Remember Liss: A New American Founding Figure

About this event

Join historian and author Claire Bellerjeau for a one-hour program as she discusses the discovery of a new founding figure named Elizabeth, or Liss. Liss was enslaved by the Townsend family of Oyster Bay, New York, whose most famous member was Robert Townsend, aka “Culper, Jr.," George Washington's lead spy in Manhattan during the Revolutionary War. As Robert and Liss’s story unfolds, prominent figures and events cross their paths, including George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Benedict Arnold, John Graves Simcoe, John André, and John Adams; as well as the Culper Spy Ring, the Boston Massacre, the Battle of Long Island, and the Benedict Arnold treason plot. Liss’s escape with the British, re-enslavement in Manhattan, and later Charleston, and her complex struggle for freedom gives new insight into the country's founding era, through the eyes of an enslaved Black woman seeking liberty in a country fighting for its own. Claire’s book, Espionage and Enslavement in the Revolution: The True Story of Robert Townsend and Elizabeth will be available for purchase. Registration required. This program is a part of the PPLD Big Read.