Henry Laurens

This portrait depicts South Carolina statesman Henry Laurens in his capacity as president of the Continental Congress (1777–78). Laurens was also a partner in the largest American slave trading company, Austin and Laurens. During the Revolutionary War (1775–83), he objected to the British promise to liberate enslaved people who would fight with them. In 1780, the British captured Laurens while he was traveling to Holland to negotiate aid for the revolutionary government. They charged him with high treason and imprisoned him in the Tower of London for fifteen months.

Following Laurens’s release, in April 1782, John Singleton Copley painted this portrait in London. Seven months later, Laurens traveled to Paris, where he signed the treaty ending the Revolutionary War. Protecting his economic interests, Laurens made a last-minute change to the Treaty of Paris to prevent the British Army from “carrying away” American property—including formerly enslaved people.