     James Clarke                   43                           5
     Abraham Redwood                44                           3
     Thomas Cranston                45                           6

* former slave ship captain

Sources: Elaine Forman Crane, A Dependent People: Newport, Rhode Island in the Revolutionary Era; Jay Coughtry, The Notorious Triangle, Rhode Island and the Slave Trade, 1700-1807.