Rhode Island

EUROPEANS FIRST VISITED the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (its full name), in 1524 when Italian navigator Giovanni de Verrazzano sailed there. He described it as being about the same size as the island of Rhodes, with the subsequent Dutch explorer calling it Roodt Eylandt. Under the British, it came to be known as Rhode Island. It was occupied by Roger Williams and others beginning in 1636, after Williams had been banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for his religious views. In 1772, people in Rhode Island attacked the British soldiers in the area, and took a leading role in the American War of Independence. At that time the slave population of the colony was 6.3 percent, far higher than any other colonies in New England. Merchants from Rhode Island controlled up to three-quarters of the slave trade from Africa to the American states.

Nicholas Cooke was the first governor of Rhode Island's after its independence, serving from 1775 to 1778

Rhode Island was the first of the 13 colonies to declare its independence from England on May 4, 1776, and was the last to ratify the U.S. Constitution, only doing so because it was feared that its trade might suffer if it was regarded as a foreign country. The first governor after independence was Nicholas Cooke, who was succeeded by William Greene. During this period, the industrialization of Rhode Island started. Industries involved with building materials, then builders, and services for the new population with other industries enlarging the local economy.

Many laborers came to Rhode Island for work who did not own land and were not allowed to vote in state elections. By 1829 some 60 percent of free white males did not have the franchise. The problem became so important that Thomas Dorr, who staged two insurrections in the state, in 1841 and again in 1842, managed to change the electoral system. In 1842, a referendum eventually led to a new liberal constitution, although two rival state governments were briefly elected. Dorr had to flee the state, returning in 1844, he was convicted of high treason, and sentenced to life imprisonment [Page 720]with hard labor, although he was released in the following year and pardoned nine years later. By this new constitution, any white male who either held land or could pay a poll tax of one dollar was able to vote.

In 1854, William W Hoppin, a former Whig, was elected as governor for the Know-Nothing Party. He became a major force in the Republican Party in the state, and his successor, Elisha Dyer, elected in 1857, was the first Republican governor of the state. In 1859, Thomas G. Turner, another Republican, won the gubernatorial elections, and in the following year William Sprague IV was elected, also for the Republican Party. Aged 29, he was the youngest governor of the state at the time; his uncle, William Sprague III, a member of the Democratic Party had served as governor 1838–39.

In the 1860 gubernatorial elections, many conservatives were unwilling to support the radical Republicans, and managed to reject Seth Padelford, who had hoped to be chosen as the Republican Party candidate. This helped prevent the Republican Party at the federal level from picking William H. Seward as their candidate, believeing he might alienate states such as Pennsylvania. This helped Abraham Lincoln's nomination at the Republican Party convention in Chicago. In the 1860 U.S. presidential election, Rhode Island voted convincingly for Abraham Lincoln, who won with 12,244 votes (61.4 percent) to Stephen Douglas who received 7,707 votes (38.6 percent), even though he was standing on a fusion ticket with fohn Breckin-ridge and fohn Bell. Most members of the Democratic Party remaining loyal to their party. William Sprague, who was re-elected in 1860, fought in the First Battle of Bull Run.

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