Conceived in Liberty Volume 2 - Ludwig von Mises Institute

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
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