USA > Rhode Island > A short history of Rhode Island > Part 16
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24
What is to become of us and our national honor God only knows. No people ever had brighter prospects shaded so unexpectedly."
In the midst of these exciting discussions it is pleasant to see what early attention was given to education. The college returned to the use for which it was built, and in September, 1782, seven students received their degrees.
In that same year and month died Nicholas Cooke, who had filled the Governor's chair so worthily at the begining of the war. More than once before peace was declared an armed enemy was seen in Narragansett Bay. Two vessels were cut out of Newport harbor in the night by Tory privateers, and at another time an armed party took possession of Hope Island and held it for several days. One of the most menacing signs of these troubled times, was the armed resistance to the collection of taxes which had threatened Massachusetts with civil war, but was sternly put down. Yet even when the strong arm of the law was raised to enforce, they who
255
HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND.
wielded it most firmly could not but feel that there was much ground for complaint.
I shall not attempt to follow step by step the progress of Rhode Island in her return to the life and arts of peace. New laws were called for and made. New fields of enterprise were opened and entered upon. The errors of the past were to be bitterly atoned for. But her resources were great, her will strong, and her courage unabated. From the mass of detail I select a few charac- teristic points.
The financial embarrassment made itself felt everywhere, endangering contracts, paralyzing industry and checking enterprise, and under- mining both public and private credit. Eight millions were required for the Federal quotas of 1782. Less than half a million had been col- lected. Four states had paid nothing, nine next to nothing. The impost act failed, and Howell, who by his opposition to it had made himself numerous enemies in Congress, had greatly added to his influence at home. Rhode Island was looked up to as the champion of state rights. With time she will grow wiser.
We have seen that slavery became the subject of legislation at an early period of our annals. It reappeared at the return of peace, when grad- ual emancipation was minutely provided for, and the introduction of "slaves for sale under any pretext whatever, forbidden."
Among the purely local acts was the incorpora . tion of Newport, and the regulation of the Paw-
S
256
HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND.
catuck fishery, and an attempt to annex Poto- womut to East Greenwich. Among those which belong to the history of thought was that by which Sabbatarians were "allowed to pursue their usual avocations on Sunday." Among those that bore directly upon business was the revival of the statute of limitations, and an act for encouraging the manufacture of certain articles of general demand. Patents and copyright laws followed soon after the adoption of the Constitution, though not with a full recognition of an author's right to the product of his brain. For the sup- port of government a tariff act was passed.
But the most historically interesting act of the February session of 1783 was the enabling act, by which the original harmony between the digests and the charter was restored. Into these digests, but when or how nobody could tell, the phrases : " Roman Catholics . excepted, " and "professing Christianity," had been interpolated in direct violation of the royal charter. Neither under Charles nor under James could this have been done. But in 1696 a plot against William had been discovered, which led to the formation of "associations of loyalty" in all the colonies but Rhode Island. Practically, the exception had no effect, and Catholics and Jews were admit- ted to the full rights of citizenship as they had always been. But as an historical question it is pleasant to know that the principle of universal toleration was never practically violated in the home of Roger Williams.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
DEPRECIATION OF THE CURRENCY .- INTRODUCTION OF THE SPINNING-JENNY. - BITTER OPPOSITION TO THE FEDERAL UNION. - RHODE ISLAND FINALLY ACCEPTS THE CONSTI- TUTION.
THE question of finance meets us at every turn, and in every phase bears fatal witness to the demoralizing effects of paper money unsustained by hard money capital. At the Spring election of 1786, the triumph of the paper money party was complete. A new bank was established of a hundred thousand pounds. And soon a Forcing Act became necessary to give the bills currency under heavy penalties. A complete stagnation of business presently followed. The old hostility between town and country revived. Commerce was suspended. Shops were closed. The farmers who had mortgaged their farms for the bills, found that they had got nothing but bits of paper in return for fruitful acres. To retaliate upon the tradesmen they refused to bring their produce to market. The necessaries of life fell short and much suffering ensued. In Providence a town meeting was held to devise a remedy, and it was resolved that the farmers should be left to make
17
258
HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND.
their own bargains, and that to relieve the imme- diate demand five hundred dollars should be borrowed and sent abroad to buy corn for the sufferers. At Newport an attempt was made to force the bills upon the grain dealers, which led to a riot. At a meeting in South Kingstown farmers were advised to break off their inter- course with the merchants.
A convention of the country towns of Provi- dence County was held at Scituate and adjourned to meet the State convention at East Greenwich. Sixteen towns were represented and resolved "to support the acts of the General Assembly," and enforce the penal acts in favor of paper money. Providence was represented by five of its best and most popular men, but they were powerless against the torrent.
When the question came before the Assembly a new Forcing Act was passed, in which the right to trial by jury was withheld and all the common forms of justice violated. The protest of the indignant minority was refused a place on the records ; and pushing their recklessness to the utmost, the triumphant majority enacted that the arrears of Continental taxes might be paid in the new bills, and proposed a system by which all trade was to be carried on by a committee in the name of the State. This, however, was a step too far even for these wild schemers, and when the Force Act was brought to trial, it was con- demned by a full bench as unconstitutional.
259
HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND.
But the Assembly persevered, summoned the judges to answer for their interference, and under the name of Test Act passed a new Forcing Act more outrageous than the last. It was something like a pause in this reckless career that the new act was referred to the towns for discussion. Only three towns accepted it. An attempt at concili- ation failed.
The lowest deep of financial degredation was reached when the treasurer was ordered to pay one-fourth part of the State debt in the bills re- ceived for taxes. Never had party spirit assumed so dangerous a form. Among the bad doings of the Assembly was the resumption of the charter of Newport.
It was at this critical moment, when rents were paid in corn and trade seemed about to return to its original form of barter, that the first spinning- jenny in the United States was constructed by Daniel Jackson, of Providence, and the founda- tions of Rhode Island's manufacturing pros- perity securely laid. History is full of compen- sations.
We reach the beginning of a still greater strug- gle. The convention that was to transform the Confederation into a Union was to meet in May. Should Rhode Island be represented in it ? Those who had faith in the Confederation, and there were many such, believed that with some amendments it might be made to answer all the purposes of a stable government. Those who
e
260
HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND.
were more impressed with its weakness called for a thorough and radical change. The first, who in the sequel were known as States Rights men, were also the advocates of paper money. The second, the Federalists of a later day, were in favor of hard money. The motion to send dele- gates was lost, and another step taken towards repudiation. " All holders of State securities were required to present them to the treasurer within six weeks and receive five shillings in the pound thereupon, or to forfeit that amount, and interest was to cease immediately upon the rising of the Assembly. The paper was now passing at the rate of six dollars in paper for one in silver." Never had the honor of the State been so imper- illed. Fortunately, though, the Assembly was divided, the courts were firm, and it was only by removing four judges out of five that a decision in favor of paper payments was obtained. Mean- while the bills continued to fall, and soon reached eight for one. But the moral sense of the com- munity was not altogether stifled. Some churches refused to receive as communicants men who paid their debts in paper.
But soon all questions became absorbed in the question of the acceptance or rejection of the Convention. In the Senate it was voted to send delegates, but the bill was lost in the House, whose action was defended by a State Rights letter, setting forth the doctrine of popular sovereignty and "the entire subserviency of the
1
261
HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND.
legislature to the public will." None but the people could send delegates to a convention.
Meanwhile, the Convention, with Washington at its head, and Franklin, Hamilton and Madison among its working members, had reached the end of its arduous labors. The next step was to sub- mit it to the people. The Assembly met and a bill was introduced for printing it for distribution, - and appointing delegates as recommended by the Convention itself. The last was voted down by a large majority. The fruit was not yet ripe. But a resolve to print a thousand copies for distribu- tion was agreed to, and thus the question was brought squarely before the people.
And now for three years it was the chief ques- tion in all public meetings, and was sure to come in either directly or indirectly wherever two or three met together for business or for pleasure. The merchants accepted it cheerfully, for they saw progress and development and protection in it. But it was opposed by the farmers, who saw in it a sacrifice of the rights of the State. Rhode Island had stood alone so long, had been so firm and self-reliant through the dark days of her long contest with Massachusetts and Connecticut, that she failed to see how completely the rela- tions of the colonies to each other were changed, when from colonies they became states. There was no place for independent states in the domain occupied by a Federal Union.
The first to accept the Constitution was Dela- ware. Pennsylvania came next, and then New
-
r 0
262
HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND.
Jersey. The opening of 1788 was marked by the accession of Georgia. Connecticut followed close. In Massachusetts the contest was long and bitter. In June New Hampshire gave in her adherence.
We have seen in what a dark hour Rhode Island first turned her attention to cotton spinning. In this hour of even deeper gloom she first opened a direct trade with India. About the same time a rolling and a slitting-mill was established ₺ near Providence. Women of all classes met together to spin flax, and men of all classes took pride in wearing homespun. Nor was the promise of navigation less. Providence already counted a hundred and ten sail in her waters, exclusive of river craft. In spite of all her errors her faith in the future was unimpaired.
Meanwhile the contest continued. Town was arrayed against country, the States Rights men still holding the majority in the Assembly, al- though in Providence the Federalists were strong- est. The tidings of New Hampshire's acceptance was received with exultation. The Constitution was sure. In Providence it was resolved to unite the celebration of the Fourth of July with that of the completion of the National Union. The States Rights men took this for an intentional insult and marched upon the town. Nothing but the good sense of the leaders prevented a bloody collision. The rejoicings it was agreed, were for the Declar- ation of Independence, not for the Declaration of the Union. Then from five to six thousand people
263
HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND.
sat down in a tent a thousand feet long to feast upon a sumptuous banquet, the most attractive part of which was an ox roasted whole. On the very next day came tidings from Virginia. She also had accepted the Constitution. New York followed and then North Carolina, and the warm- est enthusiam welcomed each new declaration of acceptance. But a bitter party spirit still held Rhode Island back.
Thus month followed month. New assemblies and new town meetings came together and fought over the same ground. In all the other states of the old thirteen the Constitution had been ac- cepted, and was in successful operation. It was clear that Rhode Island could not long preserve her insulation. She was already compelled to ask vital favors of the Union, and petition Con- gress to exempt her commerce from paying duties in Union ports. For a while Congress bore with her and granted her prayer. Slowly but surely the decisive day drew nigh. All the artifices of pas tiamentary tactics were brought into play. In theAmidst of intense excitement and by the cast- ing vote of Governor Collins, it was decided on the Sabbath morning of January 17th, 1790, to call a convention. But even in the convention the friends of the Constitution were in a minority. The familiar ground was to be fought over again with no less bitterness than in the beginning. Loud murmurs came from Congress. Shall this little strip of land prevent us from completing a
264
HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND.
union so full of promise ? Louder still were the murmurs from the seats of commerce-Providence and Newport. We will break away from these impracticable men and go into the Union alone with our ships and our spinning-jennies. A
coalition ticket was formed. So great was the eager crowd, in which each man had his opinion, that the State House was found too small to hold them, and the convention was compelled to ad- journ to the Second Baptist Church. It still took three days more before a vote was reached ; and then, at five o'clock of Saturday afternoon, on the 29th of May, 1790, Rhode Island declared her adhesion to the Union.
7. at
CHAPTER XXIX.
MODE OF LIFE IN OUR FOREFATHERS' DAYS.
WE have followed with as much detail as our limits would permit, the history of Rhode Island through the various phases of her colonial life. Before we enter upon the story of her develop- ment as a member of a great Union, we propose to bring together a few facts from the imperfect record of her social and domestic life, and en- deavor to form for ourselves some idea of what manner of men and women our fathers and mothers were, and what kind of lives they led. Incomplete as our materials for such a picture are, there is still enough to be found in those sources from which history loves to draw to bring us very near to the life of those days.
And to begin with the soil ; the inland in the beginning of English colonization was a vast forest, dotted with ponds of fresh water and wat- ered by numerous rivers. In this forest the natives themselves had begun the work of clear- ing, and drawn between it and the sea a belt of arable land from eight to ten miles in depth, on which they planted their favorite food-the nutri- tious maize. The waters abounded with fish, the
266
HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND.
woods with game. The animals most to be feared were the wild-cat and the wolf-the most sought after by the hunter, the deer. In the earliest commercial intercourse of Indian and white man, the medium was maize.
There were no carriages nor carriage roads. All traveling was on foot or horseback, and when the first English settlement began, in almost every twenty miles you would find an Indian village.
As the soil came under more skillful cultivation and the colonist took the place of the Indian in field work, the harvests became more abundant, and the rich grasses which grew as high as the tops of the fences, became very valuable as butter and cheese. Thus farming was carried on on a large scale, and dairy farms gave employment to many hands. The Stanton farm was four miles long by two miles wide, and was cultivated by forty horses and forty slaves. The Champlin farm was a tract of a thousand acres, feeding thirty-five horses, fifty-five cows, from six to seven hundred sheep, and slaves enough to tend and utilize them all. Robert Hazard owned sixteen hundred acres on Boston Neck, and several thousand on the west side of the Pettaquamscot River. On one of these farms grazed a hundred and ten cows, two hun- dred loads of hay were cut, thirteen thousand pounds of cheese were made, and from seventy to eighty pounds of butter. The products on which all this labor was bestowed, were corn, tobacco, cheese and wool. The work was done by slaves
4
267
HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND.
and Indians. The cheese resembled in flavor and color the rich Cheshire cheese of England. Some attention was also given to fattening bullocks and raising horses, and cutting hay and grain for the West Indies.
On Isaac P. Hazard's farm twelve negro women were employed in making cheese, each woman having a girl under her and making from twelve to twenty-four cheeses a day. So rich and luxu- riant was the grass that his hundred and fifty cows gave double the quantity of milk that cows give on the same farms now. Four thousand sheep furnished the materials for the woolen cloths of his numerous household, and extensive hemp fields the linen, both being woven in his own looms. This Hazard, when years came upon him, gave over the management of his estate into the hands of his children, and congratulated him- self that he thenceforth had only seventy mouths to provide for between parlor and kitchen.
Traveling, as I have already stated, was on horseback, and a servant well mounted always went with the master to open the gates. The roads were mere driftways. A generous hos- pitality left the inns to justices' courts, town councils and tipplers. The guest chamber was seldom empty, and the fireside all the more cheerful for the face of a stranger.
Public provisions for education were insuffi- cient. Their place was supplied for boys by private tutors, or by board in the family of a
st
I
268
HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND.
learned clergyman to prepare them for college. The girls were sometimes sent to Boston to study accomplishments. They loved reading, each gen- eration having its favorite in verse and in prose. Of those nearest to us Pope was the poet. Pri- vate libraries were numerous and well selected, though not large.
Amusements took their character from country life. The young men loved races on the beach with their Narragansett pacers, and a silver tank- ard for the winner. They all loved quahaug roasts on the shores, where deep beds of shells still remain to bear witness to their festivities. They loved to hunt the fox and the deer with hound and horn, and exercise their skill in starting and following up the partridge and woodcock and quail. They would lie on the frozen ground in the cold winter dawn to get a shot at a duck or a wild goose and trap the timid rabbit in snow. No hardship was too great that brought them to their game. In May they went in merry parties to Hartford to eat bloated salmon.
In such a state of society weddings were great festivals, and more especially for the display of dress. The bride came robed in stiff brocade with towering head dress and high heeled shoes. The bridegroom, in scarlet coat, his limbs clad in small-cloths and silken hose, with laced ruffles on his wrists, and brilliant buckles on his shoes, and his hair curled and frizzled, or suspended behind in a queue. Friends and kindred came from far
269
HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND.
and near, sometimes as many as six hundred be- ing gathered to witness the nuptial rites and join in the wedding dance.
But the great pastime for young and old, for matron and maid and for youth just blushing into manhood, was the autumn husking, when neigh- bors met at each other's corn-yards to husk each other's corn ; sometimes husking a thousand bushels in a single meeting. Husking had its laws, and never were laws better obeyed. For every red ear the lucky swain could claim a kiss from every maid; with every smoot ear he smooched the faces of his mates amid laughter and joyous shoutings ; but when the prize fell to a girl she would walk the round demurely, look each eager aspirant in the face, and hide or reveal the secret of her heart by a kiss. Then came the dance and supper, running deep into the night and often encroaching upon the early dawn.
I have spoken of slavery and the repeated at- tempts Rhode Island made to shake it off. The number of slaves was not large, and for the most part they were treated kindly. Still servitude implied degradation, and the habit of looking down upon human beings could not but react unfavorably upon the character and habits of the masters themselves. It was a softening of their lot that in the regular festivals the negroes had their share, their dances and their suppers, and even their elections, when they elected and in- stalled their governor, and feasted luxuriously at the expense of their masters.
CHAPTER XXX.
COMMERCIAL GROWTH AND PROSPERITY OF RHODE ISLAND.
RHODE ISLAND came well prepared to her new duties. She had worked out in her own experi- ence the most important problems of civil or- ganization, rendering "unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and unto God the things that are God's." Her legislation was the reflection of her culture, and her statute book the record of her progress in the science of self-government. Her colonial life had been a constant struggle with jealous neighbors who coveted her beautiful bay and detested her "soul liberty." Out of this struggle she came stronger and more resolute for the discipline it gave her, yet not without some marks of the strife. She had learned to appre- hend danger from afar off and cultivate jealousy as a safeguard, and hence she sometimes as in her refusal to grant the impost duty, was guided by a keen sense of her rights as a sovereign state, rather than a deep conviction of her obligations as member of a confederation. Hence also, she had hesitated three years on the borders of union, and seen her sister states enter it one by one before she could bring herself to make over to
271
HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND.
a central government even those portions of authority which a central government could administer so much more in her interest than she. But she was wiser for the struggle, and full of resolution and hope entered boldly upon her new career.
We have seen that Rhode Island began very early to seek her fortune on the water. Ship building was one of the earliest forms which her enterprise assumed. Already in March, 1790, the shipping of Providence alone consisted of nine ships, thirty-six brigs, forty-five sloops and twenty schooners, forming in all a tonnage of ten thousand five hundred and ninety. To man this commercial fleet the same town had a population of six thousand three hundred and eighty to draw from. Newport, though no longer holding the same position which she held before the war, was still an active seaport. The population of the whole State had risen to sixty-eight thousand eight hundred and twenty-five.
The most active commerce had been that of the West Indies. But with peace a wider field was opened, and ships sent directly to the East Indies. Raw material of various kinds was sent to Europe, and European manufactures brought back in return. It was soon evident that the new State would profit England more by equal commerce than by dependence. Yet it was not all at once that the financial errors of the Revolution could be repaired, or the bitterness engendered by civil
272
HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND.
war assuaged. A deep rooted hostility to England had taken hold of many minds, to bear its fruits when republican France claimed sympathy as a sister republic.
We have already registered the birth of manu- factures. Circumstances favored their growth and prepared the way for a development which has made the smallest one of the richest states of the Union. A great river runs through it, widening at its mouth into a spacious bay. Deep ponds of pure water dot its surface, and limpid stream- lets which swell with every rain send from every upland their tributes to the bay. How should these waters be subjected to the will of man ? Samuel Slater, a native of Derbyshire, had served an apprenticeship to Jedediah Strutt, the partner of Arkwright, and learned the secret of the new method of spinning cotton. Heavy penalties were affixed to the exportation of the new machinery. But Slater had made himself master of the theory as well as the practice of the art, and seems to have been casting about him for a way of turning his knowledge to account, when he learned that the State of Pennsylvania had offered a bounty for the introduction of it. Thus American manufactures owe their birth to protection. The story was a simple one. Slater came to America bringing the secret with him. In Moses Brown, of Providence, he found a judicious counselor, in William Almy and Smith Brown enterprising capitalists. On the 21st of
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.