History
On 1 August 1834, the Emancipation Proclamation was read at the Sunday Morning Well. This gave slaves their freedom, even though slavery had been officially abolished in 1807.
In 1853, a town-wide fire destroyed nearly every building in Road Town. The fire spread because of angry rioters protested an increase on the cattle tax. Rioters eventually set fire to most of the plantations across the island.
Read more about this topic: Road Town
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“... all big changes in human history have been arrived at slowly and through many compromises.”
—Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962)
“I believe that history might be, and ought to be, taught in a new fashion so as to make the meaning of it as a process of evolution intelligible to the young.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“I feel as tall as you.”
—Ellis Meredith, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 14, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)