In a guest post on the A Writer of History blog, James Benn discusses how research helped him discover an unexpected historical footnote that pulled together the plot and character of his latest novel, Freegift, the story of Benedict Arnold’s return to his hometown during the Revolutionary War.
After siding with the British, Arnold was given the task of raiding New London, Connecticut, a home base for privateers plaguing the Royal Navy. Though New London was just south of Norwich, where Arnold was raised, he led a raid on the area, that ended with the burning of New London and the slaughter of surrendering combatants. While researching the Arnold family history, Benn learned that Arnold’s father was frequently arrested for public drunkenness and eventually lost his fortune, leading him to sell the family property. Included in that property were several slaves held by the Arnolds.
“Slavery in New England is a topic seldom explored in historical fiction, and I decided that this might be the way inside the story of the terrible events of 1781 in Southeastern Connecticut,” Benn writes. “The elder Arnold did profit from the sale of at least one enslaved youth. Marrying that fact with the story of those who were similarly trafficked, I developed the fictional notion of a child fathered by the younger Arnold, and then the mother sold before her pregnancy was known.”
That child became the protagonist of Benn’s novel. While the child’s mother hopes that Arnold will someday free his son, they don’t know that Benedict will become the most hated man in American. “For me, this is a wonderful intersection of history, research, and fiction,” Benn says. “That simple, and terrible, newspaper ad pulled together all the threads of the story I wanted to tell. Arnold’s horrific raid on New London, a son’s tortured search for his father, and the experience of an emancipated Black youth during the American Revolution.”
