Dr. Scott Stephenson
speaker
278 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Jul 2026
last heard 15 Jul
Dr. Scott Stephenson’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.
Appearances
And the two weeks that he's ashore, sort of on shore leave between cruises, he witnesses George Washington's Continental Army marching through his neighborhood right down Chestnut Street past Independence Hall on its way to victory at Yorktown in October of 1781.
And many years later, he would write about standing there and being filled with pride to see among the troops serving under Washington companies of black soldiers.
He specifically called out the Rhode Island Regiment, which probably had one of the largest proportions of men of African and some of American Indian descent serving in the ranks of the Army.
Fortin then goes back aboard a ship, which actually is captured by a British ship.
And those sailors who are captured are put aboard a notorious prison ship called the Jersey.
This was basically a floating prison ship.
And Fortin's given a chance, as these men were, to just take an oath of allegiance to the king and serve in the British Navy.
But he said, you know, I'm an American.
And he chooses actually imprisonment and likely, you know, a very strong possibility of death.
having debilitating disease or death, rather than commit treason to what he considered his country.
And Fortin miraculously survives.
He comes back to Philadelphia.
He works in the trade his father had worked in, which was as a sailmaker, and is ultimately becomes extremely wealthy, certainly the wealthiest person of African descent in Philadelphia.
In the 19th century, by the time he dies in 1842, he has used his wealth to support the liberation of enslaved people, the abolition movement.
His children, his grandchildren continue that fight.
So it's an amazing American story.
But that was exceptional because, of course, he was not born enslaved.
For the enslaved population of African Americans, the war creates an opportunity because the British begin very early in the fall of 1775.
Lord Dunmore, who had been the last royal governor of Virginia, offers through a proclamation that enslaved people who rally to the king's arms would be offered their freedom.
And the British extend that offer later in the war and tend to
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