Everybody wants to know something about where they came from, the stories that trace back across decades and generations and instill a sense of belonging.
In a country predominantly made of immigrants, the curiosity about how we came to be here is nearly ubiquitous.
This is what led an 83-year-old Black What and Why reader to write in with this request.
“I would love to read something in your paper and how and where some Blacks came from, and how and where they lived,” he wrote. “I would like to see something interesting about us in the paper for Black History Month.”
He also asked why so many Black people settled in Providence.
While those questions are worthy of several books and an unfathomable amount of research, here’s some of what we found.
When did the first Black people come to Rhode Island?
By the 1680 Colonial census – less than 50 years after Rhode Island first became a colony – there were 175 Native and Black enslaved people living in Rhode Island, according to research done by the 1696 Heritage Group. The first of these forced immigrants are believed to have arrived around 1652.