Newport, Rhode Island has more original Colonial Era homes than any city in America with over 300 historic structures. Newport also has a number of surviving historic homes where free Africans owned property, held worship services and plied their skilled trades.

While Africans arrived to Newport as “forced immigrants,” their direct contributions to the Colonial Seaport’s economic, religious and social fabric would be considerable. By 1780, free Africans would form for the first time in America the Free African Benevolent Society and later that same year hold their own worship services and retain white school teachers to educate their children.

Below is a list of a few of the homes where Africans live, worked, and worshiped in early Newport that still exist over 250 years later.