Rhode Island, The Ocean State

Did you know …

 

Roger Williams bought land from the Narragansett Indians in 1636. He established the first permanent white settlement in the area now known as Providence, Rhode Island. He had left the colony of Massachusetts. He started a settlement with religious freedom.

Wanted religious freedom

Roger had left the colony of Massachusetts. He started a settlement with religious freedom. He treated the Native Americans with respect and learned their language. By 1642, three more settlements had been started by other groups: Portsmouth, Newport, and Pawtuxet, which was renamed Warwick.

Rhode Island and slavery

Newport became a major slave trading center, but Rhode Island passed a law that children born to slave mothers would be free in 1784. By 1808, nearly all slaves were free in Rhode Island, but it would take a Civil War before everyone in the country could be free.

Rhode Island becomes a state

Rhode Island became the thirteenth state on May 29, 1790. The capital is Providence.

Our smallest state

Rhode Island isn’t an island. It shares land borders with Connecticut and Massachusetts, and a water border with New York. Our smallest state is forty-eight miles long and thirty-seven miles wide. It also has the longest official name: the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.

 

– Sandra Merville Hart

 

Sources

“13 Originals: Founding the American Colonies,” The Time Page, 2013/01/04 http://www.timepage.org/spl/13colony.html.

Cheney, Lynne. Our 50 States: A Family Adventure Across America, Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2006.

Davis, Kenneth C. Don’t Know Much About the 50 States, Harper Collins Publishers, 2001.

Gutman, Bill. The Look-It-Up Book of the 50 States, Random House, 2002.