Enslaved African people were bought and sold by the gallon of rum Rhode Island rum was the currency of slavery. Enslaved People were purchased with rum that was distilled here in Rhode Island from molasses produced through their forced labor. That rum was shipped across the Atlantic and exchanged directly for human lives, placing this region at the center of that system. By the 18th century, Newport, Rhode Island, had become the “rum capital of the world,” and Rhode Island merchants sponsored...

I make memes because sometimes people will engage with a joke faster than they will engage with the truth. This work is not funny, but the absurdity of how people respond to it often is. In Bristol, Rhode Island, people love to talk about supporting local businesses, community, inclusion, and doing the right thing, but that energy shifts quickly when the conversation turns to Mount Hope Farm, plantation history, Indigenous land theft, slavery, and who is still benefiting from it.

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...