RHODE ISLAND

RHODE ISLAND, located in the northeast part of the United States, is the smallest state by size. The full name is the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.

Geography

Although it is only 1,045 square miles, Rhode Island's geography is complex because of its large islands and a

mainland carved by an ice-age glacier. While the state is not an island, it includes an island named Rhode Island that is also known as Aquidneck Island. It is the biggest island in Narragansett Bay, one of the world's greatest natural bays. The island stretches from north to south in the eastern bay; on its northeast coast is Portsmouth (also known as Pocasset) and on its southwest coast is Newport. To the west of Aquidneck Island are Prudence Island and Conanicut Island, roughly aligned northeast (Prudence) to southwest (Conanicut).

These islands and most of the mainland of Rhode Island are part of the Coastal Lowlands, a broad geological structure that extends along much of America's northeastern coast. The lowlands have many excellent areas for farming and during America's early history, Rhode Island's lowlands helped feed the nation. Northern Rhode Island is in the New England Uplands that extend south into Pennsylvania and north into Maine. When the state's most recent glacier pushed into Rhode Island, it carved into both the Coastal Lowlands and the New England Uplands; when it retreated roughly ten thousand years ago, it left behind not only Narragansett Bay but lakes and ponds, and valleys and hills. Newly formed rivers and streams ran through the valleys. The northeastern Blackstone River fed into Narragansett Bay near where the city of Providence was established. The rivers and streams, including the southwestern Pawtucket River, provided power for mills during the first several decades of Rhode Island's industrialization; the lakes and ponds served to store water, especially when dammed.

Early Settlers

The first European settler in what is now Rhode Island was an Anglican minister, William Blackstone, who settled near what is now called Blackstone River, close to modern Lonsdale, in 1635. In June 1636, the father of Rhode Island, Roger Williams, brought some of his followers from Massachusetts to escape religious oppression. The people of Massachusetts were Congregationalists—Puritans who had fled England due to persecution by the Church of England. The freedom they sought was not freedom for all; it was freedom to practice their religion, consequently forcing non-Congregationalists to practice it too. They imprisoned, tortured, and even executed people who did not follow their church laws. Roger Williams wanted to establish a colony where people could worship freely. He believed that that one should not infringe on another's right to worship, and should have the ability to practice any religion of choice.

When he settled in Rhode Island, Williams named his settlement Providence. He took the time to learn the languages of the Native Americans, publishing the guide, A Key into the Language of America in 1643. Narragansetts populated most of the area, with a large tribe, the Wamponoags, to the south, and the Pequots in what is now Connecticut. There were also the small groups of Nipmucks, Niantics, Cowesetts, and Shawomets inhabiting the area. The tribes were part of the large cultural and language group, the Algonquins, who spread over much of eastern North American, from the future North Carolina into the future Canada. Williams and his followers negotiated treaties and bought land from the Native Americans; on 24 March 1638, they acquired a deed for their Providence "plantation" from the preeminent sachems (meaning chiefs) of the Narragansetts, Canonicus, and young Miantonomi. Williams always dealt with the Native Americans honestly, which the local tribes valued highly.

Williams's idea of a land of free religious practices attracted others. In 1638, Antinomians established Portsmouth on Aquidneck, which had been purchased that year. Nonconformist William Coddington established Newport on Aquidneck Island in 1639. The first American Baptist church was founded in Providence in 1839. In 1642, Samuel Gorton established Warwick. Small settlements of religious dissidents were established in the general area of Providence, becoming "plantations." They featured independent men and women, who insisted on practicing their faiths as they saw fit—much as Williams hoped they would. Prompted by continued Puritan harassment and claims to territory in Rhode Island, Williams went to England in 1643 to get a patent for the new townships and plantations. In 1644, the English Parliament granted Newport, Portsmouth, and Providence incorporation as "Providence Plantations in the Narragansett Bay in New England," often called "Warwick's Charter" after the Earl of Warwick. Plymouth and Massachusetts refused to recognize the validity of the charter.

From 19 to 21 May 1647, the First General Assembly met in Portsmouth, which established an anchor as a symbol of the colony's freedom and passed a modest number of laws. During the 1650s, Rhode Island attracted a wide variety of religious groups. Notable were the Jews who, in 1658, began establishing congregations (although the first synagogue in the state would not be built until 1763) and the Quakers, who were being executed and tortured in Massachusetts and Plymouth. In 1657, Plymouth demanded Rhode Island surrender its Quakers, and on 13 October 1657, Rhode Island refused, helping establish its reputation as a safe refuge from oppression.

By the 1670s, Williams's carefully wrought relationships with Native Americans began to fall apart. The Wampanoags, angered by the colonists who had cheated them out of much of their land, began to attack settlements. On 19 December 1675, a Narragansett traitor led Massachusetts soldiers into a Narragansett camp, and the soldiers slaughtered the almost 700 inhabitants, 400 of which were women and children burned to death in their wigwams. There followed King Philip's War named for a Wampanoag chief whose Native American name was Metacom. The alliance of Wampanoags and Narragansetts won a few battles and burned Providence (although taking special care not to harm Williams) and some villages. On 12 August 1676, a Wampanoag traitor murdered Metacom. War casualties diminished the populations of the tribes so much that they were never again threats to the settlers.

Independence

From 1686–1689, Rhode Island and other New England colonies were forced into the Dominion of New England by King James II. His governor for the Dominion, Edmund Andros, took control of Rhode Island on 22 December 1686, but on 18 April 1689 he was imprisoned in Boston, and the effort to gather the northern colonies into one unit failed. This may have marked the beginning of Rhode Island seeing its neighbors as allies against English oppression, rather than oppressors themselves.

On 1 March 1689, England and France went to war. The conflict was a world war, but in America, it was referred to as the French and Indian War. It had four separate outbreaks of hostilities that lasted from 1689–1763, when France finally lost its Canadian colonies. During this period, Newport became Rhode Island's major city, enriched by its shipping industry. It was the era of the notorious trade in rum, sugar, and slaves. Rhode Island's General Assembly had tried to outlaw slavery in 1674, but the law was ignored. Williams's vision of a prejudice-free society seemed lost during this era. For example, in February 1728, Jews, Muslims, pagans, and Roman Catholics were specifically given freedom of conscience but were denied the right to vote. In 1730, a census indicated 17,935 people lived in Rhode Island, but the count may have been low because some rural areas were not included. In 1764, the General Assembly authorized the establishment in Warren of "Rhode Island College," which was renamed Brown University in 1804.

Also in 1764, the English Parliament passed the Sugar Act, which required the American colonies to buy their sugar only from other British colonies. This hurt Rhode Island's economy since Britain's colonies did not produce nearly enough sugar to support the molasses and rum industries in Rhode Island. In response, the General Assembly passed a law in September 1765 declaring that only it could tax people in Rhode Island. Rhode Islanders burned the British ship, Liberty, in Newport's harbor on 19 July 1769. On 10 June 1772, the British ship Gaspee, which had been searching all ships was lured into running aground, seized, and burned. On 4 May 1776, aroused by the attacks of British soldiers on colonial militias and civilians, Rhode Island renounced its allegiance to England. The General Assembly approved the Declaration of Independence on 18 July 1776 and on 8 December 1776, the British army occupied Newport. Their looting and other depredations so ruined Newport that it lost its status as Rhode Island's most prosperous city, and thousands of citizens fled. The British looted and burned villages and towns, including, on 25 May 1778, Bristol and Warren. On 9 February 1778, the General Assembly declared that any slaves, black or Native American, who joined the first Rhode Island Regiment would be free; many slaves joined and the state government compensated their former owners. They became famous during the war as the "Black Regiment."

On 29 August 1778, the Continental Army and its new allies, the French, fought the British army in the Battle of Rhode Island. The battle was inconclusive, although the Black Regiment inflicted heavy casualties on the enemy's Hessians. On 25 October 1779, the British left Newport and moved to the southern colonies where the British army was suffering almost unendurable casualties in battles with the Army of the South, led by General Nathanael Greene, a Rhode Islander who had run an iron foundry in Warwick. Meanwhile, in 1778, Rhode Island ratified the Articles of Confederation.

When the Revolutionary War ended, Rhode Islanders wished to keep their independence from outside authority. Their history had included much suffering caused by those who had tried to rule them, and they were distrustful of any central national government. Thus, they resisted the imposition of a new American constitution and did not send delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787. In 1784, Rhode Island enacted the Emancipation Act, which declared every child born to a slave to be free at age twenty-one. It was an imperfect abolition of slavery, with the last Rhode Island slave death in 1859. However, Rhode Islanders were angry that the Constitution of the United States of America allowed slavery. Long after other states had ratified the new federal constitution, Rhode Island, which had not acknowledged the validity of the Constitution Convention, refused to accept it. Several times it had been put to a vote in Rhode Island, and each time it had been voted down. Eventually, the federal government threatened to treat Rhode Island as an independent nation and to charge tariffs on its goods. In 1790, the General Assembly met twice to vote on the Constitution; the first time there were not enough votes, but on 29 May 1790, it ratified the Constitution by a vote of 34 to 32. By then, a federal election had already been held, and George Washington had been president since 1789.

Industry

In the 1790s, Rhode Island's economy began to move away from shipping to industrialization. Samuel Slater was a young engineer who had worked in an English cotton mill and had memorized every machine in it. It was illegal for engineers to leave England, but Slater managed to sneak out and come to America. In Moses Brown, a merchant from Providence, he found someone who was enthusiastic about building a cotton mill, and in 1790, they built Rhode Island's first. By 1804, manufacturing cloth was a major industry, and during the 1820s, the capital invested in the manufacturing of textiles surpassed that invested in shipping. By 1860, 80 percent of Rhode Island's capital was invested in manufacturing of jewelry and weapons and a host of other goods.

The growth of manufacturing in the state created significant social problems, exacerbated by an 1822 law that took the vote away from African Americans. Immigrants from all over Europe came to Rhode Island to work in factories, but even if they became naturalized American citizens they were denied the right to vote. By 1840, 60 percent of Rhode Island's adult males were disfranchised. This fostered the Dorr War of 1840–1842. A lawyer, Thomas Wilson Dorr argued that when a government fails to serve its people, the people have the right to over-throw it. He cited the Revolutionary War as an example. In 1841, his followers arranged for a plebiscite, without the permission of Rhode Island's government, to elect representatives to a People's Convention. They drafted the People's Constitution, which won a popular vote in December 1841. Thereafter, a government was elected with Dorr as governor. This created two governments in Rhode Island: the People's government and the Law and Order government led by Governor Samuel Ward King. On 17 May 1842, Dorr and a following of Irish immigrants tried to seize the state arsenal in Providence. They failed, partly because African Americans in the city came to the aid of the militia in defending the arsenal. Dorr's actions frightened many Rhode Islanders, and they supported Governor King. In 1842, the General Assembly offered voters a state constitution to replace a body of laws from 1663, which they passed. It liberalized voting rules and returned the vote to African American males. It also included a $134 "freehold suffrage qualification" for naturalized citizens as a way of punishing poor Irish immigrants for supporting Dorr.

During the 1850s, the Republican Party was formed. In Rhode Island, it attracted Whigs, disaffected Democrats, and some of the Know-Nothings—an anti-immigrant group. They were united in their abhorrence of slavery and in their belief that the Union must be preserved in order to maintain liberty throughout America. In 1860, voters rejected the antislavery Republican candidate for governor, Seth Padelford, electing instead the Conservative Party candidate, William Sprague, who was conciliatory toward slavery. On the other hand, he was a staunch Unionist. When the Civil War broke out, Rhode Island quickly began supplying the Union with goods it needed for the war effort. The state provided 25,236 servicemen, 1,685 of whom perished. During the war, the United States Naval Academy was moved from Annapolis, Maryland, to Newport, Rhode Island. In 1866, Rhode Island outlawed the segregation of races, but segregation would occur well into in the twenty-first century. For the rest of the nineteenth century, industry continued to grow, and immigration grew with it. In 1886, the legislature passed a state constitutional amendment giving the vote to adult women, but the amendment had to be approved by a plebiscite, and it lost 21,957 to 6,889. It was not until 1917 that Rhode Island passed a women's suffrage law. In an effort to end intimidation of workers by factory owners when voting, Rhode Island established the secret ballot in 1889. In the 1890s, French-Canadians moved to Rhode Island, and by 1895, there were over forty thousand of them residing in the state.

The Modern Era

In the first two decades of the twentieth century, tens of thousands each of Italians, Portuguese, and Poles emigrated to Rhode Island, adding colorful traditions to a society that was among the most culturally diverse in America. In 1900, Providence was made the state's permanent capital. By 1905, at 50.81 percent of the population, Roman Catholics were the largest religious group in Rhode Island. In 1909, the governor was given the right to veto legislation; this was an effort to even out the powers of the legislative and executive branches of the government.

Although Republicans had long controlled the state government, in 1935, Democrats staged the Bloodless Revolution. Led by Governor Theodore Francis Green, Lieutenant Governor Robert Emmet Quinn, and Pawtucket's Democrat party boss Thomas P. McCoy, the Bloodless Revolution replaced the members of the state's supreme court and restructured the government into departments rather than commissions. Further developments, such as calling a new state constitutional convention, fell to the way side due to factional quarreling among Democrats. Disenchanted, voters elected Republicans, who in 1939 passed a civil service act protecting state employees from being arbitrarily fired.

In 1938, Rhode Island was hit by a hurricane with winds reaching 200 mph, killing 311 people and costing $100 million in damage. During World War II, Rhode Island's shipyards saw activity reminiscent of the Revolutionary War era. On Field's Point, the Walsh-Kaiser Shipyard employed about twenty-one thousand workers and built Libertyships, cargo ships that hauled supplies to the United Kingdom. When the war ended and demand for new ships declined, many people were out of work. A sales tax was introduced in 1947 to help the government compensate for lost revenue. During the 1950s, many people moved out of cities and to the suburbs, causing steep declines in urban populations. For example, Providence's population from 1950 to 1960 dropped from 248,674 to 179,116.

The 1950s were marked by two devastating hurricanes. On 31 August 1954, Hurricane Carol killed nineteen people and caused $90 million in damage. On 19 August 1955, Hurricane Diane broke two dams and caused $170 million in damages. In 1966, a hurricane barrier was built on the Providence River.

Rhode Island held a state constitutional convention in 1964 to modernize its constitution, but its new constitution was rejected in a 1968 plebiscite. A state income tax took effect in February 1971 as a "temporary" measure; it was made permanent in July 1971. By the 1980s, corruption of public officials was causing a decline in the citizens' faith in Rhode Island's government. In 1985, mismanagement caused the Rhode Island Housing and Mortgage Finance Corporation to collapse; money intended to help low-income residents buy homes apparently went into the pockets of administrators. In 1986 and 1993 two state supreme court justices resigned because of their unethical conduct and the imminent prospect of impeachment. In 1991, a superior court judge was sent to prison for taking bribes. Also in 1991, the Rhode Island Share and Deposit Indemnity Corporation collapsed, taking credit unions it was supposed to protect down with it.

In 1984, the state held a constitutional convention. By May 1986, the new constitutional provisions approved by voters included a Constitutional Ethics Commission and a requirement that the General Assembly regulate campaign spending. A proposal of four-year terms for elected officials, including legislators, failed in 1986, but a 1992 amendment lengthening just the governor's and a few other executive branch officials' terms to four years passed in a popular vote. In 1994, voters approved an amendment that gave legislators $10,000 a year for their services and eliminated pensions for legislators. Further, the assembly was reorganized to have only seventy-five members in 2003, down from one hundred, and the senate was to have only thirty-eight senators, down from fifty.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bridenbaugh, Carl. Fat Mutton and Liberty of Conscience: Society in Rhode Island, 1636–1690. Providence, R.I.: Brown University Press, 1974.

Conley, Patrick T. Democracy in Decline: Rhode Island's Constitutional Development, 1776–1841. Providence: Rhode Island Historical Society, 1977.

Fradin, Dennis B. The Rhode Island Colony. Chicago: Children's Press, 1989.

James, Sydney V. Colonial Rhode Island: A History. New York: Scribners, 1975.

McLoughlin, William G. Rhode Island: A Bicentennial History. New York: Norton, 1978.

McNair, Sylvia. Rhode Island. New York: Children's Press, 2000.

Morgan, Edmund S. Roger Williams, the Church and the State. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1967.

Nichols, Joan Kane. A Matter of Conscience: The Trial of Anne Hutchinson. Austin, Tex.: Raintree Steck-Vaughn, 1993.

Polishook, Irwin H. Rhode Island and the Union, 1774–1795. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1969.

Rhode Island's official website. Available from http://www.state.ri.us.

Kirk H.Beetz

See alsoBrown University ; Providence Plantations, Rhode Island and .

Rhode Island smallest state in the United States, located in New England; bounded by Massachusetts (N and E), the Atlantic Ocean (S), and Connecticut (W). Its official name is the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.

Facts and Figures

Area, 1,214 sq mi (3,144 sq km). Pop. (2000) 1,048,319, a 4.5% increase since the 1990 census. Capital and largest city, Providence. Statehood, May 29, 1790 (13th of the original 13 states to ratify the Constitution). Highest pt., Jerimoth Hill, 812 ft (248 m); lowest pt., sea level. Nickname, Little Rhody. Motto, Hope. State bird, Rhode Island red. State flower, violet. State tree, red maple. Abbr., R.I.; RI

Geography

Rhode Island is the smallest of the 50 states and except for New Jersey the most densely populated. The dominant physiographic feature of the state is the Narragansett basin, a shallow lowland area of Carboniferous sediments, extending into SE Massachusetts and, in Rhode Island, partly submerged as Narragansett Bay . The bay cuts inland c.30 mi (50 km) to Providence, where it receives the Blackstone River; it contains several islands, including Rhode Island (or Aquidneck), the largest (and the site of historic Newport); Conanicut Island, with the resort of Jamestown ; and Prudence Island. The coastline between Point Judith and Watch Hill is marked by sand spits and barrier beaches, sheltering lagoons and salt marshes. Glaciation left many small lakes, and the rolling hilly surface of the state is cut by short, swift streams with numerous falls. Although more than half of Rhode Island is covered with forests, it is highly urbanized. Providence is the capital and the largest city; other important cities are Warwick , Cranston , Pawtucket , and Newport .

Rhode Island's coast is lined with resorts noted for their swimming and boating facilities, and windswept Block Island is a favorite vacation spot. Narragansett Bay is famous for its sailboats and yachts. The America's Cup yacht race has been held in Newport several times, beginning in 1930 and most recently in 1983. The state also has many historic attractions.

Economy

Rhode Island's traditional manufacturing economy has diversified and is now also based on services, trade (retail and wholesale), and finance. In spite of this, many of the products for which Rhode Island is famous are still being manufactured. These include jewelry, silverware, textiles, primary and fabricated metals, machinery, electrical equipment, and rubber and plastic items. Tourism and gambling are also important. Agriculture is relatively unimportant to the economy. Most of the farmland is used for dairying and poultry raising, and the state is known for its Rhode Island Red chickens. Principal crops are nursery and greenhouse items. Commercial fishing is an important but declining industry. Narragansett Bay abounds in shellfish; flounder and porgy are also caught. Naval facilities at Newport contribute to the state's income.

Government, Politics, and Higher Education

Rhode Island's present constitution was adopted in 1842 and has been often amended. The state's executive branch is headed by a governor elected for a four-year term and eligible for reelection. The bicameral legislature has a senate with 50 members and a house with 75, all elected for two-year terms. Local government is carried out on the city level; Rhode Island's counties have no political functions. The state sends two senators and two representatives to the U.S. Congress; it has four electoral votes. Rhode Island is solidly Democratic, but Lincoln Almond, a Republican, was elected governor in 1994 and reelected in 1998, and he was succeeded by another Republican, Donald Carcieri, elected in 2002 and again in 2006. In 2010 Lincoln Chafee, an independent, was elected to the office.

The state's leading educational institutions are Brown Univ. and the Rhode Island School of Design, at Providence, and the Univ. of Rhode Island, at Kingston.

History

Early Exploration and Colonization

The region of Rhode Island was probably visited (1524) by Verrazano, and in 1614 the area was explored by the Dutchman Adriaen Block. Roger Williams, banished (1635) from the Massachusetts Bay colony, established in 1636 the first settlement in the area at Providence on land purchased from Native Americans of the Narragansett tribe. In 1638, Puritan exiles bought the island of Aquidneck (now Rhode Island) from the Narragansetts. There they established the settlement of Portsmouth (1638). Because of factional differences, Newport was founded (1639) on the southwest side of the island, but the two towns later combined governments (1640–47). Another settlement, Warwick, was made on the western shore of Narragansett Bay in 1642.

In order to thwart claims made to the area by the Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth colonies, Williams, through influential friends, secured (1644) a parliamentary patent under which the four towns drew up a code of civil law and organized (1647) a government. The liberal charter granted (1663) by Charles II of England ensured the colony's survival, although boundary difficulties with Massachusetts and Connecticut continued well into the 18th cent.

The early settlers were mostly of English stock. Many were drawn to the colony by the guarantee of religious freedom, a cardinal principle with Williams, confirmed in the patent of 1644 and reaffirmed by the royal charter of 1663. Jews settled in Newport in the first year of Williams' presidency (1654), and Quakers followed in large numbers. All the early settlers owned land that, following Williams' practice, was bought from the Native Americans. Fishing and trade supplemented the living won from the soil. Moreover, livestock from the Narragansett county (South County), especially the famous Narragansett pacers, figured largely in the early commerce, which developed rapidly in the late 17th cent.

Because of the colony's religious freedom, it was viewed with mixed loathing and fear by the more powerful neighboring colonies and was never admitted to the New England Confederation . However, it bore its share of the devastation caused by King Philip's War in 1675–76. Between 1750 and 1770 there was bitter strife between Providence and Newport over control of the colony.

The Coming of Revolution

Until the American Revolution, Newport was the commercial center of the colony, thriving especially on the triangular trade in rum, slaves, and molasses. Rhode Island, like other colonies, objected to British mercantilist policies and consistently violated the Molasses Act of 1733 and the Navigation Acts . Narragansett Bay became a notorious haven for smugglers, and the British revenue cutter Gaspee was burned (1772) by patriots in protest against the enforcement of revenue laws.

After the start of the American Revolution, Rhode Island militia under Nathanael Greene joined (1775) the Continental Army at Cambridge, and on May 4, 1776, the province renounced its allegiance to George III. British forces occupied parts of Rhode Island from 1776 to 1779, when they withdrew before the arrival of the French fleet. The Revolution won, Rhode Island, jealous of its independence, refused to sanction a national import duty; it therefore deprived the Continental Congress of a major source of revenue and became one of the states responsible for the failure of the Articles of Confederation . Rhode Island did not send delegates to the Constitutional Convention at Philadelphia and resisted ratifying the Constitution until the federal government threatened to sever commercial relations with the state; even then, ratification passed (1790) by only two votes.

Industrialization

The post-Revolutionary era brought bankruptcy and currency difficulties. Shipping, which continued to be a major factor in the state's economy until the first quarter of the 19th cent., was hard hit by Jefferson's Embargo Act of 1807 and by the competition from larger ports such as New York and Boston. However, this post-Revolutionary period also marked the beginning of Rhode Island's industrial greatness. Samuel Slater built the first successful American cotton-textile mill at Pawtucket in 1790. An abundance of water power led to the rapid development of manufacturing, in which merchants and shipping magnates invested their capital.

With the growth of industry the towns increased in population, and Providence surpassed Newport as the commercial center of the state. Since suffrage had long been restricted to freeholders, Rhode Island's increased urbanization resulted in the disenfranchisement of most townspeople. Frustrated in repeated attempts to amend the constitution, many Rhode Islanders joined Thomas Wilson Dorr in forcibly establishing an illegal state government in Providence in 1842. Dorr's Rebellion, though abortive, resulted in the adoption of a new constitution (1842) extending suffrage; however, the property qualification was not abolished until 1888. Antislavery sentiment was strong in Rhode Island, and the state firmly supported the Union in the Civil War.

Mill Towns, Discontent, and a Changing Economy

Until well into the 20th cent. Rhode Island's political and economic life was dominated by mill owners. (Nelson W. Aldrich was a power in the nation as well as the state.) The small mill towns, with their company houses and company stores and their large numbers of foreign-born residents, were important elements in the social fabric. English, Irish, and Scottish settlers had begun arriving in large numbers in the first half of the 19th cent.; French Canadian immigration commenced around the time of the Civil War; at the end of the 19th cent. and the beginning of the 20th there was a large influx of Poles, Italians, and Portuguese. Politically, Rhode Island was generally controlled by Republicans until the 1930s, when the Democrats' insistence on reapportionment of representation (which tended to favor small towns over urban areas) helped bring their party into power.

Sporadic labor troubles in the 19th cent. had little effect on the state's economy. However, after World War I there was a long textile strike, centered in the Blackstone valley; this, together with the gradual removal of the mills to the South—the source of the cotton supply where labor was cheaper—led to a continuing decline in the cotton-textile industry. Nevertheless, the manufacture of textile products is still carried on in the state today and new industries such as high-technology electronics have been introduced. Since the 1970s the overall shift in the state's economy has been away from manufacturing altogether and toward the service sector. This shift has coincided with major suburban growth.

Bibliography

See P. J. Coleman, Transformation of Rhode Island, 1790–1860 (1963); F. G. Bates, Rhode Island and the Formation of the Union (1967); W. G. McLoughlin, Rhode Island: A History (1978); M. Wright and R. Sullivan, The Rhode Island Atlas (1982); P. T. Conley, An Album of Rhode Island History, 1636–1986 (1986).

RHODE ISLAND

Newport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 483

Providence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497

Warwick . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 507

The State in Brief

Nickname: The Ocean State Motto: Hope

Flower: Violet

Bird: Rhode Island red hen

Area: 1,545 square miles (2000; U.S. rank 50th)

Elevation: Ranges from sea level to 812 feet

Climate: Warm summers, abundant rainfall; long winters with occasional heavy snowfall; moderated by ocean

Admitted to Union: May 29, 1790

Capital: Providence

Head Official: Governor Don Carcieri (R) (until 2007)

Population

1980: 947,154

1990: 1,003,464

2000: 1,048,319

2004 estimate: 1,080,632

Percent change, 1990–2000: 4.5%

U.S. rank in 2004: 43rd

Percent of residents born in state: 61.4% (2000)

Density: 1003.2 people per square mile (2000)

2002 FBI Crime Index Total: 38,393

Racial and Ethnic Characteristics (2000)

White: 891,191

Black or African American: 46,908

American Indian and Alaska Native: 5,121

Asian: 23,665

Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander: 567

Hispanic or Latino (may be of any race): 90,820

Other: 52,616

Age Characteristics (2000)

Population under 5 years old: 63,896

Population 5 to 19 years old: 218,720

Percent of population 65 years and over: 14.5%

Median age: 36.7 years (2000)

Vital Statistics

Total number of births (2003): 13,081

Total number of deaths (2003): 10,064 (infant deaths, 76)

AIDS cases reported through 2003: 1,103

Economy

Major industries: Trade, services, manufacturing, research, agriculture

Unemployment rate: 4.7% (April 2005)

Per capita income: $31,937 (2003; U.S. rank: 17th)

Median household income: $45,205 (3-year average, 2001-2003)

Percentage of persons below poverty level: 10.7% (3-year average, 2001-2003)

Income tax rate: 25% of federal income tax liability

Sales tax rate: 7%

Rhode Island, USA A state whose official title is the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. In 1524 Giovanni da Verrazzano (1485–1528), an Italian navigator, explored the eastern coast of North America. He came across Block Island, one of the islands of the state, which he considered resembled the island of Rhodes in the Mediterranean; he called it Rhode Island. However, Adriaen Block, a Dutch explorer, visited the island in 1614 and called it Roodt Eylandt ‘Red Island’ because of its red clay. This was subsequently Anglicized to ‘Rhode’, possibly with the Mediterranean island also in mind. In 1636 the first settlers from Massachusetts arrived at what is now Providence on the mainland and two years later the island of Aquidneck in Narrangansett Bay was bought from local Native Americans. The settlers thought, mistakenly, that this island was the one referred to by Verrazzano and therefore called it Rhode Island. The state now comprises these and other islands and the mainland. It was the thirteenth state to join the Union in 1790.

Rhode Island State in ne USA, on the Atlantic coast in New England; the smallest state in the USA; the capital is Providence. Other major cities include Warwick, Pawtucket, and Cranston. The region was first settled in 1636 by people from Massachusetts seeking religious freedom. It received a royal charter in 1663. British troops occupied the area during the American Revolution. Much of the land is forested, but there is some dairy farming. Potatoes, hay, apples, oats, and maize are the chief crops, and fishing is significant. Other industries: textiles, fabricated metals, silverware, machinery, electrical equipment and tourism. Area: 3144sq km (1214sq mi). Pop. (2000) 1,048,319.

RHODE ISLAND

Rhode Island, the smallest state of the United States, has struggled to maintain its economic health. Born as a colony of dissenters and a haven for individual liberty, the state has not always matched its idealistic beginnings with its political and economic realities. It has experienced divisions between its old-line citizenry and the descendants of the immigrants who have staffed its factories. It reached an economic peak around the turn of the century but it has since fought competition from southern industries and has gone through periods of depression and recession. In the latter half of the twentieth century, however, Rhode Island achieved a significant economic recovery.

In 1524 the first European explorer of Rhode Island to arrive in the region was Italian Giovanni da Verrazano. In 1636 English clergyman Roger Williams established a colony at Providence seeking religious freedom for a group of nonconformists from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. As other towns developed in the area, Williams secured a charter from King Charles II for Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (which encompassed several towns), that guaranteed religious freedom and substantial local autonomy.

Rhode Island grew rapidly in agriculture and commerce, which included the slave trade. Its exports included naval stores, molasses, preserved meats, cider, and dairy products. Rhode Island was also a whaling center. As the colony with the highest degree of self-rule, Rhode Island was the first to declare its independence from England in 1776. Fearing too much federal power, however, it was the last state to ratify the U.S. Constitution (1790).

Rhode Island merchant ships in the early nineteenth century traded with China, India, the Baltics, and the East Indies, and later with the U.S. Pacific coast. The mid-nineteenth century in the state was marked by divisions between ordinary citizens and wealthy rural landowners who held nearly all the power in the legislature and who were the only ones allowed to vote. By 1843 a new constitution was formed which corrected some of the inequalities.

Meanwhile, the economy of the state had shifted from commerce to industry, with textile manufacturing as the most prominent. Samuel Slater established the first cotton mill in Pawtucket in 1790. Under the socalled "Rhode Island System," company-built housing was established for the workers and their families. Oftentimes mill owners employed entire families that worked from sunup to sundown. Between 1830 and 1840 the number of mills in the state almost doubled. After 1830 steam power replaced water power in the mills and also provided the power for steamboats and newly emerging railroads.

Other products were being manufactured such as jewelry (represented best by Gorham Silver) and steam engines. By 1860 less than an estimated three percent of the state's workforce was in the maritime industry; 10 percent were employed in agriculture, and 50 percent in manufacturing. Between 1776 and 1860 Rhode Island's population had increased two and one-half times, mostly through foreign immigration.

The port of Providence soon became the center for commerce in the region. With three rivers at the head of Narragansett Bay and a growing number of railroad termini, Providence boasted a large number of textile mills. It was also home to the metals industry, the banking and insurance sector, and the import-export business. Providence began to lose some of its prominence after 1845 when steamships found a more suitable port at Fall River, Massachusetts, and rail connections began to gravitate toward New York City.

As several southern states began seceding from the Union just before the American Civil War (1861–1865), Rhode Island still had some sympathies with the South because of its economic relationship with southern cotton planters. A slave-free state since 1807, Rhode Island even temporarily repealed its "personal liberty law" to make it easier for runaway slaves to be returned to their owners. Still, when the Union called for volunteers against the Confederacy, Rhode Island responded, exceeding its quota for troops. The state made great profits in the textile and other industries during the war. After the war, the town of Newport became a haven for newly rich Americans who built large mansions on its rocky shores Many of which still survive as tourist attractions.

According to historian William G. McLoughlin the decades following the war were Rhode Island's finest: "Its manufacturers hobnobbed with the rich and powerful who controlled the nation. . . . (It) had reached the pinnacle of success. . . ." Foremost among the rich and powerful people was Nelson W. Aldrich (whose daughter later married into the Rockefeller family) who, as a senator, controlled tariff schedules in the U.S. Congress. As chairman of the Finance Committee he was in a position to help protect businessmen against foreign competition and to encourage sound money policies. He also was instrumental in devising the Federal Reserve System.

The economic system in Rhode Island changed rapidly after World War I. French-Canadians, Irish, and Portuguese, encouraged to immigrate to provide cheap labor, began to outnumber people of the old Yankee stock. The state's industries continued to prosper and they were especially productive during World War I (1914–1918). After the war, however, decreased production caused labor unrest and a widespread strike of textile workers in 1922 crippled an industry that was already plagued by competition from textile mills in southern states. Bitter divisions in the state at this time, coupled with the onset of the Great Depression (1929–1939), helped to precipitate the 1934 Democratic overthrow of longtime Republican rule in the state.

Improvements in Rhode Island's economy have been slow in coming. Since the Depression years the state often had one of the highest rates of unemployment in the nation, reaching more than 15 percent by 1975. In the late 1990s about 30 percent of workers were still employed in manufacturing and many were working in low-paid jobs in the jewelry and textile industries. After a real estate boom in the 1980s the real estate market declined at the end of the decade. The state experienced a banking crisis in the early 1990s, which necessitated a government bailout of uninsured financial institutions. Rhode Island had slowly begun to recover from its economic doldrums, largely because of new jobs in the financial and electronic industries. Unemployment fell to around five percent by 1997.

See also: Rhode Island System of Labor

FURTHER READING

Conley, Patrick T. Rhode Island Profile. Providence: Rhode Island Publications Society, 1983.

James, Sydney V. Colonial Rhode Island: A History. White Plains, NY: Kraus International, 1975.

McLoughlin, William G. Rhode Island: A Bicentennial History. New York: Norton, 1978.

Rhode Island, Economic Research Division. Rhode Island: Basic Economic Statistics 1982–1983. Providence: Rhode Island, Department of Economic Development, Economic Research Division, 1983.

Steinberg, Sheila, and Cathleen McGuigan. Rhode Island: An Historical Guide. Providence: Rhode Island Bicentennial Commission, 1976.

Rhode Island island, 15 mi (24 km) long and 5 mi (8 km) wide, S R.I., at the entrance to Narragansett Bay. It is the largest island in the state, with steep cliffs and excellent beaches. Known to the Native Americans and early colonials as Aquidneck , it was renamed Rhode Island (probably after the isle of Rhodes) in 1644. Newport, Middletown, and Portsmouth are on the island.