I.

Introduction

Rhode Island, in full, State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, one of the New England states of the United States, bordered on the north and east by Massachusetts; on the south by Rhode Island Sound and Block Island Sound (arms of the Atlantic Ocean); and on the west by Connecticut. Narragansett Bay deeply indents the south-eastern part of the state. The Pawcatuck River forms part of the south-western boundary.

Rhode Island entered the Union on May 29, 1790, as the last of the 13 original states (although it had been the first to declare independence in 1776). One of the first non-Native American settlers in the area of Rhode Island had been the religious leader Roger Williams, who in 1636 founded Providence, now the state capital. In the late 18th century the first US textile mill driven by water-power was built in Rhode Island. In the early 1990s manufacturing was the state’s second leading economic activity, exceeded only by the service sector. The origin of the state’s name is unclear; it may refer to the island of Rhodes in the Aegean Sea or derive from a Dutch word meaning “red”. Rhode Island is known as the “Ocean State” or “Little Rhody”.

II.

Land and Resources

With an area of 3,188 sq km (1,231 sq mi), Rhode Island is the smallest US state. The state is roughly rectangular; its extreme north to south distance is 98 km (61 mi), and its extreme east to west distance is 64 km (40 mi). Rhode Island includes about 35 islands, most of which are in Narragansett Bay in the south-east. Larger islands are Rhode Island (Aquidneck), Conanicut Island, Prudence Island, and Block Island (New Shoreham).

A.

Physical Geography

The landscape of Rhode Island can be divided into two major regions: the Seaboard Lowland, which includes the Atlantic coast area and the Narragansett Lowland or Basin, and the Eastern New England Upland, in the west. Facing the Atlantic in Rhode Island is a nearly unbroken line of beaches. The Eastern New England Upland in Rhode Island is a region of low hills and a few small lakes.

Chief rivers include the Providence and Seekonk system, the Sakonnet, Blackstone, Hunt, Pawtuxet, Pettaquamscutt, Potowomut, and Woonasquatucket, and the Pawcatuck. The state has many small natural lakes and ponds. The biggest body of fresh water is Scituate Reservoir, formed by Kent Dam on the Pawtuxet River.

B.

Climate

The climate of Rhode Island is milder than that of the other New England states, with few extremes of heat or cold. The recorded temperature in Rhode Island has ranged from -30.6° C (-23° F), in 1942 at Kingston, to 40° C (104° F), in 1975 at Providence. Coastal areas are occasionally struck by damaging hurricanes.

C.

Plants and Animals

At least 60 different species of common trees grow in Rhode Island. Altogether, about 58 per cent of the state’s land area is covered with forest. Flowering plants include azalea, dogwood, blue gentian, and orchid. Among the widespread mammals of Rhode Island are white-tailed deer and woodchuck. The state has many birds, including the blue jay, ruffed grouse, and tern.

D.

Resources, Products, and Industries

Leading mineral products are limestone, granite, and gemstones. Rhode Island has a small farming sector. The fishing industry is of some importance; the main species landed include flounder, lobster, clam, and squid. The state’s chief manufacturing products are metals, precision instruments, and clothing and textiles.

III.

Population

Rhode Island had 1,050,788 (2008 estimate) inhabitants. Whites made up 91.4 per cent of the population in 1990 and blacks 3.9 per cent; additional population groups included some 3,987 Native Americans, 3,655 people of Cambodian ancestry, 3,170 people of Chinese background, and 2,579 people of Laotian origin. Approximately 45,750 people were of Latino background.

Its major cities are the capital Providence (175,255 (2006)), Warwick (85,925 (2006)), Cranston (81,479 (2006)), Pawtucket (72,998 (2006)), and East Providence (49,123 (2006)).

A.

Education

At the beginning of the 21st century Rhode Island had 13 institutions of higher education. These institutions included Brown University (1764), Johnson and Wales University (1914), Providence College (1917), Rhode Island College (1854), and Rhode Island School of Design (1877), all in Providence; and the University of Rhode Island (1892), in Kingston. In the late 1990s Rhode Island spent about US$8,905 on each student's education, compared to a national average of about US$6,835.

B.

Places of Interest

Of particular historical interest in Rhode Island are two Newport buildings: the Friends Meetinghouse (begun 1699) and Touro Synagogue National Historic Site, encompassing the oldest synagogue (built in 1763) in the United States. There are many other colonial structures throughout the state, and Newport contains a number of opulent 19th-century mansions such as The Breakers (1895). The birthplace of the 18th-century portrait painter Gilbert Stuart is in Saunderstown, and the homestead of the American War of Independence general Nathanael Greene is in Anthony.

Some of Rhode Island’s prominent museums are in Providence and Newport. In the former city are the Museum of Art of the Rhode Island School of Design and the Rhode Island Historical Society Museum, and in the latter are the Naval War College Museum, the Newport Historical Society Museum, and the Redwood Library and Athenaeum, with displays of US art. Also of interest are the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, in Bristol; the Museum of Primitive Culture, in Peace Dale; and the Western Rhode Island Civic Historical Society Museum, in Washington. The International Tennis Hall of Fame and Museum is in Newport.

C.

Government and Politics

Rhode Island is governed under a constitution adopted in 1843, as amended. The chief executive is a governor, who is popularly elected to a four-year term and, since 1992, may serve no more than two consecutive terms. Also elected to four-year terms are the lieutenant-governor, attorney-general, treasurer, and the secretary of state.

Legislative authority is vested in a General Assembly, consisting of a Senate and a House of Representatives. Members of both houses are popularly elected to two-year terms. At a national level, Rhode Island elects two senators and two representatives to the US Congress. The state has four electoral votes in presidential elections (see Electoral College).

From the 1850s to 1933, the governorship of Rhode Island was held mostly by Republicans. Since then, Democrats have generally been in power and have held the lead in elections for Rhode Island’s seats in the US Senate and House of Representatives. The state is solidly Democratic in presidential voting.

IV.

History

The Native American tribes of the Narragansett Bay area before the coming of the Europeans included the Niantic, the Nipmuc, the Wampanoag, and the dominant Narragansett.

A.

Exploration and Settlement

The English, who established settlements around Massachusetts Bay beginning in 1620, moved south into the Narragansett country in the following decade. Roger Williams, a minister expelled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony because of his religious views, founded the town of Providence on land purchased from the Narragansett in 1636. Other religious dissidents from Massachusetts settled at Portsmouth (1638), Newport (1639), and Warwick (1643). Massachusetts claimed sovereignty over portions of Rhode Island in the 1630s and 1640s, but in 1644 Williams acquired a charter from the English parliament that recognized the four new settlements as the separate colony of Providence Plantations. Quakers (see Friends, Society of) seeking freedom of worship began arriving in significant numbers in the 1650s and 1660s, and Jewish immigrants from Barbados settled in Newport. In 1663, King Charles II gave a new charter to the colony—now called Rhode Island—guaranteeing religious liberty and establishing the boundaries that exist today. In 1675-1676 Rhode Island joined with the other New England colonies to defeat the Narragansett and Wampanoag in King Philip’s War (see Philip (Native American Chief)).

B.

American War of Independence

In the 18th century, Rhode Island prospered as an exporter of naval stores, molasses, preserved meats, cider, and dairy products. Rhode Islanders were active in whaling and the slave trade, and Newport became one of the leading commercial centres in British America. The fortunes of many of the town’s merchants depended on smuggling, and when the British government began to enforce trade restrictions in the 1760s, Rhode Island immediately felt the effects—one of the first acts of resistance preceding the American War of Independence took place on the shores of Narragansett Bay. Rhode Island also paved the way for the convening of the First Continental Congress. When Massachusetts rose in rebellion in 1775, Rhode Island sent 1,000 militiamen to aid the rebels and organized a naval force to do battle with British vessels blockading Newport Harbor. As early as May 1776, the colonial assembly approved a measure to abrogate its allegiance to the Crown, and its representatives signed the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia on July 4. The British occupied Newport from December 1776 to October 1779, repulsing a combined French and American attack in 1778. In 1780 and 1781 the town was the headquarters of the French army serving under Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, Comte de Rochambeau.

Having successfully thwarted England’s efforts at regulating its monetary policies and trade, Rhode Island was reluctant to surrender self-regulation to the federal government after independence, but the state finally ratified the US Constitution in May 1790. A gradual emancipation act adopted in 1784 began the process of eliminating slavery. Most blacks were free after 1807, but segregation continued.

C.

The 19th Century

During the early 19th century the state’s seafaring merchants traded in the Baltic, China, India, and the East Indies, and, beginning in the 1840s, with the Pacific coast of the United States. The War of 1812 was followed by a shift from commerce to industry, and textile manufacture became dominant. With the shift to industrialization and banking activities, Providence displaced Newport as the most important city. Economic growth encouraged immigration and urbanization, but newcomers found themselves disenfranchised under the existing charter of 1663, which limited suffrage to landowners. A revised constitution in 1843 gave the newly industrialized centres increased representation but disenfranchised the foreign-born. Rhode Island sympathized with the South’s position in the period before the American Civil War, but in 1860 cast its vote for Abraham Lincoln in an effort to maintain the Union. Following the close of the Civil War, business interests dominated state politics and cast a particular glow over a revived Newport as a favoured summer resort of the wealthy. An important state and national figure was the Republican Nelson W. Aldrich, who rose from humble beginnings to become a US senator and was recognized as the political boss of the Senate at the turn of the century.

D.

The 20th Century

The composition of the population underwent a dramatic transformation by 1900. The old Yankee stock was replaced by Irish, French-Canadians, Italians, and Portuguese. The Republicans maintained control over state affairs until the rise of ethnic involvement in state government in the 20th century. By the 1920s the Democrats had made inroads in the Republican-controlled state legislature. This produced a bitter power struggle and eventually a swing towards Democratic control of city and state affairs.

The economic damage caused by the Great Depression was never fully repaired. Rhode Island in the early 1980s had one of the highest unemployment rates in the country. The economy improved later in the decade, as increases in the government and service sectors offset a continued decline in the textile industry. In the early 1990s, however, the insolvency of several state-insured banks and credit unions led to another economic crisis.