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Community Corner

The Incredible Case Of The Vanishing Martyrs

The oft-overlooked story of the sailors laid to rest at the Prison Ship Monument in Fort Greene Park.

Ed. Note: For hundreds of years, Fort Greene has been making American history. To celebrate this rich tapestry of culture, here's our weekly column, Remembered Places, highlighting historic venues, buildings, homes and people that even longtime Brooklyn residents might not know about.

If one were to ask the average American what they knew about the Revolutionary War, there'd most likely be little to no mention of the Prison Ship Martyrs or the monument in Fort Greene Park.

And with good reason.

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"Around the turn of the twentieth century, historians rewrote the history books removing almost every reference to the atrocities committed by the British during their age of expansion," said Fort Greene resident Ruth Goldstein, a descendant of a prison ship survivor.

Today a Doric column stands guard over a crypt inside Fort Greene Park that houses what remains of the 11,500 soldiers and civilians who were captured and died aboard the British prison ships moored in Wallabout Bay during the Revolution.

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"Most people don't know this of course ... more American soldiers died of starvation aboard these British prison ships than on all the battlefields of the American Revolution," Goldstein said.

Charles Jarden, general director of American Opera Projects and a local history buff, also helped fill the gaps behind this forgotten piece of Revolutionary War history. 

"After the Battle of Long Island, the British literally rounded anyone in the area who refused to swear allegiance to the crown and fight for King George ... it's important to note however, that many of these people weren't rebels," Jarden said.

According to Jarden, the "poor souls" who died aboard those prison ships were an eclectic mix of European businessmen, , recent immigrants to the colonies and a number of British loyalists who didn't want to fight alongside the red coats.

"That's not to say that a great deal of the prisoners weren't from the battle field or rebels, in fact many were privateers from foreign nations who came to fight with the Americans," he said.

And Goldstein was quick to point out that the suffering endured by these brave men was beyond human imagination, especially back then.

"Even for traitors ... the British intent was to be incredible cruel and to make examples out of the prisoners they captured." she said.

It was plan that would ultimately backfire against the British, with public sentiment quickly turning against them as the dead began washing up along the western shores of the island.

"The colonists were confronted with endless waves of bodies washing up on the beaches of Wallabout Bay and the British cruelty towards the Americans then became a rallying cry of the rebel army," Goldstein said.

Today a collection of bones made up of an unknown number of victims who suffered intolerable cruelty at the hands of the British during the Revolutionary War rest under the Prison Ship monument in Fort Green Park — a testament to the thousands of brave heroes captured by the British who most Americans have never heard about.

Though no official number of martyrs has ever been documented, some estimates record the death toll to be well over 10,000.

"Amazing really, when you think that this isn't something we teach in history class," Goldstein said, lamenting the fate of the lost souls slowly fading into the cracks of human history.

"It's a shame because those who died aboard those ships should never be forgotten," she said. 

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