Friends don’t let friends host events on plantations.

People can feel the gap between what is being said and what is actually true, and around here in Bristol, Rhode Island, that gap is getting harder to ignore.

Mount Hope Farm is often marketed as a charming coastal wedding venue, a beloved farmers market, and a symbol of local community. What gets softened is that it sits on sacred Pokanoket land shaped by Indigenous displacement, forced removal and war. Places like Linden Place and Mount Hope Farm are not whimsical venues. Horrifying violence made these spaces possible and continues to shape how they exist today. They have invested significant, intentional effort to transform our most atrocious acts of violence into something marketable by labeling it as heritage.

Maintaining that cleaned-up story is not harmless. It takes real effort to keep that version of history intact and you can feel that effort starting to wear thin as the same narratives get recycled through things like Bristol's 4th of July Celebration and America 250. If you ask me - this is what happens when a community starts outgrowing the story it has been given—but let’s be honest, nobody's asking me.

If they require silence about slavery and stolen land then it's not an appropriate celebration space.

Mount Hope Farm Is Not Just a Wedding Venue

Mount Hope Farm is sacred Pokanoket land and holds so much more meaning that an event venue. Stolen land and slavery-built wealth get repackaged as charm, legacy, and community, and they call is preservation, but really it's maintenance.

Rhode Island loves to pretend plantation culture is a Southern problem.

Most people don't realize Rhode Island completed the triangle trade ( Trans Atlantic Slave Trade). The DeWolf family is arguably the most powerful slave-trading family in American history and that wealth shaped estates, institutions and generational legitimacy that still defines this town. Human beings were bought, sold, tortured, raped, bred for labor and treated as property here.

The same harm is present, we just have better branding, quieter language and a long-standing commitment to keeping the history polished.

Historic charm does not erase the violence that built it.

An easy no,

Places like Mount Hope Farm and Linden Place aren’t whimsical venues and I’m baffled we let them pretend they are. Mount Hope is sacred Pokanoket land that was taken through war, displacement and forced removal, and Linden Place was built with wealth generated directly through the transatlantic slave trade. Horrifying violence made these spaces possible and continues to shape how they exist today.

Full Stop.

When weddings, markets and community events are held in these spaces without  naming the true history, they continue a pattern where Indigenous land is treated as scenery and slave wealth is repackaged as legacy. The event itself may feel joyful, but the setting is doing the much needed cultural work that keeps a partial and more comfortable version of history in its place.

Calling it historic charm doesn't erase the violence.

This is not a Southern problem.

People in the North position racism and plantation culture as something that happened somewhere else. Many don’t realize (because it is not taught) that Rhode Island played a central role in the slave trade and our entire economies were built around it. The same harm is present, we just have better branding, quieter language and a long-standing commitment to keeping the history polished.

Care sounds like truth, not silence.

If someone you care about is working with or hiring one of these venues, say something directly and in relationship. Tell them that you cannot ignore the fact that the space is tied to Indigenous land theft (ongoing displacement) and slavery and that you do not believe their livelihood or celebrations should sit on top of that.

It will cost you something.

You’ll be told you are making it too serious, that it’s just a wedding or a market - that you are bringing politics into something that should be joyful. What is actually happening in that moment is that you are interrupting a narrative that people have been allowed to move through without question and that discomfort is the driving force that allows these spaces to continue operating as if they are neutral. Hold the line. 

Silence is maintenance.

These venues operate as businesses. They control how their spaces are presented and understood. Nobody is offered the full context when they book these spaces. Keeping the history partial allows them to maintain a version of the story that supports bookings and avoids disruption. It’s disgusting to package and sell venues and events without clarity around their violent and brutal history.

Why the Bristol, RI Farmers Market Raises Bigger Questions

Take a closer look at how our farmers market (and other events) here operate, the answers are rarely as inclusive as the facade suggests. Ask how vendors are selected, who is reviewing applications, what criteria are being used and what access looks like for BIPOC and Indigenous vendors. Look out for systems that favor familiarity, legacy and proximity to whiteness and willingness to maintain the story.

Nobody is coming. This is your moment.

Change happens when people stop treating this as normal and start naming it in real time, in their relationships and in the decisions they make about where they gather and how they work. Yes, you. We must require venues to be transparent, accountable and forward with the full weight of their history and when they aren’t, they don’t get our money, presence or support.

You can do something.

People continue to act like racism is something that exists somewhere else or belongs to another time, but it is actively maintained in places like this through the choices we make and the stories we agree to accept. When events move forward on sacred stolen land or in spaces built through slavery without acknowledgment and accountability, that is not history repeating itself by accident. People are choosing to maintain it for their benefit.

I wish someone would have told me.

Friends don’t let friends host events on plantations.

(no matter where that plantation is, duh)

I partnered with Mount Hope Farm myself because this history was not made plain. It was not presented honestly or upfront. Like many people, I was given the polished version... the curated story built for comfort, bookings, and community approval. Once I learned the deeper history and tried to confront it, it became impossible to move through that relationship the same way.

People deserve informed consent before they decide to celebrate, work, or vend there. Attaching your name to that space means something. You should know if a venue sits on sacred stolen land. And you should know about a legacy so deeply involved in the business of slavery and Indigenous displacement. That information should not require private research outings, whispered conversations or public conflict to uncover.

It should be clear. It should be honest and it should be coming from them.

The reason I am sharing this is because they do not make that information readily available on purpose. Silence protects business. Transparency creates accountability. People deserve the chance to make decisions with the full truth, not just the version that is easiest to sell.

Send this to a Rhode Island friend or business, If you’re complicit, you should at least know.