History of Rhode Island
The history of Rhode Island is an overview of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations and the state of Rhode Island from pre-colonial times to the present.
Pre-colonization
occupied most of the area comprising Rhode Island, including the Wampanoag, Narragansett, and Niantic tribes. Many were killed by diseases, possibly contracted through contact with European explorers, and through warfare with other tribes. The Narragansett language eventually died out, although it was partially preserved in Roger Williams's A Key into the Languages of America.Rhode Island Colony period: 1636–1776
In 1636, Roger Williams settled on land granted to him by the Narragansett tribe at the tip of Narragansett Bay after being banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for his religious views. He called the site "Providence Plantations" and declared it a place of religious freedom.In 1638, Anne Hutchinson, William Coddington, John Clarke, Philip Sherman, and other religious dissidents settled on Rhode Island after conferring with Williams, forming the settlement of Portsmouth which was governed by the Portsmouth Compact. The southern part of the island became the separate settlement of Newport after disagreements among the founders.
Dissident Samuel Gorton purchased Indian lands at Shawomet in 1642, precipitating a dispute with the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In 1644, Providence, Portsmouth, and Newport united for their common independence as the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, governed by an elected council and president. The King of England granted Gorton a separate charter for his settlement in 1648, and Gorton named the settlement Warwick in honor of the Earl of Warwick who had helped him obtain it. These four settlements were finally united into one colony by the Royal Charter of 1663. Critics at the time sometimes referred to it as "Rogue's Island", and Cotton Mather called it "the sewer of New England" because of the colony's willingness to accept people who had been banished from Massachusetts Bay.
In 1686, King James II ordered Rhode Island to submit to the Dominion of New England and its appointed governor Edmund Andros. This suspended the Colony's charter, but Rhode Island managed to retain possession of it throughout the brief duration of the Dominion—until Andros was deposed and the Dominion was dissolved. William of Orange became King after the Glorious Revolution of 1688, and Rhode Island's independent government resumed under the 1663 charter—and that charter was used as the state constitution until 1842.
In 1693, William III and Mary II issued a patent extending Rhode Island's territory to three miles "east and northeast" of Narragansett Bay, conflicting with the claims of Plymouth Colony. This resulted in several later transfers of territory between Rhode Island and Massachusetts.
Richard Ward was made a freeman of Newport in 1710, then entered public service as Attorney General, later became Deputy and Clerk of the Assembly, and then served as the General Recorder for the colony from 1714 to 1730. In 1723, he was paid six pounds for attending the trial of a group of pirates who were taken prisoner by Captain Solgar, commander of the British ship Greyhound. Of the 36 pirates taken into captivity, 26 were sentenced to hang, and the execution took place at Newport on July 19, 1723, at a place called Gravelly Point.
In 1726, Ward was one of the four Rhode Island commissioners appointed to meet a group of Connecticut commissioners to settle the boundary line between the two colonies. Ward was the Secretary of State from 1730 to 1733, and in 1740 became the Deputy Governor of the colony. In this capacity he and Samuel Perry were appointed trustees to the Indian sachem Ninigret. In 1741 he was selected as Governor for a single term.
Colonial relations with Natives
Early relations were mostly peaceful between New Englanders and the Indian tribes. The largest tribes that lived near Rhode Island were the Wampanoags, Pequots, Narragansetts, and Nipmucks. Squanto was a member of the Wampanoag tribe who stayed with the Pilgrims in Plymouth Colony and taught them many valuable skills needed to survive in the area.Roger Williams won the respect of his Colonial neighbors for his skill in keeping the powerful Narragansetts on friendly terms with the Colonists. In 1637, the Narragansetts formed an alliance with Rhode Island during the Pequot War. However, this peace did not last long, as the most traumatic event in 17th century Rhode Island was King Philip's War. Metacomet became the chief of the Wampanoags; he was known as King Philip by the settlers of Portsmouth who had purchased their land from his father Massasoit. He led attacks around Narragansett Bay, despite Rhode Island's continued neutrality, and later these spread throughout New England. A force of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Plymouth militia under General Josiah Winslow invaded and destroyed the fortified Narragansett Indian village in the Great Swamp in southern Rhode Island on December 19, 1675. The Narragansetts also invaded and burned down several of the Rhode Island settlements, including Providence, although they allowed the population to leave first. In one of the final actions of the war, troops from Connecticut led by Captain Benjamin Church hunted down and killed King Philip at Mount Hope.
Revolutionary era, 1775–1790
Rhode Island was the first colony in America to declare independence on May 4, 1776, a full two months before the United States Declaration of Independence. Rhode Islanders had attacked the British warship HMS Gaspee in 1772 as one of the first acts of war leading to the American Revolution. British naval forces under Captain James Wallace controlled Narragansett Bay for much of the Revolutionary War, periodically raiding the islands and the mainland. The British raided Prudence Island for livestock and engaged in a skirmish with American forces, losing approximately a dozen soldiers. Newport remained a hotbed for Loyalist sympathizers who assisted the British forces, so the state appointed General William West of Scituate to root them out in the winter of 1775–76. British forces occupied Newport from 1777 to 1778, pushing the Colonial forces to Bristol.Battle of Rhode Island
The Battle of Rhode Island was fought during the summer of 1778 and was an unsuccessful attempt to expel the British from Narragansett Bay, although few Colonial casualties occurred. The Marquis de Lafayette called the action the "best fought" of the war. The British were forced to concentrate their forces in New York and consequently left Newport. The French under Rochambeau landed in Newport in 1780, and it became the base of the French forces in the United States for the remainder of the war. The French soldiers behaved themselves so well that, in gratitude, the Rhode Island General Assembly repealed an old law banning Catholics from living in Rhode Island. The first Catholic mass in Rhode Island was said in Newport during this time.Rural resistance to the Constitution was strong in Rhode Island, and the Anti-Federalist Country Party controlled the General Assembly from 1786 to 1790. In 1788, Anti-Federalist politician and Revolutionary War General William West led an armed force of 1,000 troops to Providence to oppose a July 4 celebration of nine states having ratified the Constitution. Civil war was narrowly averted by a compromise limiting the Fourth of July celebration. The State of Rhode Island was the last of the 13 states to ratify the United States Constitution, only doing so after being threatened with having its exports taxed as a foreign nation.
Slavery in Rhode Island
In 1652, the first statute in the Thirteen Colonies banning slavery was passed, but the law was not enforced by the end of the 17th century. In 1703, a law passed by the Rhode Island General Assembly effectively overturned this municipal statute.According to the 1680 Colonial census, there were 175 enslaved people in Rhode Island, including both native and Black persons.
By 1774, the slave population of Rhode Island was 6.3 percent, nearly twice as high as any other New England colony. In the late 18th century, several Rhode Island merchant families began actively engaging in the triangle trade. James and John DeWolf of Bristol were the largest slave traders in Rhode Island. In the years after the Revolution, Rhode Island merchants controlled between 60 and 90 percent of the American trade of enslaved African people. In the 18th century, Rhode Island's economy depended largely upon the triangle trade; Rhode Islanders distilled rum from molasses, sent the rum to Africa to trade for slaves, and then traded the slaves in the West Indies for more molasses.
At its peak, Rhode Island had the highest percentage of enslaved people in New England, due to the many farms in Washington County. Somewhere between 15% and 25% of the population of Washington County was enslaved.
Stephen Hopkins, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and slave owner, introduced a bill while serving in the Rhode Island Assembly in 1774 that prohibited the importation of slaves into the colony, and this became one of the first anti-slavery laws in the United States. In February 1784, the Rhode Island Legislature passed a compromise measure for gradual emancipation of slaves within the state. All children of slaves born after March 1 were to become apprentices, the girls to become free at 18, the boys at 21. By 1840, the census reported only five former Africans enslaved in Rhode Island. However, the international slave trade continued despite the antislavery laws of 1774, 1784, and 1787. In 1789, an Abolition Society was organized to secure enforcement of existing laws against the trade. Leading merchants continued to engage in the trade even after it became illegal, especially John Brown, for whose family Brown University is named, and George DeWolf, but slaving was no more than a minor aspect of Rhode Island's overall maritime trade after 1770. By the mid-19th century, many Rhode Islanders were active in the abolitionist movement, particularly Quakers in Newport and Providence such as Moses Brown.