Silas Deane
E30836
Silas Deane was an American diplomat and Continental Congress delegate who played a key role in securing French support for the American Revolution.
All labels observed (2)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Silas Deane canonical | 9 |
| Silas Deane Papers | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T162276 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Silas Deane Context triple: [Treaty of Alliance (1778), negotiatedBy, Silas Deane]
-
A.
Henry Laurens
Henry Laurens was an American merchant, slave trader, and statesman from South Carolina who became a prominent Revolutionary leader and diplomat, including serving as a U.S. envoy to the Netherlands and being imprisoned in the Tower of London.
-
B.
Charles Thomson
Charles Thomson was an American patriot and political leader best known for serving as the long-time secretary of the Continental Congress during the American Revolution.
-
C.
Robert R. Livingston
Robert R. Livingston was an American lawyer, diplomat, and Founding Father who helped draft the Declaration of Independence and later negotiated the Louisiana Purchase as U.S. minister to France.
-
D.
Richard Henry Lee
Richard Henry Lee was an American statesman and Founding Father from Virginia who introduced the resolution for independence in the Continental Congress and later signed the Declaration of Independence.
-
E.
Marquis de Lafayette
Marquis de Lafayette was a French aristocrat and military officer who became a key ally of the American Revolution and later an influential figure in the French Revolution.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Silas Deane Target entity description: Silas Deane was an American diplomat and Continental Congress delegate who played a key role in securing French support for the American Revolution.
-
A.
Henry Laurens
Henry Laurens was an American merchant, slave trader, and statesman from South Carolina who became a prominent Revolutionary leader and diplomat, including serving as a U.S. envoy to the Netherlands and being imprisoned in the Tower of London.
-
B.
Charles Thomson
Charles Thomson was an American patriot and political leader best known for serving as the long-time secretary of the Continental Congress during the American Revolution.
-
C.
Robert R. Livingston
Robert R. Livingston was an American lawyer, diplomat, and Founding Father who helped draft the Declaration of Independence and later negotiated the Louisiana Purchase as U.S. minister to France.
-
D.
Richard Henry Lee
Richard Henry Lee was an American statesman and Founding Father from Virginia who introduced the resolution for independence in the Continental Congress and later signed the Declaration of Independence.
-
E.
Marquis de Lafayette
Marquis de Lafayette was a French aristocrat and military officer who became a key ally of the American Revolution and later an influential figure in the French Revolution.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (48)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
American diplomat
ⓘ
Continental Congress delegate ⓘ human ⓘ |
| appointedBy |
Second Continental Congress
ⓘ
surface form:
Continental Congress
|
| associatedWith |
Arthur Lee
ⓘ
Benjamin Franklin ⓘ French foreign minister Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes ⓘ
surface form:
Comte de Vergennes
|
| burialPlace | England ⓘ |
| conflict | Political dispute with Arthur Lee ⓘ |
| countryOfCitizenship | United States of America ⓘ |
| dateOfBirth | 1737-12-24 ⓘ |
| dateOfDeath | 1789-09-23 ⓘ |
| educatedAt | Yale College ⓘ |
| ethnicGroup | English American ⓘ |
| familyName | Deane ⓘ |
| givenName | Silas ⓘ |
| hasRole | secret agent in France for the Continental Congress ⓘ |
| languageSpoken | English ⓘ |
| mannerOfDeath | sudden illness ⓘ |
| memberOf | Continental Congress ⓘ |
| nativeLanguage | English ⓘ |
| notableAchievement |
Arranged shipment of arms and supplies from France to America
ⓘ
Helped negotiate French military aid to the American colonies ⓘ Helped pave the way for the 1778 Treaty of Alliance between France and the United States ⓘ |
| notableEvent |
Public controversy over his accounts with Congress
ⓘ
Recall from France by the Continental Congress in 1778 ⓘ |
| notableWork | Securing French support for the American Revolution ⓘ |
| occupation |
diplomat
ⓘ
lawyer ⓘ merchant ⓘ politician ⓘ |
| participatedIn | American Revolutionary War ⓘ |
| partnerInBusinessWith | Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais ⓘ |
| partOf | American diplomatic mission to France ⓘ |
| placeOfBirth | Groton, Connecticut Colony ⓘ |
| placeOfDeath | At sea, near Deal, Kent, England ⓘ |
| positionHeld | American commissioner to France ⓘ |
| religion | Congregationalism ⓘ |
| represents | Connecticut ⓘ |
| residence |
Paris
ⓘ
surface form:
Paris, France
Wethersfield, Connecticut ⓘ |
| sexOrGender | male ⓘ |
| spouse |
Elizabeth Saltonstall Evards
ⓘ
Mehitabel Webb ⓘ |
| subjectOf |
Silas Deane
self-linksurface differs
ⓘ
surface form:
Silas Deane Papers
U.S. diplomatic history studies ⓘ |
| supportedCause | American independence ⓘ |
| workedFor | Continental Congress ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Silas Deane Description of subject: Silas Deane was an American diplomat and Continental Congress delegate who played a key role in securing French support for the American Revolution.
Referenced by (10)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
Silas Deane Papers