Though Rhode Island’s Quaker population was starting to question slavery and the relatively young colony was looking for ways to differentiate itself from neighboring Massachusetts, the statute ...

Rhode Island became the first of the thirteen colonies to ban slavery. The good intentions of those who wrote the law, ...

Take a self-guided tour that explores Providence’s Black history from the early days of the Rhode Island colony to today ... Download a printable map from the Go Providence website.

The name dates to the 17th century, when the Puritan minister Roger Williams founded plantations on the Providence River that later became the colony — and then the state — of Rhode Island.

but was eventually banned from Massachusetts Bay Colony as a whole for his religious beliefs. Feeling old? 5 of the oldest places in Rhode Island you can still see today Originally fleeing from ...