Ray Henry, AP, June 26, 2009
The country’s smallest state has the longest official name: “State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.”
A push to drop “Providence Plantations” from that name advanced farther than ever on Thursday when House lawmakers voted 70-3 to let residents decide whether their home should simply be called the “State of Rhode Island.” It’s an encouraging sign for those who believe the formal name conjures up images of slavery, while opponents argue it’s an unnecessary rewriting of history that ignores Rhode Island’s tradition of religious liberty and tolerance.
The bill permitting a statewide referendum on the issue next year now heads to the state Senate.
“It’s high time for us to recognize that slavery happened on plantations in Rhode Island and decide that we don’t want that chapter of our history to be a proud part of our name,” said Rep. Joseph Almeida, an African-American lawmaker who sponsored the bill.
{snip}
Banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for his unorthodox religious views, minister Roger Williams set out in 1636 and settled at the northern tip of Narragansett Bay, which he called Providence Plantations. Williams founded the first Baptist church in America and became famous for embracing the separation of church and state, a legal principle enshrined in the Bill of Rights a century later.
Other settlers made their homes in modern-day Portsmouth and Newport on Aquidneck Island, then known as the Isle of Rhodes.
In 1663, English King Charles II granted a royal charter joining all the settlements into a single colony called “The Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.” The name stuck. Rhode Island used that royal charter as its governing document until 1843.
Opponents of the name charge argue that “plantations” was used at the time to describe any farming settlements, regardless of slavery.
Rhode Island merchants did, however, make their fortunes off the slave trade. Slaves helped construct Brown University in Providence, and a prominent slave trader paid half the cost of its first library.
{snip}
Original article
(Posted on June 26, 2009)
Comments
Once again, They love to re-write history. The foolish thing about it is if you want to remember something whether its pride or as a lesson you dont re-write IT! Individual men should be the judge of things I dont need this world sugar coated.
Yes, God YES!!! Finally, by dropping the plantation from Rhode Island’s name, racial vibrant multicultural diversity tolerance will be achieved!!! Finally, that last wall will come down between the evil oppressive white man and noble oppressed minorities. This is a new day for America. I feel a change in the air. But, of course, I’m sure the mean ol’ white man will find some way to screw it up and start oppressing everyone in a new, more evil way.
Plantation life wasn’t all peaches and cream for the white folk, either. This account of an ancestor of mine, Thomas Mumford Jr, appeared in “Mumford Memoirs”, by James Gregory Mumford, in 1900 (and thus in the public domain):
It was in May, 1707, while Thomas was absent in Newport, that his wife, Abigail, then a vigorous matron of thirty-seven, had some words with one of these slaves and caused him to be whipped. He struck her down and brutally murdered her. The amazement, fury, and excitement of the whole province were long remembered, and the fame thereof dwelt in the land.
The wretched homicide for a short time eluded his pursuers, but his case must soon have become hopeless, for in the end he threw himself into the sea and was drowned. Here is an abstract from the Colonial Records of the twenty- eighth of May, 1707. Even its stilted phraseology becomes somewhat luminous with the human thought it contains.
“Whereas the body of a [African-American], which was the late slave of Mr. Thomas Mumford of Kingstown, and who had committed the horrid and barbarous murder upon the wife of the said Mumford, about two weeks since, as is justly concluded, was found upon the shore of Little Compton, in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, which said {African-American], it is believed and judged, after he had committed said murder, then threw himself into the sea and drowned himself, by reason he would not be taken alive; and the said [African-Amdrican]’s body being brought into the harbour of Newport, it is ordained by the Assembly that his head, legs, and arms be cut from his body and hung up in some public place, near the town, to public view; and his body be burned to ashes, that it may, if it please God, be something of a terror to others from perpetrating of the like barbarity for the future.”
So ended the life of this worthy lady, known to us, her descendants, as Abigail only. She comes upon our scene as a prolific matron — the mother of giant sons, she leaves it the murdered victim of a brutal slave; and history tells us no more—her very name forgotten and her place soon filled.
Williams founded the first Baptist church in America and became famous for embracing the separation of church and state, a legal principle enshrined in the Bill of Rights a century later.
Maybe I’m just being picky with this because it’s not the main issue in the story. But I’ve noticed how frequently journalists have taken to announcing that "the separation of church and state" is "enshrined in the Bill of
Rights". Ummm…no. It’s not. The first amendment reads, and I quote:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
The reason I make such an issue of this is that so many special interest groups use "separation of church and state" as an excuse to PROHIBIT THE FREE EXERCISE THEREOF. And lest people think I’m an overzealous bible thumper, I’m not. I happen to be agnostic. I just don’t like sneaks.
“…for those who believe the formal name conjures up images…”
…and for those who DONT believe?
Sorry.
It hardly needs to be stated that Plimoth also understood itself to be a plantation-though a sensible one, without slaves.
As JohnPM says:
Another example of ridiculous cultural cleansing. But maybe soon media outlets, even the History Channel, will admit the heavy reliance on slave labor in the Northeast.
So it’s just the name that offends. There were no slave plantations in Rhode Island, but that doesn’t matter. The name offends.
The name should be retained for the sake of fighting Political Correctness and slamming a lid on the pretensions of undesirables seeking power to oppress.
Perhaps every state admitted before the “War Between the States” should be renamed. Bad memories of slavery.
What next for Rhode Island? Declare US presidents 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 10, 11 and 12 non-persons and ask for textbooks not to include them as presidents.
