The Smallest State Shall Lead Them

On May 4, 1776, Rhode Island, the smallest state in the United States, which was founded by radical religious dissenters from the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay Colony, became the first North American colony to break ties with King George III. Ironically, it was also the last state to ratify the United States Constitution, finally doing so over 14 years later on May 29, 1790. The residents of Rhoad Island were really a very “different” people. They were unconventional and, in some ways, difficult. Still, in many ways, they fit right in with the times.

In the 18th century, Rhode Island was a hub of the transatlantic slave trade, which was a common practice of that era. Molasses from the West Indies was turned into rum in local distilleries, then traded on the West African coast for enslaved people. Those slaves were then forced to endure the brutal middle passage across the Atlantic to the Caribbean, where the survivors of the trip were sold to plantation owners in exchange for more molasses, thus continuing the cycle.

The British at that time were trying to tighten control over colonial commerce, starting with the Sugar Act of 1764, which increased molasses duties and imposed stricter trade regulations. Rhode Islanders, eager to protect their profitable triangle trade, grew frustrated with British efforts to tighten control over them. Two major clashes followed during the protests of the late 1760s and early 1770s. On June 10, 1768, British customs officials seized John Hancock’s sloop Liberty for its past role in smuggling Madeira wine, sparking a riot in Boston. Four years later, near Providence, the British customs schooner Gaspee ran aground, and angry Rhode Islanders, resentful of what they saw as unfair taxes, boarded and burned the vessel, injuring its captain.

Rhode Island’s strong trade network caused nearly as much friction for the new American nation as it had for the British Empire. With thriving ports in Providence and Newport bringing in wealth, it was the only small state in 1787 that could realistically survive outside the proposed federal union. Unwilling to give up revenue from import duties to the federal government, Rhode Island resisted joining. It wasn’t until 1790, when they were faced with the heavier financial burdens of being treated as a foreign nation and all that entailed, that Rhode Island finally agreed to ratify the Constitution of the United States.