Newport, Rhode Island was one of the wealthiest cities in colonial America. For most of the eighteenth century, it was home to a booming commercial economy and a vibrant, free-thinking intellectual community. [1] By 1774, it seemed poised to cement its reputation, along with Boston, Philadelphia, and New York, as a major American city. This potential would never be realized, however. Newport's "golden age" abruptly ended with the start of the American Revolution, and the city emerged from the economic hardships of the war as a shell of its former self.
The cause of Newport's downfall has long been a mystery for historians. The prevailing historical explanation sees a combination of economic factors as the key to the city's decline. The disruption of the war, coupled with the arrival of the Industrial Revolution, meant that Newport merchants had a hard time digging themselves out of the economic hole where they found themselves in the 1780s. [2] While these economic troubles were certainly part of the reason for Newport's downfall, it does not explain why the city failed to rebuild its commercial economy after the war. Its neighbor Boston, which had faced the same kind of wartime hardships, managed to become even more economically successful after the Revolution. [3] Something beyond economics, then, must account for Newport's radically divergent post-war trajectory.
This paper argues that Newport's religiously diverse colonial culture was the key to its post-war decline. Colonial Newport's trade-based economy relied on a large degree of cooperation between members of a variety of different religious groups. Maintaining the political harmony between the many disparate groups, however, became increasingly difficult to do as the century advanced. According to Elaine Forman Crane, "in Newport's golden days, deep-seated prejudices were suppressed for the sake of common goals." But once the movement for American Liberty reached Newport's shores in the 1760's, "old animosities erupted, political and religious discord