OPINION: Be proud of Rhode Island history and its 'Plantations'

Brian Stinson is a historian and researcher. He lives in Portsmouth, R.I.

This November, Rhode Island voters will be asked to make an important decision concerning the official state name. Our state’s full name is “The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.” Supporters of the proposed change want to drop “Providence Plantations,” claiming slavery and the participation in the slave trade.

Except, this is a false and inaccurate claim, as the word “plantation,” as used in our state’s name, has absolutely nothing to do with slavery. The word means “men banding together to form a colony” and the definition means the same today as it did when Roger Williams first used it, over 50 years before the first slave ever arrived here.

Rhode Island’s Black history and heritage is something to be proud of, but any positive accomplishments are mysteriously omitted by those who want the name changed. Let the facts tell the story.

The slave trade irritated the Quakers, who were the political force of our colony for almost 100 years prior to the War of Independence, who strongly believed that slavery was inhumane. They were the number one religion against slavery and our colony became a leader, as we enacted the first anti-slavery law in America (1652); first conscientious objection law in America (1673); first Negro non importation law in America (1774).

Two more “firsts,” in regards to the founding of Rhode Island, were individual religious freedom and separation of church and state. Although these early statutes did not prohibit slavery, our leaders voted with their “conscience” while being ridiculed by Massachusetts. Hence, the name “Rogues Island”.

Native Americans, not Africans, were the first people enslaved in this region, following the Pequot War of 1637, a conflict in which Rhode Island did not participate. But Connecticut wanted all of our land to the western shores of Narragansett Bay, and Massachusetts claimed the land on the eastern side of the bay.

This left our four settlements separated by water, not land. The Charter of 1663, authored by Dr. John Clarke of Newport, established Rhode Island’s sovereignty by proclaiming the legal right to exist, bound the island of Rhode Island (Portsmouth and Newport) together with the northern mainland towns of Warwick and Providence (Providence Plantations), forming the colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines plantation as “A settlement in a new or conquered country; a colony; An estate or farm, esp. in a tropical or subtropical country,…; The action of establishing or founding anything, e.g. a religion; A company of settlers or colonists, etc.”

Those seeking to shorten the state’s name have no documentation to support their case. Will this election be the first time voters anywhere change history?

Falsely and mistakenly linking the word “plantation” with slavery in Rhode Island could wipe out the accomplishments of founders Roger Williams and Clarke and shred one of the most important pieces of our state’s history, which – when true and accurate – should be shared by all. In this case, the name had nothing to do with slavery – period.

Brian Stinson

Portsmouth, R.I.