Understanding Posey lies in understanding his milieu. He moved to Philadelphia, a city that was a crossroads of culture, language, commerce and cuisine – much the way we think of New York City, London or Hong Kong today. Third and fourth generation European Americans with English or French ancestry – like George Washington – joined their Dutch- and Swedish-descent counterparts on the brick pavements of Philadelphia developed by William Penn on unceded indigenous Lenape land. In 1791, following the successful revolt of the enslaved on the Caribbean Island of St Domingue (now Haiti), French-speaking white refugees flooded the city, dragging their Creole-speaking enslaved in tow.