Newport, Rhode Island

Newport is a city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island, United States, about 30 miles (48 km) south of Providence. Known as a New England summer resort and for the famous Newport Mansions, it is the home of Salve Regina University and Naval Station Newport which houses the United States Naval War College, the Naval Undersea Warfare Center, and a major United States Navy training center. A major 18th century port city, Newport now contains among the highest number of surviving colonial buildings of any city in the United States.^[1] The city is the county seat of Newport County (a county that no longer has any governmental functions). Newport was known for being the city of some of the "Summer White Houses" during the administrations of Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy. The population was 26,475 at the 2000 census.

History

Colonial Period

Newport was founded in 1639 and its eight founders and first officers were Nicholas Easton, William Coddington, John Clarke, John Coggeshall, William Brenton, Jeremy Clark, Thomas Hazard, and Henry Bull, who left Portsmouth, Rhode Island after a political fallout with Anne Hutchinson and her followers. As part of the agreement, Coddington and his followers took control of the southern side of the island. They were soon joined by Nicholas Easton, who had recently been expelled from Massachusetts for holding heretical beliefs. The settlement soon grew to be the largest of the four original towns of Rhode Island. Many of the first colonists in Newport quickly became Baptists, and in 1640 the second Baptist congregation in Rhode Island was formed under the leadership of John Clarke.

Peace did not last long in Newport, as many did not like Coddington's autocratic style. As a result, by 1650 a counter faction led by Nicholas Easton was formed. The Coddington/Easton divide would dominate Newport politics for much of the 17th century. Newport soon grew to become the most important port in colonial Rhode Island. A public school was established in 1640.

In 1658 a group of Jews fleeing the Inquisition in Spain and Portugal were allowed to settle in Newport (Jews fleeing Brazil after defending Dutch interests there against the Portuguese were denied the right to stay in then-Dutch New York until governor Peter Stuyvesant finally relented in 1655; seeking asylum in Spain and Portugal was not an option). The Newport congregation, now referred to as Congregation Jeshuat Israel, is the second oldest Jewish congregation in the United States and meets in the oldest standing synagogue in the United States, Touro Synagogue.

In 1663 the colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations received its Royal Charter and Benedict Arnold (1615–1678) was elected its first Governor at Newport. The town remained the capital until Rhode Island became the 13th state of the Union in 1790, at which time the capital was moved to Providence.

The beginning of the commercial activity which raised Newport to its fame as a rich port was begun by a second wave of Portuguese Jews who settled there about the middle of the eighteenth century. They had been practicing Judaism in secret for three hundred years in Portugal, liable to torture and murder by the Inquisition if they were caught, and were attracted to Rhode Island because of the freedom of worship there. They brought with them commercial experience and connections, capital and a spirit of enterprise. Most prominent among those were Jacob Rodrigues Rivera (died 1789), who arrived in 1745, and Aaron Lopez, who came in 1750. The former introduced into America the manufacture of sperm oil, which became one of the leading industries and made Newport rich. Newport, whose inhabitants were engaged in whale fishing, developed seventeen manufactories of oil and candles and enjoyed a practical monopoly of this trade down to the Revolution.

Aaron Lopez (died May 28, 1782), who fled to Newport from Lisbon in 1752, is credited with making Newport an important center of trade. "To him in a larger degree than to any one else was due the rapid commercial development which made Newport for a quarter of a century afterward the most formidable rival of New York." ^[2] He induced forty Portuguese Jewish families to settle there. Within fourteen years of Lopez’ activity, Newport had 150 vessels engaged in trade.^[3] Lopez was involved in the slave trade, manufactured spermaceti candles, ships, barrels, rum, chocolate, textiles, clothes, shoes, hats, and bottles.^[4] He became the wealthiest man in Newport, but was denied citizenship on religious grounds, even though British law protected the rights of Jews to become citizens.^[5] He appealed to the Rhode Island legislature for redress and was refused with this ruling: “Inasmuch as the said Aaron Lopez hath declared himself by religion a Jew, this Assembly doth not admit himself nor any other of that religion to the full freedom of this Colony. So that the said Aaron Lopez nor any other of said religion is not liable to be chosen into any office in this colony nor allowed to give vote as a free man in choosing others.” ^[6] Lopez persisted by applying for citizenship in Massachusetts, where it was granted.^[7]

In the early seventeenth century, a large number of Quakers also settled in Newport. The evidence of this population can be seen today in the fact that many streets in the oldest part of town known as "The Point", are named after trees. The Quaker meetinghouse in Newport (1699) is the oldest house of worship in Rhode Island. In 1727, James Franklin (brother of Benjamin) was printing in Newport; in 1732, he published the first newspaper, the Rhode Island Gazette. In 1758, his son James founded the Mercury, a weekly paper. Throughout the 18th century the famous Goddard and Townsend furniture was made in Newport.

Throughout the eighteenth century, Newport suffered from an imbalance of trade with the largest colonial ports. As a result, Newport merchants were forced to develop alternatives to conventional exports.^[8]

Newport was also a major center of pirate activity during the late 17th and early 18th centuries. So many pirates used Newport as their base of operations that the London Board of Trade made an official complaint to the English government. The most famous pirate who made Newport his base was Thomas Tew. Tew was very popular with the locals; after one of his pirating voyages, it was reported that almost the whole town came out to greet him.

In the 1720s, colonial leaders, acting under pressure from the British government, arrested many pirates. Many were hanged in Newport and were buried on Goat Island.

During the colonial period, Newport was the center of the slave trade in New England. Newport was active in the “triangle trade,” in which slave-produced sugar and molasses from the Caribbean were carried to Rhode Island and distilled into rum, which was then carried to West Africa and exchanged for captives. In 1764, Rhode Island had about thirty rum distilleries, twenty-two in Newport alone. Many of the great fortunes made during this period were made in the slave trade. The Common Burial Ground on Farewell Street was where most of the slaves were buried. Sixty percent of slave trading voyages launched from North America – in some years more than ninety percent – issued from tiny Rhode Island, many from Newport. Almost half were trafficked illegally, breaking a 1787 state law prohibiting residents of the state from trading in slaves. Slave traders were also breaking federal statutes of 1794 and 1800 barring Americans from carrying slaves to ports outside the United States, and the 1807 Congressional act abolishing the transatlantic slave trade. A few Rhode Island families made substantial fortunes in the trade. William and Samuel Vernon, Newport merchants who later played an important role in financing the creation of the United States Navy, sponsored thirty African slaving ventures. However, it was the D’Wolfs of Bristol, RI, and most notably James De Wolf, who were the largest slave trading family in all of North America, mounting more than eighty transatlantic voyages, most illegal. The Rhode Island slave trade was broadly based. Seven hundred Rhode Islanders owned or captained slave ships, including most substantial merchants, and many ordinary shopkeepers and tradesmen, who purchased shares in slaving voyages,^[9]

American Revolutionary era

During the American Revolution, Newport was the scene of much activity. One of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, William Ellery, came from Newport. He later served on the Naval Committee.

In the winter of 1775 and 1776, the Rhode Island Legislature put militia General William West in charge of rooting out loyalists in Newport, and several notable individuals such as Joseph Wanton and Thomas Vernon were exiled to the northern part of the state.^[10] In the fall of 1776, the British, seeing that Newport could be used as a naval base to attack New York (which they had recently occupied) took over the city. The population of Newport had divided loyalties and many pro independence "Patriots" left town while loyalist "Tories" remained. For the next three years Newport was a British stronghold.

In the summer of 1778, the Americans began the campaign known as the Battle of Rhode Island. This was the first joint operation between the Americans and the French after the signing of the treaty of alliance. The Americans based in Tiverton, planned a formal siege of the town. However, the French (wanting a frontal assault) refused to take part in the siege. This weakened the American position and the British were able to expel the Americans from the island. The following year, the British, wanting to concentrate their forces in New York, abandoned Newport.

On July 10, 1780, French troops sent by King Louis XVI commanded by Rochambeau arrived with an army of 450 officers and 5,300 men in Narragansett Bay off Newport. For the rest of the war Newport was the base of the French forces in the United States. In July 1781, Rochambeau was finally able to leave Newport for Providence to begin the decisive march to Yorktown, Virginia along with General George Washington. The first Catholic mass in Rhode Island was said in Newport during this time. Rochambeau Monument in Kings Park on Wellington Avenue along Newport Harbor commemorates Rochambeau's contributions to the Revolutionary War and to Newport's history.

By the time the war ended (1783) Newport's population had fallen from over 9,000 (according to the census of 1774) to less than 4,000. Over 200 abandoned buildings were torn down in the 1780s. Also, the war destroyed Newport's economic wealth, as years of military occupation closed the city to any form of trade. The Newport merchants moved away, some to Providence, others to Boston and New York.

It was in Newport in 1791 that the Rhode Island General Assembly, acting under pressure from the merchant community of Providence, voted to ratify the Constitution and become the 13th state.

The city is the site of the last residence of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, the birthplace of Commodore Matthew C. Perry and the Reverend William Ellery Channing.