What were old politics like in Rhode Island?

Answer 1

RI politics depends on eraIt depends on what era you are inquiring about. Rhode Island has an ancient history and even in the days before the Mayflower the Dutch were

squabbling over Little Rhody (or parts of it). There is also evidence that the Norse visited though references to this information are hard to come by on the web (save for the myths associated with the stone tower in Newport).

I'd say the earliest politics involved the First Natives... the various tribes found here in RI and in nearby CT (on the border). The Narragansetts and

the Pequots were famous rivals...with the Narragansetts based in Rhode Island and the Pequots found just over the border in CT. Later the rivalry was between the Narragansetts and the British.

When officially "founded" as a colony, one could say it was founded due to previous "political" (in this era often akin to "religious") strife found in the Plymouth colony in Massachusetts. Rodger Williams was expelled and he founded "Rhode Island and Providence Plantations" with the hope that it would remain a place of religious freedom.

In the Revolutionary years, Rhode Island was the first to declare independence from the Crown on May 4th, two months before the rest of the colonies and before this, RI was also the first to burn and sink a British vessel (Gaspee). This was quite a while before the infamous Boston Tea Party. Nathaniel Greene, born in Coventry RI was General Washington's second in command. Stephen Hopkins of nearby Scituate signed the Declaration of Independence. Rochambeau marched his troops down

the roads and trails of Western RI.

From ww2 to the end of Vietnam, RI was home to one of the largest Naval Air stations on the East Coast and hosted (often) the head honchos from the Atlantic Strategic Air Command (our nuclear body guards in the air.

In the 1940's to the 1980's....Rhode Island politics could rarely be separated very much for "mafia politics". Some say that is still true to this day but after the fall of the Patriarca family it seems less likely to have the overwhelming influence on local politics that it once had.

One site in Scituate was actually one of the two final sites chosen to be candidates for the United Nations. As is obvious, the RI site lost out to the current location of the UN.