![\"Vanessa](\"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/images\/21-0901-Vanessa-Williams-Gilles-Toucas-696x522.jpg..jpg\")
PHOTO CAPTION: Vanessa Williams. Photo Credit Gilles Toucas.<\/em><\/p>\n
Robert Townsend, one of America\u2019s first spies, is credited with being instrumental in the colonies\u2019 victory in the Revolutionary War. Liss\u2019 life travails, as laid out in this riveting creative nonfiction, coupled with her intelligence, beauty and prowess, position her as a new figure in the founding story of America.<\/p>\n
Bellerjeau, an acclaimed historian and the Director of Education at Raynham Hall Museum, the former home of the Townsend family in Oyster Bay, New York, has researched the Townsend family and those they enslaved for over sixteen years. Her discovery of Liss lends important credence to not only the experience of a woman of color during America\u2019s founding period, but also contributes valuable insight into the extent of slavery in the North, long before the Civil War.<\/p>\n
Slavery was not just a 19th-century issue. In fact, there were 244 years between the arrival of the first African slaves to the colony of Virginia in 1619 to the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. By contrast, there have only been 158 years between 1863 and 2021, with the United States having a longer history as a nation\u00a0with\u00a0slavery than without\u00a0it. American history is grossly misrepresented when slavery is only acknowledged as an occurrence in the middle of the 19th\u00a0century.<\/p>\n
In \u201cEspionage and Enslavement in the Revolution,\u201d we learn that Liss was\u00a0first enslaved in Oyster Bay on Long Island, NY in the 1770\u2019s during the Revolutionary War by Robert Townsend\u2019s family. Townsend became a spy for George Washington and a key member of the legendary Culper Spy Ring. She escaped with a British commander named Col. Simcoe, later was re-enslaved in New York City, and after the war was separated from her toddler son and transported to Charleston, South Carolina where she was enslaved yet again. Robert\u2019s persistent efforts to bring her back to New York and reunite her with her child are the second half of this amazing narrative.<\/p>\n
Vanessa Williams\u2019 own ancestral ties to Oyster Bay, which also date back to the early 1800\u2019s, endeared her personally to the tale of a woman that history overlooked. \u201cClaire was able to trace my lineage back to the 1820\u2019s, all the way back to a time when slaves did not have a last name. I found her research about Liss captivating and intriguing. Here was a brave Black woman from Oyster Bay who started life as a slave, became involved with the spy Robert Townsend, and may have been a spy herself. She finally achieved her freedom all in the same area where my roots as an American go back hundreds of years. Historically marginalized stories are at last being brought to the forefront and Liss rises like a phoenix among them. Claire\u2019s Bellerjeau\u2019s collaborative effort with Tiffany Brooks brings history to life and reveals a new African American female hero, Liss!\u201d cites Vanessa Williams.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I first uncovered Liss\u2019 story, not only was she completely invisible, but the very idea that there was slavery in New York during the Revolution was completely foreign to almost everyone,\u201d notes Bellerjeau. \u201cIn popular culture, we are generally given broad brush-stroke tropes about heroic figures like George Washington, Paul Revere, and the Sons of Liberty, and significant events like the Boston Massacre. For several years I resisted connecting Liss to the Townsend spy story, but as my research continued, the two stories merged. To me, what makes her so important in American history is we haven\u2019t had a person of color to focus on, to see the Revolution through their eyes. Our story, while unfolding among the well-known people and places of the Revolution, gives the reader a rare glimpse of what life was really like for enslaved people struggling though the upheaval of the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe book is of interest for many reasons,\u201d adds Tiffany Yecke Brooks, \u201cnot the least of which is that Liss\u2019 story touched so many different headliners from early American history. Our book gives America a way of seeing the northern theater of the war, which is part of our cultural legacy, but also opens our eyes to northern slavery. To see how deeply slavery was ingrained in New York is shocking. But to acknowledge the many roles and dynamics that everyone played, and not a select view, is critical to the true telling of history.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMy continuing focus is going to be to bring this story to a national audience,\u201d says Bellerjeau. \u201cI\u2019m grateful for the interest shown by Vanessa Williams and hoping her connection to the story will raise even more awareness. Liss is symbolic of so many unheralded voices and stories from our collective past. She\u2019s a national founding figure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Further immerse yourself in American \u2018herstory\u2019 at https:\/\/www.espionageandenslavement.com\/<\/a> and follow \u201cEspionage and Enslavement in the Revolution\u201d on Facebook at https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Espionage-and-Enslavement-in-the-Revolution-177409520576347<\/a>.<\/p>\n Watch the book trailer at https:\/\/youtu.be\/_o795GPxdOM<\/a>.<\/p>\n Purchase the book at Barnes & Noble, on Amazon.com<\/a> and wherever books are sold.<\/p>\n