definition for: #RISlavery

In eighteenth-century Rhode Island a Newport blacksmith, a Warwick sailor, a Scituate iron miner, a Glocester farmhand and a Providence spinner of yarn were all connected by a common thread. This commonality set them apart from most other residents. Their uniqueness was not their skills, the products of their labor, their hopes, nor their dreams. All inhabitants shared these. Rather they shared, unwillingly, participation in an economic web in the business of slavery engulfing much of the Rhode Island economy of the 18th century. These were all enslaved workers.