Simeon Potter

Simeon Potter (1720-1806) was a slave trader and sea captain. In 1740, he married Ann Bragg. During King George’s war, he commanded a privateer vessel named the Prince Charles of Lorraine. During a raid on a Jesuit mission in French Guiana, Simeon was wounded in the arm. Beginning in 1752, he was a member of Rhode Island’s General Assembly. In 1754, Simeon married Hannah Paine. In 1765, a newspaper reported that a “Negro Fellow belonging to Simeon Potter” drowned after falling from a ship. In 1772, Simeon allegedly led a boat full of men from Bristol to take part in the burning of the armed schooner Gaspee. He served in the Bristol Militia before the Revolution and commanded Rhode Island’s militia as major general when the war began. In 1774, as part of a town-wide effort, he sent a sum of seven pounds, four shillings to support the people of Boston (that city’s port having been recently closed by the British). As of the 1774 Rhode Island Census, there were eleven black people (likely enslaved) living in the Potter household. Simeon was the main Bristolian responsible for negotiating with Captain James Wallace during the bombardment of Bristol. He owned privateer ships, on which multiple of his nephews sailed. He was responsible for introducing the DeWolfs to the slave trade.