Revolutionary Providence: 1765-1790

The Mother Country's passage of the Sugar Act in 1764, levying a duty on sugar and molasses imports so essential to Providence distilleries and to the "triangular trade" in rum and slaves, set in motion a wave of local protest which crested in 1776.

As the colonies edged toward the brink of separation with England because of subsequent measures such as the Stamp Act, the Townshend Duties, the Tea Act, and the Coercive Acts, the town of Providence became a leader of the resistance movement. In the 1760s Providence pamphleteers Stephen Hopkins and Silas Downer expounded a federal theory of the British Empire which would divide sovereignty between the colony and the crown, thus preserving local autonomy including the power to tax.

In June 1772 Providence merchants and sailors burnt the customs sloop Gaspee, and in June 1775 they burnt tea in Market Square. Providence citizens led the way in calling for the Continental Congress, in founding a Continental navy, and, on May 4, 1776, in renouncing allegiance to the king.

This rebellious town, according to a 1774 census, had 4,321 inhabitants, with 655 families residing in approximately 370 dwellings. A 1779 list shows 278 shops and stores, some of which contained living quarters. There were at least 118 businesses engaged in commerce, but this primary economic activity was dominated by three mercantile firms: Nicholas Brown and Company, Joseph and William Russell, and Clark and Nightingale.

Though colonial industry had been restricted by the mercantile system, Providence on the eve of revolt harbored six distilleries, two spermaceti candle works, two tanneries, two gristmills, a slaughterhouse, a potash works, and a paper mill. Some two hundred tradesmen and artisans represented more than thirty-five different services and skills.

Fortunately, Providence escaped enemy occupation, a fate that arrested Newport's growth. But as English ships and troops hovered nearby, the town remained constantly on alert. A 1776 survey shows 726 Providence men capable of bearing arms. These able-bodied citizens built fortifications and warning system lest British ships venture up Narragansett Bay. In 1775 they erected a beacon pole on College Hill near the present corner of Meeting and Prospect streets. According to one historical account, persons in Newport, in New London, Norwich, and Pomfret, Connecticut, and in Cambridge, Massachusetts, spotted the light from a trial firing on the night of August 17, 1775. Entrenchment's and breastworks were later constructed on Foxes Hill (a rise of ground on Fox Point, later leveled), at Fields, Sassafras, and Kettle points, and on College Hill.

In December 1776 a three-year occupation of Newport began, forcing many of that town's inhabitants to take refuge in Providence--a reversal of the pattern in 1676 during King Philip's War, and a reversal of the relative importance of Rhode Island's two principal towns.

During the war American troops were quartered in Providence en route to various campaigns, though perhaps a thousand were permanently stationed here as a protective force. French troops moved in and out of Providence from July 1780 to May 1782, and it was from this point, in June 1781, that Rochambeau's army began its fateful march southward to Yorktown.

While Providence residents were fighting in many of the important land and naval battles of the war, inflation and shortages of food and fuel were causing hardship for those who remained at home. Business enterprise, however, was not destroyed. During the three-year blockade of Narragansett Bay, Providence entrepreneurs imported their wares through the ports of New London and New Bedford, and some historians claim that local merchants actually prospered during the war years.

On the debit side, education was disrupted, especially at Brown, where University Hall became a barracks and a troop hospital, and certain religious sects (according to Baptist minister James Manning) experienced a decline, especially the Baptists and the Anglicans.

Despite the dislocations of war, the people of Providence found time for some festivities, including Fourth of July celebrations, private parties, and parades when military dignitaries like Washington or Rochambeau passed through. The greatest celebration was reserved for victory: on April 23, 1783, the entire town turned out to hear "the Proclamation of Congress for a Cessation of Arms." The firing of cannon, the tolling of bells, church services, a fireworks display, a procession, and a state dinner marked the occasion.

With war ended, Providence resumed its pattern of growth. Its citizens and entrepreneurs weathered a postwar depression (1784-86) and then scaled new economic heights. When American ships were barred from the British West Indies in 1784, local merchants replaced this important colonial trading partner with ports in Latin America and the Orient.