WHAT’S IN A NAME?
The debate surrounding Rhode Island’s latest vote on a new title
content warning: discussions of anti-Black violence and and his followers stood for,” said Ian Barbour, the mentions of racial slurs directed at Black, Latinx, and creator of a Facebook page made in 2010 opposing the Asian communities referendum, in an interview with the Indy. “Religious freedom, freedom of self determination, the separaIn 2000, a conversation on reparations—monetary tion of church and state, and the limitation of the state’s compensation for descendants of enslaved Africans— power over individual freedom.” was raised across the United States as both a theoretPlantations are not and should not be synonyical and substantive policy concern. In Rhode Island, mous with freedom. Religious freedom for Quakers however, critical thinking about legacies of slavery had in the Rhode Island colony is an admirable and bright manifested in another way: a debate about the state’s moment in Rhode Island history. But favoring and name “The State of Rhode Island and Providence cherry-picking particular parts of Rhode Island heriPlantations.” tage that are worthy of glory and praise obscure the The United States’ history is inextricably linked to fact that plantations were unquestionable sites of gross slavery, from the Confederate statues people may pass injustice, rape, and genocide. every day to racial disparities in healthcare systems So, here lies the greatest tension in the debate over attributable to colonial-era medicine. Rhode Island, whether to change the name: the production of partial despite some claims to the contrary, is not an exception historical narratives. to this reality. Barbour most likely refers to the earlier definition Keith Stokes, vice president of the 1696 Heritage of plantation, which is detached from slavery. But for Group—a historical consulting firm dedicated to all pride attached to Rhode Island’s history, we must sharing knowledge about the history of people of color remember that some individuals were not even free to in America—emphasized the magnitude of the slave hold citizenship and autonomy, much less free to exertrade in Rhode Island’s history. cise religious freedom or self-determination. While it Despite the colonial cities of Providence and is true that Roger Williams opposed slavery, his assoWarwick passing statutes limiting the enslavement of ciation with the Quaker abolitionist movement veers Black and Indigenous individuals earlier than several toward Rhode Island exceptionalism. There were still other colonies, Rhode Island continued to thrive off enslaved individuals at the time of Rhode Island’s the labor of Indigenous and enslaved Africans who founding. It is said that as a tiny underdog colony, contributed to the rum, molasses, and sugar econo- Rhode Island built itself into an hub of free trade and mies for nearly two more centuries. freedom. But, free trade—capitalistic economies—and “The slave trade economy is very much a part of the freedom rarely peacefully coexist. early settlement, early success, and certainly origins As Vanessa Quainoo, professor of Africana Studies of early Rhode Island,” Stokes said. “Only Charleston, at the University of Rhode Island, recently said in South Carolina or New York would have higher aProvidence town hall, “A plantation is a profit-based percentages of enslaved [individuals] as a part of the entity and it is contingent upon slave labor—that’s population.” where the profit comes from. Many people argue that In fact, by 1750, the Rhode Island colony did have it’s the demarcation of the land as a beautiful, romantic the highest percentage of enslaved individuals in all ideal [that supports arguments of] preserving the of New England. Nearly a century later when Rhode name.” Island banned slavery in 1853, as with the previous statThe slave labor that enabled terms such as plantautes, white residents continued to trade and exploit tion economies to emerge conjures images of plunder, enslaved Black populations until the Civil War. assault, and genocide for many Black and indigenous Many prominent Rhode Island politicians and individuals when they see the word “plantation.” But members of the State House of Representatives were for others, when they think of the word “plantation,” also slave traders, most notably John Brown, one of the they replace the reality of slavery with notions of benefactors of Brown University. economic prosperity and a colony full of innovation The linguistic origins of plantation are “a planting and independent thinking. with people or settlers, a colonization,” or in the case of This could explain why 10 years ago, when the Rhode Island state’s name, “a colony, an original settle- referendum to vote for the name amendment was ment in a new land” by 1610s, according to the Online posed as a question on the ballot, for the first time, Etymology Dictionary. The “Century Dictionary” from Rhode Island voters overwhelmingly rejected the 1895 further places a geographical location to planta- change, with 250,446 votes in opposition compared to tions being in the “tropical or semi-tropical country, 71,162 votes in favor. such as the southern parts of the United States, South At the time, there were not enough votes to bring America, the West Indies, Africa, India, Ceylon, etc., about the name change, as most Rhode Island voters in which cotton, sugar-cane, tobacco, coffee, etc., are didn’t have awareness or “sensitivity” to the name’s cultivated, usually by negroes, peons, or coolies.” significance, former State Representative Tony Pires Given how much slave trade thrived in Rhode told the Indy. “It’s a tough sell to make to folks who Island, it is surprising how “plantation” has been haven’t been subject to that level of discrimination.” disembodied from a conversation on slavery. What This past Tuesday, voters across RI once again had could explain why people don’t associate the two? the chance to vote on the amendment. A debate nearly “Preserving the words ‘Providence Plantations’ in 20 years in the making finally yielded an amendment the state name means preserving what Roger Williams that thousands consider to be long overdue. Question 1
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passed with 52.8 percent of the vote. Providence resident Yara Doumani B’22 was shocked, but glad that it passed. “To me, it has always seemed that white Rhode Islanders would never let the name change slide. Given the deep proliferation of the settler-colonial myth of the United States’ founding, I thought they would respond to the removal of ‘plantations’ in a reactionary way,” she told the Indy. In the last two decades, the American public has dug deeper into painful histories of slavery, drawing links between the inhumanization and subgjugation of enslaved people to the institutions and norms that are often rendered neutral or written off as “just the way history goes.” Professor Anthony Bogues, director of the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice, points clearly to the Black Lives Matter movement (BLM) as a facilitator in opening such conversations. “The public landscape typically reflects dominant values and ideas. What BLM does is force the country to think about some of the monuments and names that are rooted in history having to deal with racial slavery in the United States,” he said to the Indy. Since the BLM movement began in 2013, viral videos and devastating photographs have circulated the internet depicting the murder of Black people, and public opinion has grown considerably more favorable towards the movement. Social media has provided robust tools to share information, making tangible the sorts of knowledge and images of harm that previously may have only been discussed in theory. Perhaps, in the past, one could claim ignorance of the connotations of a word like “plantation.” But in the aftermath of Black liberation movements, as activists scrutinize the criminal justice system and its deep links to racial dominances, this word conjures strong emotions—both of enslavement and of the many policies sprung up to circumvent the intellectual and physical movement of Black people in the US. The Indy attended a virtual Treasury town hall on October 28 hosted by R.I. General Treasurer Seth Magaziner on the topic of removing plantations from the state name. One of the legislators who worked on the 2010 ballot referendum, Representative Anastasia P. Williams, frankly reflected in the town hall that, “10 years ago [there was] not enough effort, not enough of a campaign of educating the people on how dark the word is in today’s society.” “What happened to George Floyd, if that had never taken place for the world to see… this opportunity [and] the crossroad that we find ourselves in today would never have been here for us,” Representative Williams added, “We have to be honest about it. It would’ve been business as usual.” Given that some Rhode Islanders may not be constantly thinking about the presence of “plantations” in the state’s title—or may not even have been aware of its inclusion, since the state is often referred to simply as “Rhode Island”—the Indy wonders what could explain people’s present-day reluctance to remove such antiquated language from the state name.
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