6. The Narragansett Planters

Another important intercolonial conflict over land and territory—and of long standing—was the Connecticut-Rhode Island struggle over the Narragansett Country in what is now southwestern Rhode Island. The controversy was resolved at last in 1726, when the Crown settled the territory in favor of Rhode Island. The detailed line was finally drawn two years later. By that time, however, the Atherton Company and ensuing land titles had been entrenched and confirmed, and the land pattern of the Narragansett Country had become considerably different from the rest of New England. Instead of compact towns, the Narragansett Country consisted of large “plantations,” differing from those in the South only in the commodities grown: berries, sheep, and horses, rather than tobacco and rice. And like Southern plantations, these large farms were maintained and worked only by extensive Negro and Indian slavery. In the major Narragansett township of South Kingston, the population in 1730 included 965 whites, 333 Negroes, and 223 Indians—the last two groups almost all slaves. Too, a proportion of the whites were indentured servants. The proportion of nearly one half the citizens as outright slaves was matched only in the Southern colonies.

Along with the heavy proportion of slaves came a rigorous slave code. Gone were the days of Samuell Gorton’s attempt to outlaw slavery in Rhode Island. Laws were now imposed prohibiting any Negro, free or slave, from being out of doors after 9 P.M. on penalty of fifteen lashes; no household could allow any servant or slave to dance or gamble; and no ferryman could transport a Negro without an authorized certificate from a master or from the courts. In addition, South Kingston itself prohibited any free Negro from having a slave at his house, and in 1726 barred any outdoor social gatherings of Indians or Negroes. Furthermore, a slave suspected of theft was liable to be tried without a jury.

In Rhode Island, as in the other colonies, only freeholders could vote. Whereas this ensured a democratic system in most of New England, the reverse was true in the Narragansett Country, where the landowners were few and large. In 1729, this requirement was fixed at the substantial sum of two hundred pounds sterling freehold, or an annual value of ten pounds sterling—a substantial sum for the time, and five times the Massachusetts voting requirement. As a result, the small landowners were disenfranchised and large landowners achieved strict oligarchic control of the local government of the Narragansett Country. And these governments, headed by town councils unique in New England, had far more power than the usual town selectmen. For one thing, the council decided absolutely on who could be admitted into the settlement and who prohibited; it functioned also as a local court. Furthermore, jury trial was discouraged in the area, and a body appointed by the council decided disputes over roads. In contrast to the elected officials of other townships, the town council was partially appointed and only partially elected. In all these ways, the rule of a local landed oligarchy was reinforced.