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Please contact your representatives to keep them from changing the name of our state!!! Some misguided and misinformed people think that the "State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations" has something to do with slavery! It does not. There were no black people here when Roger Williams named the state in 1636! The use of the word plantation at the time was as follows:
Origin: 1645
It was not new to call a colonial settlement a plantation. That was the term used for the earliest English colonies, both in Virginia and in New England. But as the Planters (1619) prospered, plantation took on a new American meaning, "an individual homestead or farm." This is mentioned in a Connecticut notice of 1645 regulating the purchase of "any plantation or land." For the most part, however, northerners preferred to speak of farms.
Not so in the South, where individually owned plantations of tobacco, sugar cane, rice, and cotton grew grand and opulent through slave labor. Starting in the eighteenth century, plantation came to mean just such a place, the focus of Southern wealth, culture, and mythology until the time of the Civil War, as opposed to the cities of the industrial and mercantile North. Thus, leading Southern political figures like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson had plantations, while northerners Ben Franklin and John Adams did not.
So please, help stop the history revisionistas!!!!!!!!
VIVA the Independant Man!
This may or may not pertain to a discussion about RI's name, but New England and RI did have their share of slavery, especially RI. Yet, my ancestor in NH owned two 'negroes' which he bought in Methuen, MA for "60 pounds a piece" according to the bill of sale" in the 1750's. Their given names were Cisco and Dinah, a husband and wife, who worked for him and his family their entire life, and were buried along side him at his grave in Holderness. VIVA the independant man.
Hey Mike, looks as if Plymouth Plantation has had it's name changed.......Plimoth Plantation. Name changes seem to be making the rounds to be more appealing. Savannah Beach in Georgia is now Tybee Beach. Check your atlas and you'll find many changes.
Just more liberal foolishness. The libs up here in RI are big on that - lots of symbolism and no substance at all. Maybe it's a way to temporarily distract us from actual issues, like the huge budget deficits and major tax increases they're about to throw at us to plug the gaps.
I don't even know why they care. I'm willing to bet that half of Rhode Islanders don't even KNOW that the "And Providence Plantations" is part of the name, never mind people outside of RI. Just another waste of the legislatures time and money over nothing.
Please post a link to the stats you are using to back up this assertion. The US Census Bureau shows an increase from 2000 to 2008. I suspect when the numbers come in from the official 2010 census they will also show an increase.
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