AMERICA:A referendum takes place in November to change the name of the smallest state in the US but many are blithely oblivious of the initiative
IT IS said that the Puritan theologian Roger Williams was greeted upon his arrival in Narragansett Bay in 1635 by an Indian who called out, “What cheer, netop?” It was a mishmash of old English and Algonquian meaning “How goes it, friend?”
And that’s pretty much how the cheery Newport taxi driver greeted your correspondent the other day. It could be the motto for this charming seaside town, once America’s fifth port, now better known as a haven of sailing and a holiday retreat of the rich.
“That’s where Jacqueline Bouvier married JFK,” he told us as he went through the list of occupants of the town’s extraordinary mansions . . . Astors, Vanderbilts and Campbells Soups. Presidents Kennedy and Eisenhower both made Newport the sites of their “summer White Houses” during their years in office. Even “Mr Goldman Sachs”, he said, as he acknowledged that some of the finer yachts at anchor in the harbour were now on the market courtesy of the financial crisis.
But, back to Williams. Expelled from Boston for his combination of religious zeal and championing of religious liberty – he opposed the colony’s requirement on all to attend church, denied the government’s legal authority to prosecute violations of the Ten Commandments that have to do with worship, or to require the swearing of an oath in court – Williams had trudged south through the snow to the shore of the great bay where the local tribal leaders told him he could settle. He called his new home Providence, boasting later that the free land was “bought with love”.
His community would eventually join forces in the 1640s with towns like Newport and Portsmouth on the nearby island known as Aquidneck or Rhode, and the whole lot appears as the official name “Rhode Island and Providence Plantations” on the royal charter of 1663.
As Sarah Vowell puts it in a New York Timescolumn, "Williams's settlement offered what he called 'soul-liberty'. A man with the narrowest of minds presided over the most open-minded haven in New England. His own unwavering zealotry made him recognise the convictions of others, however wrong-headed. Others not sharing his beliefs would be tortured eternally 'over the everlasting burnings of Hell', and this, he figured, was punishment enough." A most enlightened man.
Today the official, though rarely used, name of the smallest state in the US – pub quiz aficionados please note – is the longest name of all the states. Though perhaps not for much longer. Blink as you drive from Connecticut to Massachusetts and it’s likely you will miss RI. But, though a mere 1,000sq miles (2,590sq km), this tiny liberal state the size of Roscommon started out as a beacon of liberty and blazed a trail of distinction through American history.
In 1772, 18 months before Boston patriots threw tea into their harbour, Rhode Island patriots burned the British ship Gaspee, the first violent confrontation of the American revolution. The state in 1774, under the influence of Newport's strong Quaker community, enacted the first prohibition of the importation of slaves. And it would be the first to declare its independence of the British crown in 1776.
But that history, or a somewhat jaundiced reading of it, has now become the focus of a campaign to change the state’s name. On June 25th the state assembly in Providence agreed to put to referendum in November the removal of the words “and Providence Plantations” from the state’s official title because, it is claimed, the word “plantation” conjured up images of cotton plantations and slavery.
The Bill’s proponents, representatives Joseph Almeida and Harold Metts, say they “understand that there are probably a lot of people who are unaware of Rhode Island’s history”. Metts speaks of beginning the process of healing.
Yet, in truth, the “plantation” of which we speak has nothing whatsoever to do with slavery. Like the plantation of Ulster, it refers to a “colony” or “settlement”, in this case that of Roger Williams.
The state does have a history of profiting out of slavery and one it should certainly acknowledge. Consciousness-raising is also a worthy objective. Newport captains and merchants in the 18th century made a fortune from their involvement in the “triangular trade”, selling locally produced rum for human cargoes, then dispatched to the plantations of the south. Slaves, both Indian and black, were also used on local farms.
But is rewriting the state’s history really the way to right this historical wrong?
In Newport most people, our taxi driver included, are blithely oblivious of the name change initiative, while in our hotel the staff are more preoccupied politically with the fact that the breakfast waiter has decided to stand for the state assembly on what they describe as a “gay spandex” ticket. Williams might not have approved and would, no doubt, have warned that hell awaited him, but would certainly have defended to the death his right to stand. This is Rhode Island and Providence Plantations after all.
