History of Rhode Island Timeline

In 1637, the Narragansetts formed an alliance with Rhode Island during the Pequot War, aligning themselves with English colonists against the Pequot people.

Image source: Pequot War

Roger Williams's A Key into the Languages of America (1643) partially preserved the Narragansett language, which eventually died out.

Image source: A Key into the Language of America

King Philip's War (1675–76) was the most traumatic event in 17th century Rhode Island, pitting colonists against Native American tribes across New England.

Image source: King Philip's War

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.

Image source: Great Swamp Fight

In 1652, the first statute in the Thirteen Colonies banning slavery was passed, but the law was not enforced by the end of the 17th century.

Image source: History of Rhode Island

According to the 1680 census, there were 175 slaves in Rhode Island, including both native and Black persons.

The first recorded slave ship, the Sea Flower, arrived in Newport in 1696 carrying 47 captives; 14 of them were sold at Newport.

Image source: Seaflower (ship)

In the 18th century, Rhode Island's economy depended largely upon the triangle trade; Rhode Islanders distilled rum from molasses, sent the rum to Africa to trade for slaves, and then traded the slaves in the West Indies for more molasses. Several merchant families began actively engaging in this trade in the late 18th century.

Image source: Triangular trade

In 1703, a law passed by the Rhode Island General Assembly effectively overturned the earlier municipal statute banning slavery.

By 1774, the slave population of Rhode Island was 6.3 percent, nearly twice as high as any other New England colony.

Stephen Hopkins, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and slave owner, introduced a bill while serving in the Rhode Island Assembly in 1774 that prohibited the importation of slaves into the colony, becoming one of the first anti-slavery laws in the United States.

Image source: Stephen Hopkins (politician)

The Free African Union Society was America's first African benevolent society, founded in Newport in 1780.

Image source: Free African Union Society

In February 1784, the Rhode Island Legislature passed a compromise measure for gradual emancipation of slaves within the state.

In 1789, an Abolition Society was organized to secure enforcement of existing laws against the international slave trade, which continued despite antislavery laws of 1774, 1784, and 1787.

Leading merchants continued to engage in the slave trade even after it became illegal, especially John Brown, for whose family Brown University is named, and George DeWolf, though slaving was no more than a minor aspect of Rhode Island's overall maritime trade after 1770.

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 slave trader John Brown.

Image source: Moses Brown (basketball)

By 1840, the census reported only five former Africans enslaved in Rhode Island, reflecting the gradual decline of slavery in the state.

Rhode Islanders attacked the British warship HMS Gaspee in 1772 as one of the first acts of war leading to the American Revolution.

Image source: Gaspee affair

Newport remained a hotbed for Loyalist sympathizers who assisted British forces, so the state appointed General William West of Scituate to root them out in the winter of 1775–76.

Rhode Island was the first colony in America to declare independence on May 4, 1776, a full two months before the United States Declaration of Independence.

British forces occupied Newport from 1777 to 1778, pushing American forces to Bristol during the Revolutionary War.

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 American casualties occurred.

Image source: Battle of Rhode Island

The French under Rochambeau landed in Newport in 1780, and it became the base of the French forces in the United States for the remainder of the war.

Image source: Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau

Rural resistance to the Constitution was strong in Rhode Island, and the Anti-Federalist Country Party controlled the General Assembly from 1786 to 1790.

Image source: Country party (Rhode Island)

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.

The State of Rhode Island was the last of the 13 states to ratify the United States Constitution on May 29, 1790, only doing so after being threatened with having its exports taxed as a foreign nation.

In 1790, English immigrant Samuel Slater founded the first textile mill in the United States in Pawtucket, Rhode Island (Slater Mill) and became known as the father of the American Industrial Revolution.

Image source: Slater Mill

During the 19th century, Rhode Island became one of the most industrialized states in America with large numbers of textile factories.

The state's first railroad, the Boston and Providence Railroad, opened in 1835, connecting Rhode Island to the growing regional rail network.

Image source: Boston and Providence Railroad

Around the start of the 20th century, Rhode Island had a booming economy, which fed the demand for immigration from Europe and beyond.

In 1842, Thomas Dorr drafted a liberal constitution which he tried to ratify by popular referendum, challenging the restrictive voting laws that had left 60 percent of men ineligible to vote by 1829.

Image source: Dorr Rebellion

A new Constitution of Rhode Island took effect in May 1843 following the Dorr Rebellion, though it denied the vote to the landless poor and ensured urban centers were disproportionately underrepresented in the legislature.

In 1866, Rhode Island abolished racial segregation throughout the state, an early step toward civil rights in the post-Civil War era.

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.

Image source: Theodore F. Green

The state income tax was first enacted in 1971 as a temporary measure. Prior to 1971 there was no income tax in the state, but the temporary income tax soon became permanent.

A new Constitution of Rhode Island was ratified in 1986 and came into effect on January 20, 1987, replacing older constitutional structures.

Image source: Constitution of Rhode Island

As of 2020, Rhode Island has heavily Democratic legislatures, and the state has been carried by Democratic presidential candidates in every election since 1988.

Image source: Politics of Rhode Island