Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. I, Part 34

Author: Carroll, Charles, author
Publication date: 1932
Publisher: New York : Lewis historical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 716

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FINANCIAL PROBLEMS-One of the most difficult problems of internal administration was the raising of revenues adequate to sustain the colony government. Ordinary expenses were small, and there was no long civil list of salaries; most official service was paid for in fees by those for whom it was rendered. Almost from the beginning, however, the colony was involved in expenditures arising from the necessity, because of relations with the mother country and of quarrels with neighboring colonies, of sending agents to or maintaining an agent or agents in England. Later, as the colony participated in colonial wars, military expen- ditures constrained the General Assembly to levy heavy taxes. The earliest taxes were ordered in gross amount and were apportioned to the towns on the basis of an assumed value of ratable estates ; the towns were required to raise the taxes by rate upon assessed valuation. Towns frequently neglected to function as tax gatherers, and most taxes were in arrears so far as the colony treasury was concerned. Upon the petition of Warwick in 1690, complaining that the town had been overrated for taxes, the Assembly, "having seriously considered the matter, do find that the manner of rating of towns by guess is no suitable or certain rule, but may prove very prejudicial; and therefore do determine that for the future all rates that shall be made in this colony shall be made according to so much on the pound as the estates of persons are valued at." In 1695 an approach to an income tax was made in the suggestion "for the rat- ing all lands and meadows and merchants, tradesmen and housings in this colony ; that every

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town shall yearly choose two or three able and honest men, to take the view of each of their inhabitants of their lands and meadows; and so to judge of the yearly profit at their wisdom and discretion; and so also of merchants and tradesmen, and to make this part of the rate according to the yearly profit; or, as they, where they shall have had a more narrow inspec- tion into the lands and meadows, shall see cause to set by the acre." In 1698, the colony returned to the method of fixing the amount to be raised, and apportioning it amongst the towns. In 1695, a schedule of rates for taxing oxen, steers, sheep, swine and horses was estab- lished; later the same year the schedule was extended to include negro servants (chattels) as well as cattle. A tax bill passed in 1698 required a census "of all male persons, . ... from the age of sixteen years to sixty years of age," and ordered a poll tax of one shilling on all so enumerated, "negroes and Indians and impotent persons excepted, without it be such as are freemen and have set up any trade or calling in this colony." In 1696 a tax was laid on the importation of wines and strong liquors.

The method of assessing colonial taxes tended to continue town boundary disputes that had arisen in the first instance either from varying interpretation of deeds of purchase from the Indians or from neglect to follow agreements as to boundaries by actually running the lines. So long as the colony apportioned taxes amongst the towns, each town had a financial interest in reducing its own rate by spreading the town's share in the colony tax over the widest possible area and over the largest possible number of inhabitants. Conflict arose because the rate makers included in the assessment all persons and all estates within the widest extent to which the town boundaries might be stretched pursuant to the most liberal interpretation. Hence persons and estates were taxed sometimes in more than one town. The General Assem- bly settled or provided for surveys of town boundary lines as follows: Between Newport and Portsmouth, 1684; Providence and Warwick, 1690, 1697, 1707; Westerly and Kingstown, 1685 ; East Greenwich and Warwick, 1679; Kingstown, Warwick and East Greenwich, 1699; East Greenwich and Kingstown, 1705, 1706. The only towns not involved in boundary dis- putes were Jamestown and New Shoreham, each of which occupied an entire island.

TRANSPORTATION AND TRAVEL-The geography of Rhode Island entailed problems of travel and transportation. Newport and Portsmouth were both upon the island of Rhode Island. Westward lay Jamestown, on the island of Conanicut, and further west the main- land, with Kingstown and Westerly. North on the mainland were Warwick, East Greenwich and Providence; and Bristol, the last held by Plymouth and Massachusetts. In the nine- teenth century two bridges were built across the Seaconnet River and in the twentieth century the Mount Hope Bridge established a dry connection between Portsmouth and Bristol. Con- nections westerly from Newport are still by ferry. To promote convenience of travel and transportation, and to assure regular and continuous service, franchises for ferry monopolies were granted so early as the end of the seventeenth century: Between Providence and Reho- both (later East Providence), 1696, on condition that the King's post be carried free; between Portsmouth and Bristol, 1698; between Jamestown and the Narragansett shore, a horse ferry, 1700; between Newport and Jamestown, 1700. Free transportation for magistrates, depu- ties, jurymen and other persons engaged in his majesty's service was ordered on the ferries between Newport and Jamestown, and Jamestown and Kingstown in 1699. In 1702 the leas- ing of ferry rights was entrusted to Captain Joseph Sheffield and John Holmes, General Treasurer, as a source of colony revenue, and in the same year the free inhabitants of Jaines- town were confirmed in their right to transport "themselves and neighbors with their goods or clothes in their own boats, provided they transport not any for money or any sort of pay, whereby the stated ferries may be damnified." In 1699 Duncan Campbell, General Postmaster in New England, complained that the colony had no roads suitable for posts to pass, and the

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General Assembly ordered the town council in each town to appoint "a jury of twelve able men knowing in such affairs to inspect into and lay out where there is not yet laid out suffi- cient highways."

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES-REGULATION OF OCCUPATIONS-The rising commercial inter- est in the colony toward the close of the seventeenth century suggested several measures to promote wholesome trade relations. In 1675 the General Treasurer was authorized "to keep a standard gallon of brass exactly according to Winchester corn measure . and weights according to the standard of England . . . . and a true beam and scales . . . all to be pro- cured at the charge of the general treasury." Every town was ordered to appoint a man to keep a duplicate of these standards, to be examined by the Treasurer and sealed with an anchor if true. In 1698, because of complaints of false measures and "much wrong done to the inhab- itants of the colony and discouragement of strangers to deal" the Assembly created the office of colony sealer of measures and weights. A new set of standard measures was ordered in 1712. In the same year the contents of standard hogsheads, barrels and half-barrels were fixed on the basis of sixty-four gallons for a standard hogshead, and every town was ordered to appoint a gauger. In 1705 the confiscation and destruction of weights and measures not legally sealed was ordered. To prevent fraud in packing and salting beef, pork and mutton, inspection of provisions and marking of barrels was provided in 1705, and in 1707, the Assem- bly passed an act "regulating tanners, curriers and cordwainers, for the prevention of deceits and abuses by tanners, curriers and workers of leather," and another establishing an assize of bread. To protect colony merchants and the inhabitants, laws requiring peddlers to obtain licenses were enacted in 1698 and 1700. The European practice of promoting trade by fairs appeared in the law of 1706 establishing two fairs for three days each at Portsmouth. On request of Portsmouth, the act was repealed in 1707 because the inconvenience exceeded the profits. As affecting professions-James Holliman was "admitted in the colony to practice physic and surgery" in 1698. An act "for the preventing of the Recorder of this colony from being an attorney at law," 1702, prohibited the Recorder from appearing as an attorney in any case whatsoever, except it shall be his own case. The General Sergeant was similarly excluded in 1705. In the following year, it was enacted "that no attorney shall be admitted to plead in any of our courts, but what shall be sworn not to plead for favor nor affection of any person, but to the merit of the case, according to the law." In 1729, resolving that "the sitting of lawyers in the Assembly on hearing of appeals from the general court of trials is found to be of ill consequence," the Assembly ordered "that no practitioner of the law, whatsoever, shall be chosen a Deputy from any town in this colony during his practicing as such," but repealed the statute at the next session.

RIGHTS OF RESIDENCE-English colonies in America were closed communities, in the sense that none had the right to settle within them without permission from the proprietors. While admission to the communities in the earliest instances was related to the acquisition of land, later, as land was rented instead of purchased, communities scrutinized strangers. In 1682 the Deputies from Providence raised in the General Assembly a question as to "how far the power of a town council doth or may extend to the rejection of any person or persons that may come into any town or place in this colony," and the General Assembly declared that the town council had power "to reject any person, although a free denison, unless sufficient bond be tendered," and that the major part of the council might "warn any such person or persons to depart the town by such a time as they shall prefix." So late as 1738 a statute declared the right of a town council to reject persons seeking residence. Colony freemanship, carrying with it the right to vote and hold office, was extended by a vote of the General Assem- bly to persons already town freemen. The towns admitted residents as "freemen" or "inhab-

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itants." Town freemanship might be conferred upon request, or without request; towns sometimes resorted to conferring freemanship without request in order to impose the obliga- tions of citizenship upon some who preferred to avoid these while permitted to live in the com- munity. Public office was sought by some and was avoided by others. The General Assembly from time to time established fines for freemen refusing to accept public office after election thereto. In particular refusal to serve as juryman was penalized, unless the freeman drawn for jury service could establish a valid excuse. The fining system extended from the lowest to the highest office in the gift of the people. If for no other reason than two-that Rhode Island did not restrict freemanship because of religion, and that no one in Rhode Island was required to contribute to support. a religious establishment without his wish-Rhode Island attracted many from other colonies, and aroused so much jealousy that the accusation was made frequently during the colonial period that Rhode Island received fugitives from jus- tice, including not only violators of law but persons fleeing from other obligations. In 1702 the Assembly passed a statute "for the preventing the inhabitants of the colony from harboring and concealing vagrant persons, runaways, and deserters of his majesty's serv- ice," the law forbidding also the landing of persons from vessels "that shall not be admitted by the authority to abide or inhabit within said colony." In 1729 immigration other than from Great Britain, Ireland, Jersey and Guernsey was regulated. Withal there were several classes of inhabitants in most Rhode Island communities, thus : Proprietors, the members of the origi- nal landholding companies, and their associates and heirs; freemen, admitted to full political rights; inhabitants, guaranteed protection of law and peaceable residence, but not qualified to vote or hold office ; resident aliens, such as the Hebrews in Newport after 1684; bondservants and other white persons bound out to service, such as judgment debtors, sold into servitude for periods long enough to insure earning and repaying judgment and cost ;* negro servants or slaves ; Indians, both free and held as slaves or servants. Negroes were too valuable as prop- erty to be allowed so much liberty by their masters as to occasion serious concern by the Gen- eral Assembly. The Indians, even after the number had been reduced measurably during King Philip's War, constituted a problem-more particularly those who abandoned the tribal rela- tion and who lived in varying conditions from planters settled on the land to roving vagrants. Rhode Island showed the same disposition to deal fairly with the Indians that had character- ized the earliest relations of colonists and Indians. Captive Indians after King Philip's War were sold for only limited periods. In 1681 white men were explicitly forbidden to adopt other than a friendly attitude in relations with the Indians, the statute being enacted because of an unprovoked assault by a white man upon an Indian. Partly to prevent the degeneration of the Indian by drunkenness, and partly also to reduce the disorderly conduct of drunken Indians, sales of liquor to Indians were forbidden. In 1703 Indians and negroes were ordered off the streets of Newport after nine in the evening, the prohibition including free Indians and free negroes as well as those held as servants or as slaves. In the same year the bringing of Indians into the colony from without was restricted. Two years later Indians residing out- side the tribal relation were trained for military service, and the quotas of men furnished by Rhode Island for service in colonial wars included Indians as well as white men.

ECONOMIC CONDITIONS-Three letters of inquiry from the English Board of Trade reached Governor Cranston in 1707 and 1708; the statistical information in the Governor's answers contained an excellent description of the colony. The total population on December 5, 1708, was 7181, the town population, in each instance, being : Newport 2203, Providence 1446, Kingstown 1200, Portsmouth 628, Westerly 570, Warwick 480, East Greenwich 240, New Shoreham 208, Jamestown 206. Governor Cranston did not answer a question as to the

*In 1675 John Carr's body was ordered sold as an absolute servant till all manner of costs and charges shall be defrayed.

WAR COLLEGE AT U. S. NAVAL TRAINING STATION, NEWPORT

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increase in population in five years for want of an enumeration earlier than 1708; he reported an increase in the militia in five years of twenty-one per cent., which might or might not sug- gest a substantial parallel for population .* The population included 1015 freemen, 1362 men of military age (sixteen to sixty), 56 white servants, and 426 black servants. Of the negroes more than half lived in Newport, and 397 of 426 in the southern towns, except New Shore- ham. Only 29 negroes were in Providence, Warwick, East Greenwich and New Shoreham. These figures were related to economic conditions and particularly fertility of the soil; the rich arable land on Rhode Island and Conanicut and in Kingstown lent itself to the development of the plantation system. Providence had 51 freemen more than Newport, though the population of Newport exceeded that of Providence by 757. Newport had 190 freemen and 357 men of military age; Providence 241 freemen and 283 men of military age. Newport restricted free- manship very rigidly as compared with Providence and all other towns.

As to trade and commerce, Governor Cranston reported eight ships, eleven brigantines and eighty-four sloops as built in the colony shipyards in ten years, and two brigantines and twenty-seven sloops as actually owned in the colony in 1708. Aside from allowance for losses, these figures indicated shipbuilding for owners outside of Rhode Island, which was a fact. Rhode Island vessels engaged in commerce visited Jamaica, Barbados, Nevis, Antigua, St. Christophers, Mt. Sarratt, Bermuda, Bahamas, Salt Tortudas, Turk's Island, North and South Carolina, Maryland, Virginia, New York, East and West Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Madeira, Fayal, Surinam and Curacoa. Exports included lumber of all sorts, viz .: staves, heading hoops, boards, planks, timber ; beef, pork, butter, cheese, onions, horses, candles, cider, Indian corn, rum, sugar, molasses, New England iron, wheat, wax, and honey. Imports included sugar, molasses, cotton, ginger, indigo, pimento, rum, English woolens and linens, tweeds, Spanish iron, brasalleta, salt, rice, pitch, pork, peltry, walnut wood, bearskins, deerskins, wheat, biscuits, dressed leather, bacon, ship rigging, grain, flax, boards, tar, pitch, rosin, turpentine, wines, pieces of eight, cucao, "European commodities." Governor Cranston reported 140 sea-faring men, belonging to the colony. In twenty years preceding 1708, the num- ber of vessels owned in the colony had increased from four or five to twenty-nine. This increase Governor Cranston "attributed to the inclination the youth in Rhode Island have to the sea. The land on said island being all taken up and improved in small farms, so that the farmers, as their families increase, are compelled to put or place their children to trade or callings ; but their inclination being mostly to navigation, the greater part betake themselves to that employment, so that such as are industrious and thrifty, as they get a small stock before- hand, improve it in getting part of a vessel, as many of the tradesmen in the town of Newport also do, for the benefit of their children that are bred to navigation, in which town consists the chiefest of our navigation; not above two or three vessels belong to all the colony besides. One other cause of the increase of our trade is that it has pleased God to protect them from the hands of the enemy, so that they have not lost above two or three vessels taken this way, they being light and sharp for runners, so that very few of the enemy's privateers in a gale of wind, will run or outsail one of our laded vessels."

The Board of Trade's particular inquiry as to what commodities were exported from Rhode Island to England, and how Rhode Island was supplied with manufactures previously imported from England, a matter of serious interest to England, was answered thus: "The colony never had any immediate or direct trade to or from England, nor any supply directly from thence, but what commodities any of the inhabitants had to export for England hath been exported by way of Boston, where their returns are also made, and from whence we have and are chiefly and for the most part, supplied with the manufactory of England; and it is com-

*Andros reported 792 men enrolled in the Rhode Island militia in 1690.

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puted that not less than £20,000 cash hath been annually, for some years past, remitted from this colony to Boston upon that account."

A letter from the English Board of Trade, inquiring concerning the negro slave trade, contained this significant statement of England's attitude: "It being absolutely necessary that a trade so beneficial to the kingdom should be carried on to the greatest advantage, there is no doubt but the consideration thereof will come early before the Parliament at their next meet- ing, and as the well supplying of the plantations and colonies with sufficient number of negroes at reasonable prices is, in our opinion, the chief point to be considered in regard to that trade," etc. Governor Cranston answered: "That from June 24, 1698, to December 25, 1707, we have not had any negroes imported into this colony from the coast of Africa, neither on account of the Royal African Company, or by any of the separate traders. That on May 30, 1696, arrived at this port from the coast of Africa the brigantine 'Seaflower,' Thomas Wind- sor, master, having on board her forty-seven negroes, fourteen of which he disposed of within . this colony, . . .. the rest he transported by land to Boston, where his owners lived. That on August 10, October 19 and 28, 1700, sailed from this port three vessels directly for the coast of Africa ; the two were sloops

. the last a ship . . . . the said three vessels arriv- ing safe to Barbados from the coast of Africa, where they made the disposition of their negroes. That we have never had any vessel from the coast of Africa to this colony, nor any trade there, the brigantine above mentioned excepted. That the whole and only supply of negroes to this colony is from the island of Barbados; from whence is imported one year with another betwixt twenty and thirty; and if these arrive well and sound the general price is £30 to £40 per head. According to your lordship's desire we have advised with the chiefest of our planters, and find but small encouragement for that trade to this colony; since by the best computation we can make, there would not be disposed in this colony above twenty or thirty at the most annually ; the reasons of which are chiefly to be attributed to the genuine dislike our planters have for them, by reason of their turbulent and unruly tempers. And that most of our planters that are able and willing to purchase of them are supplied by the offspring of those they have already, which increase daily ; and that the inclination of our people in general is to employ white servants before negroes." The tax rate for 1695 placed the value of a negro woman at three times that of an ox, and of a negro man at seven times that of an ox.

ENGLAND'S INTEREST IN SLAVE TRADE-Rhode Island levied a tax of three pounds per capita on importations of negro slaves in 1708, but exempted direct importations from the coast of Africa in 1714. The exemption was necessary to avoid the accusation that the Rhode Island statute was repugnant to the laws of England at the time. While the impost was for revenue rather than regulatory or restrictive purposes, it was repealed in 1732 by direction of his majesty, because it tended to hamper the commerce in human bodies that had become highly profitable to the mother country. The particular interest in slavery and the slave trade manifested by the English Board of Trade in 1707 in its request for specific information addressed to Governor Cranston and other colonial governors followed abolition of a monopoly previously granted to the Royal African Company, and the opening of the slave trade to all British merchants, "for the well supplying of the plantations and colonies with sufficient number of negroes at reasonable prices." The Treaty of Utrecht, 1713, at the end of Queen Anne's War transferred to England, with other Spanish "assets" as spoils of war, Spain's interest in the assiento, a contract with the old French Guinea company for supplying African negro slaves for Spanish America. As assignee of England the South Sea Company, under the assiento, undertook to land 144,000 negro slaves, 4800 annually for thirty years, in the English colonies in America and the West Indies. The English government's insist- ence that her colonies should not interfere with the slave trade, even by a tax as in the instance of Rhode Island, and the refusal to sanction Virginia's wish to forbid the importation of

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slaves at the same period, about 1730, justified the assertion made subsequently that the "insti- tution of slavery" was fastened upon the United States by England. In Rhode Island, between 1708 and 1730, the number of negro slaves increased at twice the rate for general population, from 426 to 1650. The maximum number of slaves was attained in 1748, when there were 4300 slaves in Rhode Island. Some part of the increase over 1730 was attribut- able to the adjustment of the eastern boundary, which brought into Rhode Island five towns and 4700 inhabitants, of whom 4000 lived in areas adaptable to plantation farming. The census of 1755 indicated the beginning of a steady decrease in the number of slaves-to 4000 in 1755, and to 3761 in 1774. The manumission of slaves was forbidden in 1728-1729 unless the owner gave bond to assure that the freedmen would not become public burdens. Insistence upon safeguarding the colony and towns against the burden of supporting freedmen as public paupers was necessary to inhibit abandonment of slaves after the owner had taken the full profit of their labor and faced the obligation to maintain them during their declining years ; not every master who wished to free his slaves was motivated by humanity. When the manu- mission statute was being revised in 1770 a bill to prohibit further importation of slaves into Rhode Island was discussed, but action was not taken. Relatively there were few slaves in the northern towns, where slavery could not be made so profitable as to establish a considerable vested interest such as continued in Newport particularly. Providence refused to accept intestate escheat of six negro slaves in 1774, resolving that "it is unbecoming the character of freemen to enslave the said negroes." The negroes were taken under protection as wards of the town, which further resolved, "as personal liberty is an essential part of the natural rights of mankind," to seek in the Assembly legislation forbidding the importation of slaves and freeing all negroes born in slavery after attaining a stated age.

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Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. I, Part 34

Author: Carroll, Charles, author Publication date: 1932 Publisher: New York : Lewis historical Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 716

Author: Carroll, Charles, author
Publication date: 1932
Publisher: New York : Lewis historical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 716