Diary depicts 'civil war' part of Revolution
Originally written by Peter Fay for the Jamestown Press January 22, 2026
“Poor Conanicott,” lamented the Rev. Ezra Stiles in his 1776 diary, after repeated cannonades of Jamestown by the “infernal pirates” of the British Royal Navy.
Historians have relied on the Congregationalist minister’s nearly 2,000-page diary to reconstruct Rhode Island’s struggle for independence.
Yet, Stiles himself often described the conflict, not as a revolution, but as a “civil war,” often hinting at underlying racial antagonisms and social conflicts that would haunt the nation for centuries.
Between the burning of Jamestown in December 1775 and the British fleet’s departure from Narragansett Bay in April 1776, Stiles documented at least eight naval salvos against Conanicut Island.
Repeated phrases like “a tender cannonading Conanicott again” painted Jamestown as a frequent victim of an imperious navy “aiming to spread terror through the bay.”
These entries have shaped subsequent historical accounts.
A comparison of Stiles’ diary with British naval logs, however, reveals a more complex pattern of escalation. In several instances, including the burning of Jamestown, rebel attacks preceded British retaliation, provoking an escalatory spiral that rebels couldn’t win.
Sgt. Andrew Stafford, who helped defend Jamestown, recalled that when British forces landed, they “burnt the ferry houses … drove them all off from Jamestown Island and burnt fifteen of the houses.”
Despite this devastation, rebels continued hit-and-run tactics, even as British naval firepower made the contest increasingly lopsided.
The burdens of this civil war fell heavily on noncombatants. While Stafford dodged British cannonballs, his newlywed wife, Rachel, was pregnant in Exeter with no husband to provide for her when she gave birth to twin daughters. One died, and Stafford returned briefly to attend the funeral.
Such losses and economic hardship were common among rebel families, though often absent from today’s battlefield narratives.
Race and slavery infused the independence struggle in Narragansett Bay with contradictions. Stiles, a patriot, angrily condemned British efforts to recruit slaves who fled rebel masters, particularly after they assisted British forces during the burning of Jamestown.
On Christmas Day 1775, he expressed shock that Lord Dunmore in Virginia had raised “a Black Regiment” who wore sashes proclaiming “Liberty to Slaves.”
On Jan. 12, 1776, Stiles accused Capt. James Wallace of “inhumanly spreading Barbarity, Desolation & Revenge” during an attack on Prudence Island. He reported, “Our people, 100 Men on Prudence, attacked 150 of Wallace’s Marines, Sailors, and Negroes, and were repulsed.”
Wallace’s men had landed to retrieve hay when rebels burned the stacks and fired from stone fences. Houses were destroyed and casualties suffered on both sides. As in Jamestown, African-Americans were decisive actors in British lines.
Stiles publicly opposed slavery in principle. On April 10, 1776, he published a tract condemning “the great inhumanity and cruelty of enslaving so many thousands.”
Yet at this time, his own slave, Newport, remained in bondage. Newport was freed only later in the war, after 22 years of enslavement, while his child was indentured for another 20 years. Like many patriots, Stiles denounced slavery in the abstract while continuing it in practice.
This contradiction was widespread. While Stiles penned his antislavery tract, the rebel-supporting Newport Mercury denounced the “treacherous Tories” after “three negroes from this town went on board the (British) Men of War.”
The paper falsely warned that enslaved people fleeing to the British “will be sold in the West Indies in a very short time,” a claim intended to deter escape.
Such threats failed to stop Briget Wanton, enslaved by a Jamestown landholder, Col. Joseph Wanton, or dozens of other Blacks from fleeing to British forces, such as Jamestown’s Jenny Carr.
When intimidation failed, rebels resorted to deception. Stiles described a scheme in which an African-American decoy pretended to flee enslavement to lure British sailors ashore. When officers on the ship Rose attempted to “free” the man, they were kidnapped.
Stiles mocked the British: “Ha, the Rose ahoy! come fetch poor Negro, want to get aboard Rose Man o’ War, run away from his Master.”
The episode captured the bitter irony of a war fought in the name of liberty while denying it to others.
Wallace retaliated, sailing up Conanicut and “firing 14 six-pounders and 4 swivels,” at rebel positions, confirming Stiles’ own characterization of British “vengefulness.”
When British forces withdrew from Boston in March 1776, Wallace’s mission in Narragansett Bay lost its purpose of supplying Boston. The fleet departed in mid-April, though it would return in force that December.
Stiles’ diary reminds us not only of suffering inflicted by an occupying navy, but a fractured civil war marked by unresolved contradictions at the heart of American independence.
