In his 1775 treatise, Taxation No Tyranny, British author Dr. Samuel Johnson rhetorically asked, “How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?”  The paradox that Dr. Johnson called out in 1775, is a question Americans continue to grapple with to this day—the institution slavery.  The institution of slavery had been a part of American society for more than 150 years when the Revolutionary War began in 1775.  Slavery existed, and was protected by law, in all 13 American colonies when they declared their independence from Great Britain in 1776.

Forts played important roles in American history from the moment the Spanish, French, and English settlers landed in North America.  One of the first things that these settlers did was to build a palisade fort.  Forts existed in the American colonies throughout the 17th and 18th centuries to defend seaports from foreign navies and to defend the frontier from Native American attacks.  They often played critical roles in the frontier warfare of the French and Indian War between 1754 and 1763.  When fighting broke out in 1775 between the British empire and the American colonists, many of these forts immediately became important military targets.