Text Ticker: A Plantation to Be Proud Of
Sarah Vowell has a lovely piece in the Times about the latest threat to the smallest state’s claim to the longest name.
LAST month, Rhode Island’s Legislature approved a proposal to allow a ballot referendum in 2010 to change the state’s official name from “State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations” to simply “State of Rhode Island.”
Lots of great lore in this for any fan of the Ocean State (including an explanation of Providence’s mysterious motto, “What cheer”) and American church/state history.
Williams’s settlement offered what he called “soul-liberty.” A man with the narrowest of minds presided over the most open-minded haven in New England. His own unwavering zealotry made him recognize the convictions of others, however wrong-headed. Others not sharing his beliefs would be tortured eternally “over the everlasting burnings of Hell,” and this, he figured, was punishment enough. And so Providence and its environs soon became a refuge for regional outcasts — Puritan dissenters like Anne Hutchinson who got kicked out of Massachusetts, as well as Quakers, Baptists and Jews. (Newport boasts the country’s oldest, and perhaps prettiest, synagogue.)
via Op-Ed Contributor – A Plantation to Be Proud Of – NYTimes.com.
