Rhode Island, official name State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is the smallest state by area, and the 8th smallest by population. Rhode Island was the first of the thirteen original American colonies to declare independence from British rule, signaling the start of the American Revolution. Rhode Island was also the last of the original thirteen states to ratify the United States Constitution.
Despite its name, most of the state of Rhode Island lies on the North American mainland. Providence Plantations refers to the mainland, while Rhode Island was the 17th and 18th century name for Aquidneck Island (now composed of the city of Newport, and the towns of Middletown and Portsmouth).
Rhode Island has long held the nickname of "Little Rhody", though the state has officially adopted the nickname of "the Ocean State," as nearly one tenth of Rhode Island's inland area is covered by salt water, and no resident is more than a 45-minute drive from the water's edge.
In 1524, the famous Italian navigator, Giovanni da Verrazzano was the first European to visit any part of what is now Rhode Island. He came to what is now Block Island and named it "Luisa" after Louise of Savoy, Queen Mother of France. Verrazzano described Luisa as "about the size of the Island of Rhodes." When the founders of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations surveyed the land, they thought that Aquidneck Island was the place. A mistake occurred in 1614, when Luisa was charted by the Dutch explorer Adriaen Block, after whom Luisa was renamed by the Dutch West India Company; however, their motives in doing so are unknown. The official explanation by the State of Rhode Island is that Adriaen Block named the area "Roodt Eylandt" meaning "red island" in reference to the red clay that lined the shore, and that the name was later anglicized when the region came under British rule.
In 1614, the Dutch explorer Adriaen Block visited the island that is now called Block Island. Native American inhabitants included the Narragansett tribe, occupying most of the area, and the closely related Niantic tribe. Most of the Native Americans were decimated by introduced diseases, intertribal warfare, and the disastrous King Philip's War, but remnants of the Niantic merged into the Narragansett tribe, where they remain on a federally recognized reservation.
In 1636, Roger Williams, after being banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for his religious views, settled at the tip of Narragansett Bay. He called the site Providence and declared it a place of religious freedom.
The following year, Anne Hutchinson was banished from Massachusetts for criticizing the clergy there. She and some others, including William Coddington and John Clark, founded the town of Portsmouth on Aquidneck Island. In 1639, Coddington left Portsmouth and founded Newport on Aquidneck Island.
In that same year a formal government was established for the island. William Coddington was the first governor and Philip Sherman was the first Secretary. In 1643, Samuel Gorton founded Shawomet, which is now called Warwick. In 1644, the name of Aquidneck Island was changed to Rhode Island.
John Clarke was granted a Charter in 1663 for Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, which effectively united the two colonies into one. Under the terms of the charter, only landowners could vote. Before the Industrial Revolution, when most people were employed as farmers, this was considered democratic. The original charter was used as the state constitution until 1842.
The relationship between the New Englanders and the Native Americans was strained, and caused some bloodshed. On December 19, 1675 colonist militia from Connecticut, Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, and Rhode Island massacred about 350 Narragansetts in the Battle of the Great Swamp. The largest tribes that lived near Rhode Island were the Wampanoag, Pequots, Narragansett, and Nipmuck. One native named Squanto, from the Wampanoag tribe, stayed with the Pilgrims and taught them many valuable skills needed to survive in the area. He also helped greatly with the eventual peace between the colonists and the natives.
Roger Williams had kept the powerful Narragansetts on friendly terms with local white settlers. Having kept the Native Americans on friendly terms with settlers, the Narragansetts were even persuaded to form an alliance with the English in 1637, carrying out an attack that nearly extinguished the warlike Pequots. This peace did not last long, however, and by 1670 even the friendly tribes who had greeted Williams and the Pilgrims became estranged from the colonists and conflicts erupted.
The most important and traumatic event in 17th century Rhode Island was King Philip's War, which occurred during 1675–1676. King Philip (his British nickname. His real name was Metacomet) was the chief of the Wampanoag Indians. The settlers of Portsmouth had purchased their land from his father, Massasoit. King Philip rebelled against the English. The first attacks were around Narrangansett Bay, but spread throughout New England.
Rhode Island's tradition of independence and dissent gave it a prominent role in the American Revolution. In 1772, the first bloodshed of the American Revolution took place in Rhode Island when a band of Providence residents attacked a grounded British ship for enforcing unpopular British trade regulations in the incident which would be come to known as the Gaspee Affair. Keeping with its culture of defiance, Rhode Island was the first of the original thirteen colonies to declare its independence from England (May 4, 1776,) and the last to ratify the Constitution (which replaced the Articles of Confederation) (May 29, 1790)—doing the latter only after being threatened with having its exports taxed as a foreign nation.
As the Industrial Revolution moved large numbers of workers into the cities, a permanently landless, and therefore voteless, class developed. By 1829, 60% of the state's free white males were ineligible to vote.
Several attempts had been made to address this problem, but none passed. In 1842, Thomas Dorr drafted a liberal constitution which was passed by popular referendum. However, the conservative sitting governor, Samuel Ward King, opposed the people's wishes, leading to the Dorr Rebellion. Although this collapsed, a modified version of the constitution was passed in November, which allowed any white male to vote that he owned land or could pay a US $1 poll tax.
In addition to industrialization, Rhode Island was heavily involved in the slave trade during the post-revolution era. Slavery was extant in the state as early as 1652, and by 1774, the slave population of Rhode Island was 6.3%, 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 slave trade. Notable among these was the Brown family, for whom Brown University is named, although some important Browns became prominent abolitionists. In the years after the Revolution, Rhode Island merchants controlled between 60% and 90% of the American trade in African slaves.
During the Civil War, Rhode Island was the first Union state to send troops in response to President Lincoln's request for help from the states. Rhode Island furnished 25,236 fighting men, of which 1,685 died. On the home front, Rhode Island, along with the other northern states, used its industrial capacity to supply the Union Army with the materials it needed to win the war. In addition, Newport was the temporary home of the United States Naval Academy during the war. Rhode Island's continued growth and modernization led to the creation of an urban mass transit system, and improved health and sanitation programs. After the war, in 1866, Rhode Island abolished racial segregation throughout the state. Post-war immigration increased the population. From the 1860s to the 1880s, most of the immigrants were from England, Ireland, Germany, Sweden, and Quebec, Canada. Towards the end of the century, however, most immigrants were from South and Eastern Europe, and the Mediterranean. At the turn of the century, Rhode Island had a booming economy, which fed the demand for immigration. In the years leading up to World War I, Rhode Island's constitution remained reactionary, in contrast to the more progressive reforms that were occurring in the rest of the country. The state never ratified the 18th Amendment establishing national Prohibition of alcohol. During World War I, Rhode Island furnished 28,817 troops, of whom 612 died. After the war, the state was hit hard by the Spanish Influenza. In the 1920s and 30s, rural Rhode Island saw a surge in Ku Klux Klan membership largely among the Swamp Yankee population in reaction to the large waves of immigrants moving to the state. The Klan is believed to be responsible for burning the Watchman Institute in Scituate, Rhode Island, which was a school for African American children.
In the 20th century, the state continued to grow, though the decline in industry devastated many urban areas. These areas were impacted further, as with the rest of the country's urban areas, by construction of Interstate highways through city cores and the suburbanization caused by it and by the GI Bill.
Since the Great Depression, the Rhode Island Democratic Party has dominated local politics. For years, the Speaker of the House, always a Democrat, has been one of the most powerful figures in government. The Democratic Party's core of support is in the urban areas of the state and immediate suburbs. While known for old school politics and corruption, Rhode Island also has comprehensive health insurance for low-income children, the RITE CARE program, as well as a large social safety net. Despite this, many urban areas still have a high rate of children in poverty. Due to an influx of residents from Boston, increasing housing costs have resulted in more homeless in Rhode Island (from about 3,000 individuals in 1999 to over 6,000 in 2006), as well as a doubling of the cost of an average home.
The Republican Party, virtually non-existent in the state legislature, has successfully put forward occasional state-wide "good government" reform candidates who criticize the state's high taxes and the excesses of the Democratic Party. Current Governor Donald Carcieri of East Greenwich, and former Mayor Vincent A. "Buddy" Cianci of Providence (who later became an independent, political boss, and was convicted on RICO charges) ran as Republican reform candidates.
Prominent State Democrats include House Speaker William Murphy, Senate President Joseph Montalbano, Providence Mayor David Cicilline, Secretary of State A. Ralph Mollis, General Treasurer Frank Caprio, Senate Majority Leader M. Teresa Paiva-Weed, and Lt. Gov. Elizabeth Roberts. In recent years, the former Speaker of the House John Harwood, State Senator John Celona, and State Senate President William Irons were forced to resign in scandals.
In recent history, in 2003 a nightclub fire in West Warwick, Rhode Island that claimed one hundred lives caught national attention and resulted in criminal sentences.
