Josh Marshall: Pro-Plantations in Rhode Island
[Josh Marshall is the founder of Talking Points Memo.]
There's a proposition on the ballot this year to change the name of Rhode Island from "State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations" to simply "Rhode Island." The idea is that the appendage "Providence Plantations" is redolent of slavery and should go. I can't get too crazy up in arms about it. But it'll be an unfortunate change and I'll be sorry to see it go. And in this case, I actually have a decent amount of formal expertise on this topic.
As some of you know, before I got into this line of work I was studying to be a professional historian. I got my History PhD from Brown University, which is located in Providence, Rhode Island. More to the point, my PhD dissertation was on Southern New England in the 17th century and the mix of economic interactions and violent conflict between the region's English settler and Indian populations. So without putting too fine a point on it, on the issue of labor practices, slavery and early Rhode Island I'm actually a bona fide expert. And since this is probably one of the few questions on which I get to write on which I have any formal expertise ... what the hell, here's my take.
The first and probably the most important point is that the "plantations" in Providence Plantations has nothing to do with slavery. That's a meaning of the word that only became current maybe a century or more after Roger Williams named his little colony in the early-mid 17th century. In the 17th century a 'plantation' was what we'd now call a 'colony' or a 'settlement'. The 'plant' in plantation wasn't (or at least wasn't primarily) a cash crop you were growing but the people you were inserting onto the landscape....
Read entire article at Talking Points Memo
There's a proposition on the ballot this year to change the name of Rhode Island from "State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations" to simply "Rhode Island." The idea is that the appendage "Providence Plantations" is redolent of slavery and should go. I can't get too crazy up in arms about it. But it'll be an unfortunate change and I'll be sorry to see it go. And in this case, I actually have a decent amount of formal expertise on this topic.
As some of you know, before I got into this line of work I was studying to be a professional historian. I got my History PhD from Brown University, which is located in Providence, Rhode Island. More to the point, my PhD dissertation was on Southern New England in the 17th century and the mix of economic interactions and violent conflict between the region's English settler and Indian populations. So without putting too fine a point on it, on the issue of labor practices, slavery and early Rhode Island I'm actually a bona fide expert. And since this is probably one of the few questions on which I get to write on which I have any formal expertise ... what the hell, here's my take.
The first and probably the most important point is that the "plantations" in Providence Plantations has nothing to do with slavery. That's a meaning of the word that only became current maybe a century or more after Roger Williams named his little colony in the early-mid 17th century. In the 17th century a 'plantation' was what we'd now call a 'colony' or a 'settlement'. The 'plant' in plantation wasn't (or at least wasn't primarily) a cash crop you were growing but the people you were inserting onto the landscape....