A Brief History of Providence, RI

Like many cities and towns in the New England area, Providence has a long history that goes back to the early years of settlement on the continent. Long before there were places like Springfield, Illinois or Hamilton, Ontario, lawyers, farmers, and persecuted puritans were arriving on the shores of the Eastern Seaboard of the United States looking for somewhere to set up a new life. Rhode Island was one of the places they found and their settlement on the island eventually led to the development of the modern city we know as Providence. This article acts as a quick overview of how Providence developed, from the landings to today.

In June of 1636, Roger Williams arrived in Rhode Island after being exiled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for his belief in the separation of church and state. He got permission to settle his own colony there from Canonicus, the local chief of the Narragansett tribe, and founded the town of Providence as a haven for like-minded exiles. Williams' name lives on today though the Roger Williams clinic for home health care. Toronto, at this time, was more than 100 years from seeing its first European settlement. Farming the land in the new colony was slow and difficult due to conflicts with Native Americans, who finally destroyed the town during King Phillip's War.

The town refused to go under, however, and rebuilt itself despite setbacks. By the mid 1770s Providence had a thriving trading port that dealt in rum, slaves, and raw sugar, which was then refined in the town. When the Sugar Act was levied, taxing these essential industries, Providence fought back. On June 9, 1772, they spilled the first British blood of the Revolution during the Gaspee Affair. The Gaspee was a British revenue schooner that was subjected to a hockey school-style fighting welcome from the angry townspeople.

The actual Revolutionary War barely touched Providence, however, and Rhode Island became one of the original thirteen states. After the war was over, the city began to focus less on shipping and more on electronic contract manufacturing. Machinery, tools, silverware, jewelry and textiles were produced in factories belonging to Brown & Sharpe, Nicholson File, and Gorham Silverware and drew in hopeful immigrants from all over Europe and North America. There was tension and riots between races in the 1820s, but they were largely quelled by adopting a city charter in 1831.

The Civil War saw some sympathy with the cotton growing slave owners of the South, but the state itself was part of the Union and supplied it with many troops. The postwar period brought with it another boom in population, which ended with the arrival of the Great Depression. From 1950 to 1980 the city was plagued by organized crime, but afterward began the slow crawl back upward in prosperity. Community development funds stabilized the falling population. It created new parks and housing and helped the city create more modern white-collar jobs in technology and internet marketing. Toronto today surpasses Providence in size and wealth, despite its late start, but Providence is holding its own against the world.