CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF SLAVERY AND JUSTICE
A Place to Learn
SLAVERY IN RHODE ISLAND
What words or images come to mind when you hear the words
Trans-Atlantic slavery or plantation?
When and where did it happen?
Transatlantic slavery is not exclusively a “southern phenomenon.” The labor of enslaved people provided the foundation for the Rhode Island economy and that of the United States. Transatlantic slavery was and is a global project whose effects are still felt well into the present.
Many plantations in Rhode Island were farms that produced goods and raw materials that featured prominently in the Triangle Trade. Some of these items included:
Cheese
Hens (Rhode Island Red Hens)
Horses (Rhode Island Pacers)
Windsor Back Chairs (There is a pair in University Hall and some in the John Carter Brown Library.)
Rope
Sails and countless more.
Wealthy Rhode Island planters also owned large plantations in the Caribbean, mostly in Barbados.
INDIGENOUS PEOPLES IN RHODE ISLAND
The Center is consulting with Native faculty, staff and students in order to communicate the history of Native people on this land both past and present. In the wake of the Slavery and Justice Report, CSSJ Graduate Fellow and Native student Breylan Martin, AM’21, will spend the next year working closely with local Indigenous communities to form a list of recommendations to Brown University to begin the process of reparative justice with respect to the Native communities that have been, and continue to be, harmed by the institutions and structures around us. In the meantime, we encourage guests to use the link below to visit the website of the Tomaquag Museum, a museum dedicated to preserving and communicating Native history and presence in what is now Rhode Island.