Gaspee Point, Warwick (Gaspee Affair Site)

Gaspee Point in Warwick, just south of Providence, is where Providence merchant sailors ran the HMS Gaspee aground on June 9, 1772, then boarded and burned her. The Gaspee Affair predated Lexington and Concord by three years and was arguably the first violent act of the American Revolution. A British Crown commission investigating the affair was granted extraordinary powers — including authority to ship Americans to England for trial — that galvanized colonial resistance. A state park and monument mark the site.