RI may vote on changing state name over slavery

PROVIDENCE—Rhode Islanders may get a chance to shorten the state’s longest-in-the-nation formal name over its ties to colonial slavery.

Officially, Rhode Island is called the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.

But the House Judiciary Committee approved a resolution Tuesday that would allow residents to vote next year on whether to drop the words “Providence Plantations” from that name.

The issue now heads for a House floor vote.

Supporters say “Providence Plantations” conjures painful images of colonial slavery. Rhode Island merchants grew wealthy off the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

Others argue that changing the state’s name wipes away part of its heritage. Providence Plantation was the settlement founded by 17th-century religious dissident Roger Williams, who supported the
separation of church and state.