The Fort They Said Would Fall - June 28, 1776

On June 28, 1776, four days before the Declaration of Independence, 435 American soldiers defended an unfinished fort on Sullivan’s Island against the full firepower of the British Royal Navy and won. The victory saved Charleston, electrified the colonies, and has been celebrated as a patriot triumph ever since. But the island they fought on was already famous for something else: it was the entry point through which tens of thousands of enslaved people had been processed into America. The fort was built with enslaved labor. And the British warships that failed to close the distance may have been held back, in part, by enslaved men who refused to guide them in. This episode holds all of it at once.