Henry Laurens

Henry Laurens (March 6, 1724 – December 8, 1792) was an American merchant and rice planter from South Carolina who became a political leader during the Revolutionary War. A delegate to the Second Continental Congress, Laurens succeeded John Hancock as President of the Congress. He was a signatory to the Articles of Confederation.

Laurens had earned great wealth as a partner in the largest slave-trading house in North America (Austin and Laurens). In the 1750s alone, this Charleston firm oversaw the sale of more than 8,000 enslaved Africans. He was for a time Vice-President of South Carolina and a diplomat to the Netherlands during the Revolutionary War. He was captured at sea and imprisoned for some time by the British in the Tower of London.

His son John Laurens, a colonel in the Continental Army and officer on Washington's staff, believed that Americans could not fight for their own freedom while holding slaves. In 1779, he persuaded the Continental Congress to authorize the recruitment of a brigade (3000 men) of slaves, who would be given their freedom after the war. However, when he presented it to them, the South Carolina Provincial Congress overwhelmingly rejected the proposal, and instead voted to use confiscated slaves as payment to recruit more white soldiers. John Laurens was killed in a skirmish in South Carolina in 1782.