Newport

Newport, Rhode Island was founded in late 1639 by Antinomian sympathizers from Massachusetts, who sought religious freedom and economic opportunity in the excellent harbor on southwestern Aquidneck Island. Traditions of religious pluralism, independent self-governance, and tax evasion attracted merchants and traders of all kinds, in spite of the limitations of the town's agricultural hinterland. The plantations of Narragansett Bay provided some produce, dairy products, livestock, and lumber for trade with other colonial ports, but the city's fortunes depended on its integration into the Atlantic trading networks of nearby Boston and New York. In 1720 Newport merchants entered the slave trade, which remained a central part of the port's function and character up to the American Revolution. In fact, Newport was the lynchpin of the slave-carrying trade, clearing many more ships for Africa than any other colonial North American port and conducting as much as 70 percent of the North American African trade.

The city's golden age came in the mid-eighteenth century, when Newport was the fifth-largest city in British North America. Several industries—producing rum, spermaceti candles, furniture, and ships—took root, though the coastal and carrying trade dominated the economy, and Newport made its fortune as an entrepôt. Trade was vitally important to the small colony of Rhode Island; export figures for 1770 show that of all of the British North American colonies, Rhode Island had the highest rate of exports per capita, and Newport was the primary gateway of this trade.

The American Revolution was the turning point for Newport's economy, population, and society. Residents began fleeing the city in 1775; by the time British troops took possession in December 1776 only a fraction of the population remained. The city was never again a leader in terms of population or profit. The favorable conditions that supported the carrying trade—benign neglect of British officials on molasses taxes and profits from privateering, a core population of well-connected merchants, and the reliable profitability of the slave trade—were lost. Small cotton mills did emerge around Newport, replacing the putting-out arrangements between female household workers and town merchants that had thrived for decades, but in contrast to their neighbors in Providence, Newport merchants failed to reorganize the local economy around manufacturing.

After a brief period of moderate success as a shipbuilding and whaling town in the 1830s, Newport was re-born by the mid-1840s as a resort destination. Travelers from northern cities and southern plantations arrived via regular steamship service to participate in socially mixed recreation centered on large hotels and warm beaches. Once again, city life was dominated by a service economy, though this time catering to tourists and summer people rather than sailors, merchants, and traders.

During the Civil War, the maritime function of the city shifted from commerce to combat when Newport housed the Naval Academy, which was moved from Annapolis, Maryland, for the duration. Although the academy moved back when the war ended, the navy retained a presence with the construction of the Naval War College in 1884. After the war the popularity of the hotels dwindled, and the city was reshaped as a place of private leisure for the extremely wealthy, exemplified in the construction of extravagant summer homes called "cottages" by wealthy families from New York, Boston, and the Deep South. Today these mansions, together with the city's maritime history and facilities for modern pleasure sailors, draw new visitors to Newport.

SEE ALSO Agriculture; Baltimore; Boston; Brown Family; Cargoes, Freight; Cargoes, Passenger; Chambers of Commerce; Charleston; Containerization; Empire, British; Free Ports; Harbors;Los Angeles–Long Beach;New Orleans;New York;Philadelphia;Port Cities;Privateering;Salem;San Francisco–Oakland;United States.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bridenbaugh, Carl. Cities in the Wilderness: The First Century of Urban Life in America, 1625–1742. [1938]. New York: Oxford University Press, 1966.

Bridenbaugh, Carl. Cities in Revolt: Urban Life in America, 1743–1776. New York: Oxford University Press, 1955.

Coleman, Peter J. The Transformation of Rhode Island, 1790–1860. Providence, RI: Brown University Press, 1969.

Crane, Elaine Forman. A Dependent People: Newport, Rhode Island in the Revolutionary Era. New York: Fordham University Press, 1992.

Price, Jacob M. "Economic Function and the Growth of American Port Towns in the Eighteenth Century." Perspectives in American History 8 (1974): 123–186.

Sterngass, John. First Resorts: Pursuing Pleasure at Saratoga Springs, Newport, and Coney Island. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.

Withey, Lynne. Urban Growth in Colonial Rhode Island: Newport and Providence in the Eighteenth Century. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984.

Ellen Hartigan-O'Connor