On Sat, 17 Feb 2001, J. Barkley Rosser, Jr. wrote:
> You are wrong about the citizenship laws. Rhode Island was founded on
> the basis of religious freedom and had the first Jewish synagogue in
> what would become the US, even ahead of the Sephardic one in Nieuw
> Amsterdam.
You are of course quite right that Rhode Island was founded on the basis of religious freedom, by Roger Williams, a religious refugee from the Bay Colony who, once he made it out alive to Providence, was determined to allow in all other dissidents, giving the state a reputation as a refuge for riff-raff that it carries yet today :o) (He was also head, shoulders and midriff ahead of his colleagues when it came to behaving justly towards the Indians.) But my impression was that atheists, Jews and avowed Unitarians were still forbidden from holding public office there during his lifetime, which is what I meant by citizenship (admittedly a somewhat anachronistic term in the colonial period, when we were all still subjects, despite extensive self-government). And that this was true throughout the colonies at least up through the end of the 17th century, often combined with inability to serve in the militia. Does Digby Balzell say otherwise? I would be glad to learn more. Of course, Rhode Island was so tiny (only 7000 in 1700) that perhaps the issue didn't come up; perhaps the governor was the only real public official, and everyone else was staff.
But of course this is not to deny that, even if they couldn't hold public office, Jews could still be residents and enjoy many other civic freedoms. And certainly Jews enjoyed more civic freedoms here than was the norm in most places in Europe during the same period, where it was quite normal for them not to be able to own land or use the public parks or leave the ghetto after dark or on Sundays. We didn't have any of that here. By the standards of the era, we were steeped in religious toleration. (Of course, it's hard to look bad when your competition is involved in the English civil war and the thirty years war). It's only compared to today that I was saying that religion played an inordinately bigger role in determining one's life chances.
Michael __________________________________________________________________________ Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com