The Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations was one of the original Thirteen Colonies established on the east coast of America, bordering the Atlantic Ocean. [17] It boycotted the 1787 convention that drew up the United States Constitution,[18] and initially refused to ratify it. … Several considerations probably motivated this action, including a desire to use proceeds from sales to compensate those, including Williams, who suffered property losses incurred in the destruction of the city, but also to avoid setting the captives free where they could, the settlers feared, resume the war. As I explained in a review of God, War, and Providence by James A. Warren (motifri.com/summer2018-nonfiction) —. As I noted elsewhere, the Boy Scouts started using the swastika on badges and medals in 1911, but stopped in 1934 shortly after the Nazis got into power in Germany. The war's largest battle occurred in Rhode Island on December 19, 1675 when a force of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Plymouth militia under General Josiah Winslow invaded and destroyed the fortified Narragansett village in the Great Swamp. There was slavery in the colony by 1652: we know this with certainty because Rhode Island needed to outlaw it on May 18 of that year, limiting indentured servitude to a term of 10 years (or age 24 if started before age 14); the evidence is that this legal prohibition was widely ignored and never enforced, and regardless was superceded by a 1703 law that officially authorized slavery. Providence Plantations made some efforts at fortifying the town, and Williams even started training recruits for protection. [7][8], In the 1680s, Charles II sought to streamline administration of the English colonies and to more closely control their trade. In part because, during the American Revolution, the British offered freedom to any slave who could escape to their lines, an effort to sabotage the revolutionist economy. Gina Raimondo said it should be up to voters to decide if "Providence Plantations" is removed from the state's full name due to slavery implications. [12] The Narragansetts also invaded and burned several towns in Rhode Island, including Providence. [20], The boundaries of the colony underwent numerous changes, including repeated disputes with Massachusetts and Connecticut Colonies who contested for control of territory later awarded to Rhode Island. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. "Providence plantation" refers to the original settlement founded by Roger Williams in the 1600s, … Gov.  −  'Providence Plantations' was the name of the first European American settlement in Rhode Island, founded in 1636 by a group led by Roger Williams, … FILE – This Jan. 21, 2000, file photo shows the seal bearing the official name “State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations” on the floor of the Statehouse rotunda in Providence, R.I. [5], In 1651, William Coddington obtained a separate charter from England setting up the Coddington Commission, which made him life governor of the islands of Rhode Island and Conanicut in a federation with Connecticut Colony and Massachusetts Bay Colony. New York: W W Norton & Company. The name change was previously put to a vote in 2010, with 78% of state voters opposing the removal of the “Providence Plantations” title, CBS News reported. In gratitude, he changed the name of Shawomet Plantation to Warwick. The phrase, which has … It was in Rhode Island, where I lived after 1964, that I first stumbled across an obscure reference to local slavery, but almost no one I asked knew anything about it. [9][10] The colony also passed the first anti-slavery law in America on May 18, 1652, though the practice remained widespread in Rhode Island and there exists no evidence that the legislation was ever enforced. Samuel Gorton and others remained to establish the settlement of Portsmouth (which formerly was Pocasset) in 1638, while Coddington and Clarke established nearby Newport in 1639. He was exiled under religious persecution from the Massachusetts Bay Colony; he and his fellow settlers agreed on an egalitarian constitution providing for majority rule "in civil things," with liberty of conscience on spiritual matters. Seen at the time as an existential conflict by all parties, Providence was burned to the ground and numerous battles and skirmishes killed both settlers and natives with what is believed to have been the highest per capita death toll of any North American military conflict (including the 1861-1865 American Civil War in second place). Franklin, Wayne (2012). The exact origin of the "plantation" name is unclear. As England began to dominate commercial seafaring, in 1622 the king created what is commonly known as the “Board of Trade,” but whose official name remains to this day, almost 400 years later, “The Lords of the Committee of the Privy Council appointed for the consideration of all matters relating to Trade and Foreign Plantations.” Put more simply, “plantation” was the business buzzword of the early 1600s culture of economic imperialism in which Coke and Williams were enmeshed. Williams purchased Pawtuxeton the north sid… four During winter they had very harsh weather and cold summers ranging from 70 to the mid 70’s. During the 1600s, most slavery in New England, including Rhode Island, was of Native American Indians, reaching a climax after King Philip’s War in 1675-1676, which historians today view as a civil war involving complicated internecine competition among various English settlers and indigenous tribes over resources such as land. [33][34][35], Despite the initial Puritan mass migration also having a 2:1 male sex-imbalance like the British colonization of the Chesapeake Colonies,[36][37] unlike the Southern Colonies in the 17th century, most Puritan immigrants to New England migrated as families (as approximately two-thirds of the male Puritan immigrants to New England were married rather than unmarried indentured servants),[31][37] and in late 17th century New England, 3 percent of the population was over the age of 65 (while only 1 percent in the Chesapeake was in 1704). Some of the people of color I met knew more. The 1688 Glorious Revolution deposed James II and brought William III and Mary II to the English throne; Massachusetts authorities conspired in April 1689 to have Andros arrested and sent back to England. [6], Following the 1660 restoration of royal rule in England, it was necessary to gain a Royal Charter from King Charles II. In 17th century terminology, the English word “plantation” merely meant a settlement. Here's Why It Was Ignored", "Letter from Certain Citizens of Rhode Island to the Federal Convention", HISTORICAL CENSUS STATISTICS ON POPULATION TOTALS BY RACE, 1790 TO 1990, AND BY HISPANIC ORIGIN, 1970 TO 1990, FOR THE UNITED STATES, REGIONS, DIVISIONS, AND STATES, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Colony_of_Rhode_Island_and_Providence_Plantations&oldid=996373301, Former British colonies and protectorates in the Americas, States and territories established in 1636, 1776 disestablishments in the British Empire, 1636 establishments in the British Empire, Short description is different from Wikidata, Pages using infobox country or infobox former country with the symbol caption or type parameters, Articles with unsourced statements from June 2011, Articles with unsourced statements from April 2011, Rhode Island articles missing geocoordinate data, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, Other British colonial entities in the contemporary, Non-British colonial entities in the contemporary United States. A large slave-holding estate in rural southern Rhode Island might have 40 slaves, and there were only a handful of such estates; in the Southern states, a single estate could have hundreds of slaves. [citation needed], On May 4, 1776, Rhode Island became the first of the 13 colonies to renounce its allegiance to the British Crown,[16] and was the fourth to ratify the Articles of Confederation between the newly sovereign states on February 9, 1778. )[2] Williams named the islands in the Narragansett Bay after Christian virtues: Patience, Prudence, and Hope Islands. It was founded by Roger Williams. House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello attracted quite a lot of attention when he questioned that fact in a radio interview on Friday, June 19: “Quite frankly, I have to educate myself, because I originally did not think we had actual slavery in Rhode Island, and that may not be accurate.” The Providence Journal reported that he was “forced to backpedal.” Before we pile onto the public ridicule of Mattiello as an ignoramous, it is worth quoting Joanne Pope Melish (whose PhD is from Brown) in her 1998 book, Disowning Slavery: In Connecticut in the 1950s, when I was growing up, the only slavery discussed in my history textbook was southern; New Englanders had marched south to end slavery. By 1784, Rhode Island enacted a law that provided for the gradual emancipation of slaves, so children born to slaves would no longer be property of their masters but instead would be temporary “apprentices,” girls becoming free at 18 and boys at 21. Also adjudicated in the 1741 decision was the award of most of Cumberland to Rhode Island from Massachusetts. The group included William Coddington, John Clarke, and Anne and William Hutchinson, among others. [13] Charles' successor James II introduced the Dominion of New England in 1686 as a means to accomplish these goals. Rhode Island never had large farms on the scale of slave plantations in the South, but it certainly did have slaves. The notion of a plantation has changed through history, from the medieval Latin “planting” to a settlement or farm when the Pilgrims founded Plimoth Plantation … Pioneers “planted” … [32][39] In February 1784, the Rhode Island General Assembly passed a gradual emancipation law that increased the ratio of the free black population in Rhode Island to 78 percent by the 1790 U.S. Census and that would ultimately eliminate slavery in Rhode Island by 1842. The final establishment of the boundaries north of Barrington and east of the Blackstone River occurred almost a century after American independence,[21] requiring protracted litigation and multiple US Supreme Court decisions. [7][8] During King Philip's War (1675–1676), both sides regularly violated Rhode Island's neutrality. The word “plantation” had no such association with slavery in the 1630s: it was in common use by 1610 to suggest both the idea of “planting” a colony that would grow and “planting” crops in a way that would prove economically productive; the earliest use of the word to describe a large farm of the kind needing slaves is not found until 1706. PROVIDENCE — With national attention riveted on matters of racism and inequality, some Rhode Islanders are renewing an attempt to remove the word “plantations” from the state’s official name. [3], In 1637, another group of Massachusetts dissenters purchased land from the Indians on Aquidneck Island, which was called Rhode Island at the time, and they established a settlement called Pocasset. Both claimed in 1908; territories formed in 1962 (British Antarctic Territory) and 1985 (South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands). Rhode Island voters will decide on Election Day whether or not to remove the phrase “Providence Plantations” from the state’s official name. I covered her presentation and posted a full video recording for Motif (facebook.com/watch/live/?v=721721038645901). But Rhode Island didn’t just have slaves, it had disproportionately more than the other New England colonies. Under its provisional president Joseph Dudley, the disputed "King's Country" (present-day Washington County) was brought into the dominion, and the rest of the colony was brought under dominion control by Governor Sir Edmund Andros. Although Rhode Island had slaves, the numbers were tiny compared to the rest of North America. Rhode Island's northern border with Massachusetts also underwent a number of changes. The seal of the State of Rhode Island adorns a lectern at a news conference where Gov. Gina Raimondo announced that she would, by executive order, shorten the name to “State of Rhode Island” on documents and displays wherever she had the authority to do it, ironically speaking at a podium emblazoned with the state seal still retaining “Providence Plantations.” (Two days later, the seal was temporarily patched up with masking tape.) The settlers adopted a covenant which stressed the separation of religious and civil affairs. (The term "plantation" was used in the 17th century to mean an agricultural colony. Finally, with its 1843 constitution following the Dorr Rebellion, the state adopted abolition with a single sentence: “Slavery shall not be permitted in this state.”. Charles was a Catholic sympathizer in staunchly Protestant England, and he approved of the colony's promise of religious freedom. [24] In 1774, Indians accounted for 1,479 of the inhabitants of the colony (or 3 percent). I’ve come to see it like the swastika: no matter how true it is that the symbol is 2,500 years old and the word “swastika” literally means in Sanskrit “there is well-being,” its adoption in 1920 by Adolf Hitler makes it impossible today to see a swastika without one’s first thought being of Nazism. [7][8] The Rhode Island colony was very progressive for the time, passing laws abolishing witchcraft trials, imprisonment for debt, and most capital punishment. In one of the final actions of the war, troops from Connecticut killed King Philip (Metacom) in Mount Hope, Rhode Island. The plantations were established along the Providence River with the main settlement at Providence in 1636 by Roger Williams, Dr. John Clarke and a small band of followers who had left the Massachusetts Bay Colony to seek freedom of worship, and two paramount chiefs (sachems) of the Narragansett people, named Canonicus and Miantonomi, granted them a sizable tract of land. The Providence Plantations were the first white settlements in Rhode Island. [11], Rhode Island remained at peace with local Indians, but the relationship was more strained between other New England colonies and certain tribes and sometimes led to bloodshed, despite attempts by the Rhode Island leadership to broker peace. [40][41][42], One of the original Thirteen Colonies established on the east coast of America, Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. The word “plantation” has come to be associated with Southern slavery, where first tobacco in the 1700s and later cotton in the 1800s were the cash crops that formed the basis of the entire regional economy, an agricultural engine entirely dependent upon vast quantities of slave labor, the larger operations requiring hundreds of enslaved people. [38] By the American Revolutionary War, only 2 percent of the New England colonial labor force were bonded or convict laborers and another 2 percent were black slaves, while 9 percent of the colonial black population in New England were free persons of color (as compared with only 3 percent in the Southern Colonies). Both the black and white population increased substantially during the 1700s, with the black population 9.1% in 1730, 9.3% in 1749, and 11.5% in 1755, about double that of other New England states. This resolved a long-standing dispute concerning the former Narragansett lands which were also claimed by Connecticut and Massachusetts, although the dispute continued until 1703, when the arbitration award was upheld. The rule of Andros was extremely unpopular, especially in Massachusetts. The clergyman Roger Williams, banished by the General Court of Massachusetts Bay for propagating "new and dangerous opinions," founded the Providence Plantations in June 1636. Slaves were introduced at this time, although there is no record of any law re-legalizing slave holding. Coke was so influential that he was cited and quoted, 130 years after his death, by the American revolutionaries arguing the invalidity of the Stamp Act and writing the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, the latter incorporating ideas first enunciated by Coke such as the right to remain silent and the right to be secure against warrantless searches and seizures. }, Providence, Rhode Island News, Events, Music, Shows, Film, Art. The "Providence Plantations" in the state's official name comes from the settlement founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, which now includes the state's capital, Providence… The British colonists looked back helplessly with increasing alarm as the home country descended into civil war in the 1640s and the interregnum of the 1650s, and the neighboring settlements in Massachusetts and Connecticut saw the Rhode Island settlers as anarchist heretics and the native tribes as recalcitrant heathen savages. Massachusetts surveyed this line in 1642, but subsequent surveys by Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut agreed that it was placed too far south. State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, American Revolutionary War §Background and political developments, List of colonial governors of Rhode Island, https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/524430-rhode-island-voters-officially-drop-providence-plantations-from-state, "How 'Providence Plantations' and Rhode Island were joined", "A Chronological History of Remarkable Events, in the Settlement and Growth of Providence", "America's First Anti-Slavery Statute Was Passed in 1652. [15], Leading figures in the colony were involved in the 1776 launch of the American Revolutionary War which delivered American independence from the British Empire, such as former royal governors Stephen Hopkins and Samuel Ward, as well as John Brown, Nicholas Brown, William Ellery, the Reverend James Manning, and the Reverend Ezra Stiles, each of whom had played an influential role in founding Brown University in Providence in 1764 as a sanctuary for religious and intellectual freedom. Rhode Island's early compacts did not stipulate the boundary on the eastern shore of Narrangansett Bay, and did not include any of Washington County, land that belonged to the Narragansett people. Prove that you are human * The Navigation Acts passed in the 1660s were widely disliked, since merchants often found themselves trapped and at odds with the rules. The founder of Providence, Roger Williams, had a background in the law courts of England, having clerked for the most famous lawyer and judge of the day, Edward Coke, and their relationship took on the character almost of father and son, Coke thinking so highly of Williams’ ability that he paid for his formal education. [23], Rhode Island was the only New England colony without an established church. In the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, Rhode Island may drop “and Providence Plantations” from its state name. The "Providence Plantations" in the state's official name comes from the settlement founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, which now includes the state's capital, Providence… Block Island was settled in 1637 after the Pequot War, became a part of the colony in 1664, and was incorporated in 1672 as New Shoreham. “Rhode Island and Providence Plantations” has been the official full name of the state since the colonial era, created by the unification of the original “four towns,” which in order of their dates of founding were Providence (1636), Pocasset/Portsmouth (1638), Newport (1639), and Shawomet/Warwick (1642). On May 29, 1790, Rhode Island became the 13th state and the last of the former colonies to ratify the Constitution.  =  [citation needed] With this event, the dominion collapsed and Rhode Island resumed its previous government. In the definitive classic on the subject, The Negro in Colonial New England, Lorenzo Greene in 1942 gave specific numbers. On Aug 14, 1676, two days after King Philip (Metacom) was killed, effectively ending the war, a town meeting in Providence authorized a commission, including Roger Williams, to sell the captured natives into indentured servitude for limited numbers of years ranging from children under age 5 who would be freed at age 30 and those older than age 30 who would be freed after 7 years, technically not breaking the law against slavery then in effect, although it was clearly understood that many, especially those destined to be transported to the Caribbean, would be unlikely to survive long enough to reach freedom even if the terms were honored. But Coke, until he fell out of royal favor and spent the rest of his life in parliamentary opposition, was the ultimate establishment lawyer, serving as the king’s prosecutor against both Walter Raleigh and Guy Fawkes. (This was his PhD dissertation at Columbia, and it was reprinted in 1968 and 2016.) Overlapping charters had awarded an area extending three miles inland to both Plymouth and Rhode Island east of Narragansett Bay; this area was awarded to Rhode Island in 1741, establishing Rhode Island's jurisdiction over Barrington, Warren, Bristol, Tiverton, and Little Compton which Massachusetts had claimed. European settlement began around 1622 with a trading post at Sowams, now the town of Warren, Rhode Island. It currently has almost 7,500 signatures. However, many colonial governments, Massachusetts principally among them, refused to enforce the acts, and took matters one step further by obstructing the activities of the Crown agents. Rhode Island has dropped “Providence Plantations” from its official state name, according to The Associated Press. [21], The western boundary with Connecticut was defined ambiguously as the "Narragansett River" in the Connecticut charter, which was decided by arbitrators in 1663 to be the Pawcatuck River from its mouth to the Ashaway River mouth, from which a northward line was drawn to the Massachusetts line. They made money from fishing, whaling, and shipbuilding. But the order would shorten it to just “Rhode Island”. Coke’s legal radicalism was echoed by Williams who broke with ancient traditions of English practice in founding Providence: he insisted that land could not be acquired by force through “right of discovery” and instead the Native American Indians should be paid for it, he insisted that the governor and officers of the colony should be chosen by popular vote at annual elections rather than being appointed from London, and — most famously — he insisted that individuals would have full liberty of religious conscience and should be subject only to the civil law. Importantly, Rhode Island remained neutral, refusing to join the New England Confederation of English settlers from Massachusetts Bay Colony, New Haven Colony, Plymouth Colony, and Connecticut Colony. Story at a glance. Members of the historical society did, but they assured me that slavery in Rhode Island had been brief and benign, involving only the best families, who behaved with genteel kindness. Beyond some threshold that has been crossed by both the swastika and the word “plantation,” the symbolism becomes irredeemably infected with evil, regardless of the true history, but it is worth understanding that history. By the 1860s, as the North grew into the world’s industrial powerhouse with factories, railroads, telegraph lines, and consequent wealth, the South remained trapped by its addiction to a feudal system that benefited a few who owned land and slaves but prevented the development of modernity and a middle class, and eventually those privileged few were desperate enough to preserve their own interests that they plunged the nation into a bloody civil war lasting four years, 1861-1865, with a cost of 600,000 lives lost. .hide-if-no-js { [31][32] Mass migration from New England to the Province of New York and the Province of New Jersey began following the surrender of New Netherland by the Dutch Republic at Fort Amsterdam in 1664, and the population of New York would continue to expand more so by in-migration by families from New England (including Rhode Island) in the 18th century rather than from natural increase. In 1708, according to Greene, the population of the colony was 7,181, including 426 black and 56 white “servants.” Greene assumes that all of the black “servants” were actually slaves, which is probably correct, especially because the black population is concentrated in the ports where the slave trading ships were based: Newport had a total population of 2,203, including 220 black and 20 white “servants,” while Providence had a total population of 1,446, including 7 black and 6 white “servants.” Unless Greene is correct about the black “servants” being either entirely or at least overwhelmingly slaves, it is difficult to understand why the black population of Newport was 9.9% but of Providence was 0.4%. Ironically, the colony later prospered under the slave trade, by distilling rum to sell in Africa as part of a profitable triangular trade in slaves and sugar between Africa, America, and the Caribbean. June 24, 2020 / 11:44 AM / CBS News The state of Rhode Island is moving to change its official name — "The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations" — due … The percentage black population declined to 6-7% between 1774 and 1790. Rhode Island's official name includes "Providence Plantations" after the name of a settlement founded in 1636 by Roger Williams that now includes the … “The unusually large number of Negroes in Rhode Island late in the eighteenth century is evidence of the colony’s enormous commercial activities which produced a relatively large slave-holding aristocracy,” Greene wrote. “Rhode Island and Providence Plantations” has been the official full name of the state since the colonial era, created by the unification of the original “four towns,” which in order of their dates of founding were Providence (1636), Pocasset/Portsmouth (1638), Newport (1639), and Shawomet/Warwick (1642). 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