Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations
The Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations was an English colony on the eastern coast of North America, founded in 1636 by Puritan minister Roger Williams, at a settlement he originally called Providence Plantations, after his exile from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Joined by three other settlements soon founded on Narragansett Bay, the colony became a haven for religious dissenters and was known for its commitment to religious freedom and self-governance.
The four Narragansett Bay settlements created an official confederacy through a charter under the Patent of 1643–1644, granted by the English Parliament. It received a more comprehensive Royal Charter in 1663 from King Charles II, which established its government and guaranteed its religious liberties. Rhode Island continued as a self-governing colony until 1776, when it declared independence from Great Britain during the American Revolution, becoming the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.
First settlements
The land was first owned by the Narragansett Indians, which led to the name of the town of Narragansett, Rhode Island. European settlement began around 1622 with a trading post at Sowams, now the town of Warren, Rhode Island.The first four European settlements were at Providence, Portsmouth, Newport and Warwick.
Roger Williams—Providence
was a Puritan theologian and linguist. Strongly believing in the separation of church and state, Williams was a separating Puritan who considered the Church of England irredeemably corruptleading to religious persecution against him from the non-separatist leadership of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, which exiled him. Williams moved to a nearby location within the English possessions in the Americas, on the shores of Narragansett Bay, founding the settlement of Providence Plantations in 1636. He sought refuge among the Narragansetts and negotiated with sachems Canonicus and Miantonomoh for land, agreeing to trade goods in exchange. He named the settlement Providence Plantations to express his gratitude for divine guidance.Following his convictions, Williams and his fellow settlers agreed on an egalitarian constitution providing for majority rule "in civil things" with liberty of conscience on spiritual matters. He named three islands in the Narragansett Bay after Christian virtues: Patience, Prudence, and Hope Islands.
Island settlements—Portsmouth and Newport
In 1637, another group of Massachusetts dissenters settled on Aquidneck Island, which was called Rhode Island at the time. They established a settlement called Pocasset at the northern end of the island. The group included William Coddington, John Clarke, and Anne and William Hutchinson, among others. That settlement, however, quickly split into two separate settlements. Samuel Gorton and others remained to establish the settlement of Portsmouth in 1638, while Coddington and Clarke established nearby Newport in 1639. Both settlements were situated on Rhode Island.Shawomet Purchase—Warwick
The second settlement on the mainland was Samuel Gorton's Shawomet Purchase from the Narragansetts in 1642. As soon as he settled there, however, the Massachusetts Bay authorities laid claim to his territory and acted to enforce their claim. Gorton traveled to London to enlist the help of Robert Rich, 2nd Earl of Warwick, head of the Commission for Foreign Plantations. He returned in 1648 with a letter from Rich ordering Massachusetts to cease molesting him and his people. In gratitude, he changed the name of Shawomet Plantation to Warwick.Coddington Charter attempt
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.Protest, open rebellion, and a further petition to Oliver Cromwell in London led to the reinstatement of the original 1643 Patent.
1663 Royal Charter
Following the 1660 restoration of royal rule in England, it was necessary to gain a Royal Charter from King Charles II. Charles was a Catholic sympathizer in staunchly Protestant England, and he approved of the colony's promise of religious freedom. He granted the request with the Royal Charter of 1663, uniting the four settlements together into the English Colony of Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations.In the following years, many persecuted groups settled in the colony, notably Quakers and Jews. The Rhode Island colony was very progressive for the time, passing laws abolishing witchcraft trials, imprisonment for debt, and most capital punishment. 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.
King Philip's War
Rhode Island remained at peace with the Narragansett Indians, but the relationship was more strained between other New England colonies and certain tribes. This situation frequently led to bloodshed, despite attempts by the Rhode Island leadership to broker peace.During King Philip's War, Colonist and Indian fighting regularly violated Rhode Island's neutrality. 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.
The Narragansetts also invaded and burned several towns in Rhode Island, including Providence. Roger Williams had known both Metacom and Canonchet since they were children. He was aware of the tribe's activities and promptly sent letters informing the Governor of Massachusetts of enemy movements. Providence Plantations made some efforts at fortifying the town, and Williams even started training recruits for protection. In one of the final actions of the war, troops from Connecticut killed Philip in Mount Hope, Rhode Island.
Dominion of New England
In the 1680s, Charles II sought to centralize administration of the English colonies and to more closely control their trade. The Navigation Acts passed in the 1660s were widely disliked, since merchants often found themselves trapped and at odds with the rules. However, many colonial governments refused to enforce the acts, Massachusetts principally among them, and Massachusetts took matters one step further by obstructing the activities of the Crown agents. Charles' successor James II introduced the Dominion of New England in 1686 as a means to accomplish these goals. Under its provisional president Joseph Dudley, the disputed "King's Country" was brought into the dominion, and the rest of the colony was brought under dominion control by Governor Edmund Andros. The rule of Andros was extremely unpopular, especially in Massachusetts. 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. With this event, the dominion collapsed and Rhode Island resumed its previous government.The bedrock of the economy continued to be fishing and agriculture, especially dairy farming; lumber and shipbuilding also became major industries. The Rhode Island General Assembly legalized African and Native American slavery throughout the colony in 1703, and the slave trade fueled the growth of Providence and Newport into major ports. By 1755, enslaved people made up 10% of the colony's population. The Rhode Island merchants also profited by distilling rum as part of the triangular trade in slaves and sugar between Africa, America, and the Caribbean.
American Revolutionary period
Rhode Island was the first of the Thirteen Colonies to take up arms against Great Britain in the Gaspee Affair, when an armed group of men attacked and burned a British Navy ship. This impromptu attack occurred in June, 1772, more than a year before the more famous Boston Tea Party.Leading figures in the colony were involved in the 1776 launch of the American Revolutionary War which brought American independence from the British Empire. This included 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.
On May 4, 1776, Rhode Island became the first of the 13 colonies to renounce its allegiance to the British Crown, and it was the fourth to ratify the Articles of Confederation among the newly sovereign states on February 9, 1778. It boycotted the 1787 convention that drew up the United States Constitution, and initially refused to ratify it. It relented after Congress sent a series of constitutional amendments to the states for ratification, the Bill of Rights guaranteeing specific personal freedoms and rights, clear limitations on the government's power in judicial and other proceedings, and explicit declarations that all powers not specifically delegated to Congress by the Constitution are reserved for the states or the people. On May 29, 1790, Rhode Island became the 13th state and the last of the former colonies to ratify the Constitution.