History of Rhode Island

The history of Rhode Island includes the history of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations since pre-colonial times.

Indian inhabitants occupied most of the area now known as Rhode Island, including the Wampanoag, Narragansett, and Niantic tribes. Many Indians were killed by diseases, possibly contracted through contact with European settlers and explorers (though no definitive source has been proven), and through warfare with other tribes and with European settlers. The Narragansett language died out for many years but was partially preserved in Roger Williams's A Key into the Languages of America (1643). In the 21st century, the Narragansett tribe remains a federally recognized entity in Rhode Island.

In 1636, Roger Williams settled at the tip of Narragansett Bay after being banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for his religious views, on land granted to him by the Narragansett tribe. He called the site "Providence Plantation" and declared it a place of religious freedom. (It is no accident that the oldest surviving synagogue in North America is the Touro Synagogue in Rhode Island.) Critics at the time sometimes referred to it as "Rogue's Island", and Cotton Mather called it "the sewer of New England."

In 1638, Anne Hutchinson, William Coddington, John Clarke, Philip Sherman, and other religious dissidents settled on Aquidneck Island, after conferring with Williams. Aquidneck is the largest island, purchased from the local natives who called it Pocasset. The settlement of Portsmouth was governed by the Portsmouth Compact. The southern part of the island became the separate settlement of Newport after disagreements among the founders.

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