RHODE ISLAND RICHES WAS SLAVE-BASED

"From the year 1700 on, the citizens of this State engaged more and more in the carrying trade until Rhode Island became the greatest slave trader in America . Although she did not import many slaves for her own use, she became the clearinghouse of the trade for other colonies. Governor Cranston, as early as 1708, reported that between 1698 and 1708 one hundred and three vessels were built in the State, all of which were trading to the West Indies and the Southern colonies . They took out lumber and brought back molasses, in most cases making a slave voyage in between . From this, the trade grew. Samuel Hopkins , about 1770, was shocked at the state of the trade: more than thirty distilleries were running in the colony, and one hundred fifty vessels were in the slave trade. 'Rhode Island,' said he, 'has been more deeply interested in the slave trade, and has enslaved more Africans than any other colony in New England.' Later, in 1787, he wrote: 'The inhabitants of Rhode Island, especially of Newport, have had by far the greater share of this traffic, of the United Stares. This trade in human species has been the first wheel of commerce in Newport on which every other movement in business has chiefly depended. The town has been built up and flourished in times past, at the expense of the blood, the liberty, and the happiness, of the poor Africans, and the inhabitants have lived on this, and by it have gotten their wealth and riches.'" P.41, "The Trading Colonies," THE SUPPRESSION OF THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE TO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 1638-1870, by Dr. William Edward Burghardt DuBois (1896) [DUBOIS, WRITINGS, 1986, Library of America NY]