The country's smallest state has the longest official name: "State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations."
A push to drop "Providence Plantations" from that name advanced farther than ever on Thursday when House lawmakers voted 70-3 to let residents decide whether their home should simply be called the "State of Rhode Island." It's an encouraging sign for those who believe the formal name conjures up images of slavery, while opponents argue it's an unnecessary rewriting of history that ignores Rhode Island's tradition of religious liberty and tolerance.
The bill permitting a statewide referendum on the issue next year now heads to the state Senate.
"It's high time for us to recognize that slavery happened on plantations in Rhode Island and decide that we don't want that chapter of our history to be a proud part of our name," said Rep. Joseph Almeida, an African-American lawmaker who sponsored the bill.
Rhode Island's unwieldy name reflects its turbulent colonial history, a state that consisted of multiple and sometimes rival settlements populated by dissidents.
Banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for his unorthodox religious views, minister Roger Williams set out in 1636 and settled at the northern tip of Narragansett Bay, which he called Providence Plantations. Williams founded the first Baptist church in America and became famous for embracing the separation of church and state, a legal principle enshrined in the Bill of Rights a century later.
Other settlers made their homes in modern-day Portsmouth and Newport on Aquidneck Island, then known as the Isle of Rhodes.
In 1663, English King Charles II granted a royal charter joining all the settlements into a single colony called "The Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations." The name stuck. Rhode Island used that royal charter as its governing document until 1843.
Opponents of the name charge argue that "plantations" was used at the time to describe any farming settlements, regardless of slavery.
Rhode Island merchants did, however, make their fortunes off the slave trade. Slaves helped construct Brown University in Providence, and a prominent slave trader paid half the cost of its first library.
Still, Stanley Lemons, a professor emeritus of history at Rhode Island College, said changing the state's name ignores the accomplishments of Williams, whose government passed laws trying to prevent the permanent servitude of whites, blacks and American Indians.
"There are different meanings for this word," Lemons said. "To try to impose their experience on everyone else wipes out Roger Williams."
Source: Huffington Post
Comments |  RSS |
|
Rate This Article
"Stanley Lemons, a professor emeritus of history at Rhode Island College, said changing the state's name ignores the accomplishments of Williams, whose government passed laws trying to prevent the permanent servitude of whites, blacks and American Indians."
"There are different meanings for this word," Lemons said. "To try to impose their experience on everyone else wipes out Roger Williams." As a decendent of Roger Williams, I support Professor Lemons position.
As tragic as the history of slavery and racism is, I don't think it is possible to eliminate from our vocabulary all of the words that may bring them to the mind of certain minorites the overly politically correct. It is unfair to assume they mean the same to all of us.
Growing up in the West, I read and heard about vigilantes lynching horse thieves and other outlaws. For example: "Bannack was Montana's first Territorial Capital. In the 1860's, lawlessness in the area was rampant; included in the list of notorious outlaws was the sheriff--Henry Plumber. To protect themselves and their economic interests, citizens formed the Vigilantes. On January 10, 1864, Henry Plumber himself was hanged alongside several of his "Road Agent" friends." As far as I know, they were all of European decent. I knew this story well from childhood. I have also learned the history of slavery and racism in America. However, the words "vigilante" and "lynching" are not limited in my mind to acts of racism as some now seem to believe. I believe it is a mistake to oversimplify our history or limit our vocabulary based on the negative interpretation that everything is about racism. It simply is not true. Let racist interpretations of our language and culture fade away; don't perpetrate them.
outfront