Greetings from Rhode Island. We’re so small not too many people know anything about us. The official name of the state is “The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.” All those letters and words. We were founded about 270 years ago by a bunch of Protestant zealots who couldn’t get along with the fine folks in Massachusetts. Roger Williams being one of them. Our first Governor while being a Baptist minister. (Take that for separation of church and state.)
We are named as we are because historically Newport on Rhode Island was the capital and the hub of activity. Providence and the surrounding communities were more rural. While many of the movers and shakers back in the day, did profit from slavery via the triangle trade, wide spread abusive slavery was not practiced in those “plantations” now called towns, like Warwick or Cranston.
Governor Raimondo is a control freak mini despot who has been enjoying her moment in the sun with here covid 19 shutdown. She has no sense of Rhode Island history, nor does she care. The white liberals around here bring out this name change every time they want to pander for the black vote.
Roger Williams was a Puritan theologian and linguist who founded Providence Plantations in 1636 on land given to him by Narragansett sachem Canonicus. 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. He named the settlement Providence Plantation, believing that God had brought them there. (The term “plantation” was used in the 17th century as a synonym for “settlement” or “colony.”)[1]Williams named the islands in the Narragansett Bay after Christian virtues: Patience, Prudence, and Hope Islands.[2]