Growing up in Rhode Island, I learned New England was always a bastion of freedom. This was especially true of Rhode Island, the initial English colony to protect the freedom of worship and the first American state to outlaw slavery. In history class, I was taught to believe that the problems that befell the nation primarily emanated from below the Mason Dixon Line. It was Southerners who held people in bondage, drove Native peoples west along the Trail of Tears, and rebelled against the United States. You can imagine my shock when I learned that Rhode Islanders did all these things long before The Mason Dixon line was charted. This might be why I was not surprised in 2021, while people in Richmond, Virginia, sought to dismantle their monuments to white supremacy, people in Rhode Island endeavored to erect new ones. Although disappointing, the William Blackstone statue that Rhode Islanders installed in Pawtucket in 2021 is not surprising. Monuments communicate more about those who choose to build them than they do about the people, events, or ideas immortalized in metal and stone. And while Virginia decided that homages to the Confederacy no longer represented who they were, Rhode Islanders concluded that a monument to a man who participated directly in the dispossession and enslavement of Native peoples is precisely who they are. As I struggled to rationalize the reversal of the North-South dichotomy I internalized long ago, I was reminded that the myths I learned as a young and impressionable student continue to inform decisions and shape realities. As I write this piece in 2024, the curriculum offered by the state of Rhode Island to educators does not substantively include the history and experiences of Native American peoples. We fail to realize how the monuments we build today reveal the truth about who we are because we continue to tell lies about who we were. •
Mack Scott is a historian, educator, and member of the Narragansett Indian Tribe. His work focuses on the intersections of race and identity and employs agency as a lens through which to view and understand the voices, stories, and perspectives of traditionally marginalized peoples. He has published works illuminating the experiences of African American, Native American, and Latinx peoples. He is currently working on a project that traces the Narragansett nation from the pre-colonial to the modern era.
Photos: First one is Robert E. Lee Memorial that was then taken down in 2021
Second is current statue in Pawtucket
