Espionage and Enslavement in the Revolution: The True Story of Robert Townsend and Elizabeth Hardcover – Import, 1 June 2021

I stumbled across this book working on my Ancestral tree. As a distant cousin of Robert Townsend, I immediately recognized many of the places and names mentioned throughout the book. I had, however, no knowledge of Liss, nor Robert’s involvement with abolition. That’s the real story here.I feel like I know Robert now, personally. The mixture of the sharing of his actual documented and written words in combination with the writer’s interpretation of what he was feeling and thinking at the time is magnificent.I read the book in two days, I could not put it down. It’s written in a style that keeps the plot moving at a fast pace without sparing important details. That’s a special skill.To be honest, I’m suffering withdrawal now that I’ve finished the book. It leaves you wanting to know so much more. Don’t want to be a spoiler so I will leave it right there.Buy this book. You will not regret it!

Born under the same roof, approximately 10 years apart and under vastly different circumstances, "Espionage And Enslavement- In The Revolution" is the story of Robert Townsend a beneficiary of generational wealth, and Liss born into the rapacious tendrils of slavery. Of the two, Liss aka Elizabeth, is less well known, owing primarily to her existence as human chatal. However, to their great credit, Claire Bellerjeau and Tiffany Yecke Brooks, bring her back to life, with all the requisite humanity that by rights, should have been afforded her during her largely shadow filled existence. During his lifetime, Robert Townsend cast many a purposeful shadow of his own, to conceal from the world, long after The Treaty of Paris, and his own death, his vital and indispensable contribution as one of the primary members of George Washinton's Culpepper Spy Ring. It is also the story, as Billy Joel sings, "a town known as Oyster Bay, Long Island...", and inclusive in the birth of the town, is the record of sale for the parcel of land which became its core, to Peter Wright, his wife Alice and two associates, from The Matinecock Tribe, for a fraction of it's worth. We learn of Tom Gall, the former slave who settled into Pine Hollow, which became for centuries an enclave for emancipated blacks and those born into freedom.It is a quintessential American tale, woven with impeccable research and guided, it appears, to bring all to light, and let the reader make any judgements, should they be inclined to do so. Robert and Elizabeth continue to entwine under the most unlikely of circumstances, which gets to heart of the story, Robert's devotion to improving Liss's plight, while simultaneously being unable to alter the circumstance of her birth.Along the way, we meet John Jay, John Andre, Ben Franklin et al and a legion of lesser known historic figures like Jupiter Hammond, America's first published African American poet, aided and educated by his masters The Lloyd family.It is a saga worthy of telling on film, and I hope it reaches that zenith, for I fear not enough people will seek this incredible, intelligent and vital manuscript.

I just finished reading Espionage and Enslavement. I found it fascinating and was impressed with the amount of research that went into the engaging telling of the stories of Robert Townsend and Liss.As the story unfolded I learned things about the Revolutionary War and the social climate of the times that I'd never known. The history books don't really cover the exodus of Loyalists to Canada or the islands or back to Great Britain. I also didn't realize that in the North there were so many attempts and failed attempts by abolitionists, so many evolving laws regarding the freeing of slaves, and the dangers that threatened both freed and escaped slaves. We somehow come out of grade school history classes believing that the people in the South owned slaves and the people in the North did not.I'd love to know exactly how Liss was freed from Palmes. (An imagined version would make a good movie.) And, although the book tells of Harry's discomfort with the woman who showed up and called herself his mother, I wonder if he ever developed a fondness for her. But perhaps not, since she went to a different household while he remained at Robert's home.I felt sorry for Robert, who seemed to be a lonely man who cared for the family business, his parents, his siblings, enslaved persons, and his country. The unkind words from his brother-in-law (supposedly found in more than one letter) must have sat heavily on him, since his family had no idea how brave he was or the risk he had taken spying for his emerging country.This was a really good read.

Anyone interested in the history of the American Revolution and slavery in New York will want to read this gripping, engrossing true story. Was Liss, a slave owned by the Townsend family of Oyster Bay, possibly a spy for Washington? And how did she influence Robert Townsend, a member of the infamous Culper Spy Ring, to become an ardent abolitionist? I found myself emotionally involved in so much of this story - in the intrigue, the peril, and just in the everyday lives of Revolutionary era people on Long Island and NYC, particularly the slaves, such as Liss. The authors succeed in transporting the reader to the sights, smells, and sounds of that time and to the struggles and emotional lives of those who inhabited it. I like books that make me want to learn more about a particular moment in history and this book did that. The writing is excellent and the research that went into it is thorough and well documented. Kudos to authors Bellerjeau and Yecke Brooks. Thank you for writing this important history! Thanks should also go to Vanessa Williams, who opens the book with her fascinating introduction about her own ancestral roots that go back to that time and to those very streets in Oyster Bay.

Interesting read.