History of Rhode Island
Native Americans occupied most of the area comprising Rhode Island, including the Wampanoag, Narragansett, and Niantic tribes.
Critics at the time sometimes referred to it as "Rogue's Island",[5] 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.
[6] 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.
[7] 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.
[8] 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.
[1][citation needed] 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.
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.
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.
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 (Rhode Island).
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.
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.
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.
[16] In the years after the Revolution, Rhode Island merchants controlled between 60 and 90 percent of the American trade of enslaved African people.
[19] By the mid-19th century, many Rhode Islanders were active in the abolitionist movement, particularly Quakers in Newport and Providence such as Moses Brown (brother of John).
Rhode Island used its industrial capacity to supply the Union Army with the materials needed to win the war, along with the other northern states.
Rhode Island's continued growth and modernization led to the creation of an urban mass transit system and improved health and sanitation programs.
The fifty or so years following the Civil War were a time of prosperity and affluence that author William G. McLoughlin called "Rhode Island's halcyon era".
[28] The Journal's editor Henry B. Anthony and his later protege Nelson Aldrich, along with war hero Ambrose Burnside, all Republicans, dominated politics during this time.
Aldrich, as US Senator, became known as the "General Manager of the United States", for his ability to set high tariffs to protect Rhode Island and American goods from foreign competition.
[28] In Providence, Pawtucket, Central Falls, and Woonsocket, thousands of French-Canadian, Italian, Irish, and Portuguese immigrants arrived to fill jobs in the textile and manufacturing mills.
[30] In 1935, Governor Theodore Francis Green and Democratic majorities in the state House and Senate replaced a Republican dominance that had existed since the middle of the 19th century in what is termed the "Bloodless Revolution."
