Rhode Island
A more complex picture of Rhode Island’s first couple, Roger and Mary Williams – The Boston Globe
And she discusses a new Rhode Island Historical Society exhibit that provides fresh insights into Williams’s wife, Mary, who has received a fraction of the attention and credit given to her husband.
“I hope with reading these sources yourself, you get a sense of Roger in all of his complexity, with all of those nuances,” Carrington-Farmer said. “And the same for Mary, too. I hope from the book and from the exhibit, you see that she played a really important role.”
In the book, Carrington-Farmer demonstrates that the story of Roger Williams is complicated, filled with contradictions.
“He proclaimed Indigenous People were equal in God’s eyes, but also referred to them as proud and filthy barbarians,” she wrote. “He described how he longed to convert Indigenous Peoples to Christianity, but later changed his mind and declared that forced religious worship was so offensive to God it stunk in His nostrils.”
And while Williams is famous for creating “Rhode Island’s bold experiment in religious freedom for all,” she said he “detested the Quaker religion.”
In the 17th century, Quakers were considered some of the most dangerous people of that time, Carrington-Farmer explained. “We tend to think of Quakers in the 18th and 19th century as being these pacifists,” she said. But they were then challenging the hierarchy of the church and state, and some Quakers “turn up to church naked, protesting established religion by taking their clothes off,” she said.
Williams considered Quakers “clownish,” she said, but he allowed them to practice their religion in Providence “for better or worse.”
The contradictions in Williams are clear, Carrington-Farmer said, when he founds Providence in part on “this ideal of Indigenous land rights,” but later “takes a young Pequot boy as an unfree person in his house.” She said it’s unclear if the boy was enslaved, but Williams later described him as his Native servant.
The book also tells the story of how Roger Williams fell in love with a woman named Jane Whalley before he met Mary. Williams went to Whalley’s aunt, Lady Joan Barrington, and asked for her hand in marriage.
“But he was not of the gentry status, and so she forbids the marriage on that ground, and those letters are cringeworthy,” Carrington-Farmer said. “I’ve included them in my book because I think they really humanize Roger Williams.”
Carrington-Farmer wrote that Roger Williams “is arguably the most written-about person of 17th-century New England,” and the traditional “great man” narrative depicts him as “a lone hero in the grand founding of Providence.” But, she wrote, “none of his accomplishments would have been possible without Mary Williams.”
For example, she noted Roger Williams returned to England twice to secure a royal charter for his colony.
“And it’s Mary who’s left running the show,” Carrington-Farmer said. “Roger, whilst he’s in England in the 1650s, writes these desperate letters begging Mary to join him in England, and she refuses. She’s got a job to do in keeping Providence going.”
Mary Williams’s independent streak was also clear when she continued to participate in services at the Salem Church after her husband stopped attending, and he refused to pray or give thanks at meals with her.
“It must have been awkward, right?” Carrington-Farmer said. “We don’t have Mary’s account of what that was like, but again, it’s these small glimmers of Mary’s agency.”
But telling the story of Mary Williams can be challenging, she said, because there’s only one surviving copy of her handwriting — an unsent letter she addressed to “My dear and loving husband.”
Carrington-Farmer curated the exhibit about Mary Williams that will be on display at the John Brown House Museum, in Providence, for the next three years.
“It is the first public history display telling the important and overlooked role of Mary in the founding of Providence and later Rhode Island,” she said.
The Rhode Island Report podcast is produced by The Boston Globe Rhode Island in collaboration with Roger Williams University. To get the latest episode each week, follow the Rhode Island Report podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and other podcasting platforms, or listen in the player above.
Edward Fitzpatrick can be reached at edward.fitzpatrick@globe.com. Follow him @FitzProv.
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A proposed overhaul of Rhode Island education funding unveiled by a panel of experts and the Rhode Island Foundation on Monday, Jan. 5 would simplify the way public education is paid for and shift spending from municipalities to the state.
A 33-page report from the Blue Ribbon Commission describes the state’s current funding formula as “complex,” “opaque,” and “unpredictable,” the product of years of emergency tweaks and political compromises.
“We are constantly confronted with the limitations of the current funding formula. We hear about it all the time, both as a funder and as a partner in the public education sector,” David Cicilline, Rhode Island Foundation president and former congressman, told reporters at a briefing on the plan, whose release was delayed as a result of a shooting at Brown University.
The commission recommends that the state share the cost of some things now borne entirely by local governments, such as transportation, building maintenance and vocational schooling. And it wants the state to take on some costs entirely − including retired teacher pensions, high-cost special education and out-of-district transportation − that are now shared with municipalities.
The current system places “an outsized fiscal burden on districts,” the report’s executive summary says.
But the price tag for taking that burden from cities and towns is large, and in a time of economic uncertainty might give Rhode Island State House leaders sticker shock.
At the same time that the commission shifts costs to the state, it is also proposing a roughly $300 million net increase in education spending to better reflect what its experts believe is necessary to guarantee.
The commission’s preferred scenario, in which the state covers 58% of school costs, would increase the state education budget by $590 million. Under this plan cities and towns would save $278 million.
Cicilline notes that state leaders could choose to phase the new spending in over two or three years to soften the budget impact.
Recent years have seen significant annual increases in education spending under the existing funding formula. The current state budget saw a $59 million increase in education spending from the previous year.
Cicilline also noted that the state’s unfunded pension obligation is projected to fall dramatically in 2036, at which point the cost of covering those payments for cities would fall.
The state currently pays 40% of teacher pension costs. Picking up the full cost of retiree pensions would push the state cost from a little over $100 million to more than $270 million, according to projections from the commission.
Who participated in the Blue Ribbon Commission?
The commission, hosted by the Rhode Island Foundation and Brown University’s Annenberg Institute, included representatives of nonprofits, municipal government, teachers unions, research academics and public schools, both traditional and charter.
The panel did not include any elected officials or state policymakers, such as members of the Rhode Island Department of Education or members of the General Assembly. However, Gov. Dan McKee, House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi and Senate President Valarie Lawson were briefed on the recommendations.
How did state officials react to the recommendations?
All reserved judgment on the plan, although many of the ideas in it align with priorities that Lawson, president of the National Education Association Rhode Island, expressed in an interview at the start of the month.
Shekarchi thanked the foundation and said the House will be “carefully reviewing” the recommendations. “A strong educational system is essential in making sure our students are well prepared for the rapidly-changing 21st century economy and is a critical component of our state’s future prosperity,” he said in an email.
The report “reflects a strong commitment to strengthening public education and expanding opportunity for every Rhode Island student – goals my administration has been working towards diligently,” McKee said in an email.
Senate spokesman Greg Pare said the Rhode Island Foundation is slated to give the chamber a presentation on the report Jan. 15.
“The Blue Ribbon Commission’s work raises important issues that we will be exploring, including state support relative to areas such as high-cost special needs and transportation,” Pare wrote.
Municipal winners and losers under new funding plan
Although most cities and towns come out big winners with the Blue Ribbon plan, some do better than others, and a few communities are projected to see a net loss.
In place of the current “quadratic mean” formula, which includes bonuses for communities with expensive real estate but a large number of low-income students, the commission proposes basing municipalities’ aid level entirely on real estate value. (The higher the assessed value of property in a city, the less aid it would receive.)
Newport would lose $7.8 million in state aid, the Chariho school district would lose $7.7 million, Westerly $1.3 million and Middletown $400,000, according to commission projections.
But all other communities would gain.
Providence would see see state aid increase by $186 million and its own projected costs fall from $118 million to $90 million.
East Providence would see state aid rise by $33 million and its own projected costs fall from $65 million to $44 million.
And Warwick would see state aid rise by $35 million while its own projected costs fall from $127 million to $92 million.
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Rhode Island Republican Party chairman Joe Powers will resign effective Jan. 15, the party announced on Saturday, Jan. 3.
“Chairman Powers is stepping down due to the increased demands of his professional workload and an extensive travel schedule that no longer allow him to give the Chairmanship the full attention the position requires,” the party said in a news release. “The role of Chairman demands constant focus, and daily engagement especially moving into an election year, neither of which Chairman Powers can provide at this time.”
Powers a, real estate agent and unsuccessful 2022 candidate for a Cranston Senate seat, was elected to lead the state’s Republican Party in March 2023. He was reelected to a second two-year term in March.
During his tenure, Powers “oversaw meaningful organizational progress, including the successful update of the Party’s ByLaws and the full staffing of Party committees for the first time in over 20 years, establishing a strong and durable foundation heading into the next election cycle,” the GOP news release said.
Powers will remain on the GOP’s state Central Committee as chairman emeritus and will “continue to support Rhode Island Republicans in a smaller capacity,” the release said, thanking him “for his leadership and service.”
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