Smithsonian Magazine Special Report

In 1831, a group of white mobs razed the Providence community in Snowtown. Now, archaeologists are excavating its heritage

On a pair of folding tables in the basement of the Potucket Public Archaeological Laboratory (PAL), Rhode Island, four metal trays display unusual combinations of artifacts. Simple ceramic tableware. Iron padlock. Dominoes carved from bones. A cut glass. A small bottle of French conditioner. The headless body of a porcelain doll. One Spanish coin. A red clay pot with drizzle of blue, black, yellow and green paint on both sides.

These are the remains of Snow Town, a poor but vibrant mixed-race community that was once part of Providence, the capital of the state. In addition, it is located where the state’s majestic Capitol is now located. Although there are no visible traces of the neighborhood, its history-including a deadly mob attack in 1831-is now being resurrected by the Syracuse Project.

The initiative was originally the product of a subcommittee of the Rhode Island State Capitol Rehabilitation Association, whose mission is to tell little-known stories about the Capitol and its grounds. Marissa Brown, chair of the subcommittee and part-time lecturer at the John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage at Brown University, said: "There is a disconnect between the accuracy of what happened in the past and what our landscape tells us. We have lost too much. NS."

In 2019, the subcommittee sent emails to colleagues to assess their interest in researching Snow Town. In the course of the three meetings, the few people first developed into a group of 30 people, and now there are more than 100 historians, archivists, archaeologists, teachers, storytellers, artists, and community members.

After the American War of Independence, Rhode Island experienced rapid population growth driven by the international "triangular trade"-slaves, sugar products and spirits-through the Port of Providence. The state’s breweries have a special knack for converting imported sugar cane and molasses from the West Indies into rum for slave labor. But by the 1830s, with a population of over 16,000, the manufacture of textiles, jewelry, and silverware had replaced commercial trade and became the city's main economic driver.

The state’s 1784 Gradual Emancipation Act allowed children born to enslaved women to be free as adults. Within a few decades, new groups of free blacks emerged, but they were pushed into marginalized communities along with indentured servants, natives, immigrants, and impoverished whites. Many of these groups are denied the opportunity to work in the emerging manufacturing industry.

They live in places like Snow Town, which is home to dilapidated houses and businesses, with few amenities. It is home to two to three dozen families, but the population is declining and moving. Some residents work as domestic servants in the homes of the Providence elite, or work in industries such as woodworking and sewing. The most successful own a small business or boarding house. Even for the latter, life in Snow Town is difficult.

The pollution in Providence made the situation worse. Dayan Bay is a tidal estuary, important to the local indigenous tribes. Just below the sandy cliff where Snow Town is located, it has become a dumping ground for sewage and industrial waste. Real estate in the village is unpopular; rents are cheap; and "notorious" businesses-brothels, salons, and dance halls-targeting sailors coming through the port-have proliferated.

In 1831, sailors who had just arrived on the Lion ship from Sweden started fighting in a tavern on Olney's Lane, which is adjacent to Snowtown, which is also a gathering place for non-white communities. According to reports in the Rhode Island American Press and Gazette, the sailors gathered reinforcements and attacked a home occupied by "dissolute blacks." Two black men opened fire on the sailor, killing one person and wounding three others. The white thug shouted "Do your best to kill all the black people!" Going up the mountain and entering Snow Town, the gunman is believed to have escaped there.

In four days, 18 buildings in Snow Town and Olney Lane were damaged or destroyed. In the end, the national militia was unable to deal with the scene due to insufficient equipment and opened fire to disperse the rioters, killing four people.

Although the residents were rebuilt, by the late 1800s, Snow Town and its black residents were displaced by industrial progress. Rhode Island has grown into the richest state per capita. As a monument of its prestige, the state commissioned the famous architects McKim, Mead & White of Pennsylvania Station and the New York Public Library to design a huge state capitol on the cliff above Great Salt Bay. It was completed in 1904.

Today, all traces of Snow Town and its sister communities are obscured by railroad tracks, a small park commemorating the founder of the country Roger Williams, gorgeous neoclassical capitol buildings and rolling green lawns.   

Nonetheless, Chris Roberts, a researcher at the Snowtown Project and an assistant professor at the Rhode Island School of Design, said, "If you study slavery in Providence, Snowtown will appear. If you are looking at the history of women in Providence, You will see Snow Town. If you think of this city as a commercial center, it will appear. Syracuse is a role in the city’s many different histories."

Exploring Syracuse is not without challenges. First, the record is incomplete. For example, census data records the name of the head of the household and only uses numbers to represent women and children. "We often have to deal with the silence of these archives," said Gerald Packard, a member of the Snowdon Research Council and a doctoral student at Rutgers University. "These people are not considered worthy of being counted."

The collection of approximately 32,000 artifacts still contains physical evidence of entrepreneurship, creativity and personal care. In the early 1980s, when the Federal Railroad Administration carried out a railway improvement project in the northeast (including Providence), these artifacts were unearthed and approximately 30% were cataloged.

According to PAL laboratory manager and Snowtown project researcher Heather Olson, these materials were then archived and shipped to what is now the Rhode Island Historical Preservation and Heritage Committee. Except for some inquiries related to doctoral dissertations and a small exhibition in 1988, they stayed there for 35 years and were basically unaffected. These items subsequently disappeared.

The remaining cultural relics were handed over to PAL in 2013. The organization digitally cataloged the entire series-everything from writing slates and pencils to crucibles for metalworking, woodworking tools and children's toys. (Some of these digital objects are expected to be announced online after the project is completed.)

Kitchen items are the most common, and they reflect a strange mix of status. In addition to plain plates and tableware, the series also includes expensive Blue Willow tableware, Chinese porcelain and an 18th century feldspar stoneware teapot. Olsen said, "I don't know if these things were shipped as clean fillers from somewhere, bought second-hand, or given to people"—for example, the wealthy domestic servants hired by the city.

Other cultural relics provide clues about the health of residents. For example, the large number of bottles used for digestive tonics illustrates the contaminating nature of the water supply. For Olson, this series is an opportunity to examine hidden history. "What do you recognize? What do you think of people who are invisible in most situations?" she said.

Joanne Pope Melish, a retired historian at the University of Kentucky, said that if the complex work of the Syracuse project focuses on one truth, it is that "written history belongs to the winner." Author of "Rejection of Slavery: Gradual Emancipation and "Race" in New England, 1780-1860"; and co-chair of the project research committee.

"History, and the behavior and telling of history, are the product of the politics of the moment when the story occurs and the moment when the story occurs," she explained.

White supremacy still exists and is well above the Mason-Dixon line. The newly freed African Americans exchanged the physical oppression of enslavement for the social oppression of classism and historical obliteration. Contemporary newspapers rarely mention Syracuse. It was not until the 1960s that they began to reappear as the civil rights movement brought communities back to public consciousness.

In the past ten years, this awareness has been accelerated, directly responding to the "Black People's Fate is Fate" movement. Modern media can also help retelling lost history. For example, HBO's "Watchmen" dramatized the 1921 Tulsa Genocide.

According to Pope Melish, before Tulsa, white mobs attacked northern black communities 144 times between 1820 and 1850. Although the attacks in Oklahoma were far more deadly, these attacks were two aspects of the same coin. Pope Melish said: "This is similar to the possibility of being a'perfect' enslaved or a free person of color. If you are poor, you are disgusting. If you succeed, you are arrogant. Both will do. Cause hostility."

Traci Picard is a public historian. He is the co-chair of the Snowtown project research team and has been dedicated to digging up personal history. She sifted through thousands of seemingly mundane materials, including writs and warrants-an early version of the small claims court. "Everything is built by someone," she said. "I don't mean it was designed by someone, or someone who is honored for building it. Every block, every brick, every building-we are all surrounded by people's lives, experiences, and stories."

Plans are underway to show these stories in exhibitions at the State Capitol and in digital publications featuring maps, photos, and documents. Snowtown History Walks debuted in June, and public art installations and signs for self-guided tours are also being discussed. 

Playwright and actor Sylvia Ann Soares (Sylvia Ann Soares), a member of the show team and a Cape Verdean descendant of the Portuguese slave trade in Providence, is working on a movie that will premiere next year. City-themed drama. She believes that the artist's early participation in the project is an indispensable part of its retelling. "The results will be richer," she said. "A lot of people don't read scientific journals or participate in lectures, but if it is dramatic, if there is some music, some songs from that era, it will make it alive."

Suarez added, “I intend to speak out [with this drama] as an inspiration for advocacy against today’s injustice.”

For Packard, this is also an opportunity to broaden our understanding of a part of American evolution under the carpet of white history. "Syracuse is the epitome of the very chaotic and long liberation process experienced by the northern people before the Civil War," he said. "This is the story of African Americans [in the United States]: They are resilient and are constantly rebuilding their lives."

Robin Catalano is a travel writer living in the Hudson Valley, specializing in coastal travel, the northeastern United States and Spain. Follow her on Instagram and Twitter.

© 2021 Smithsonian Magazine Privacy Statement Cookie Policy Terms of Use Advertising Notice Manage My Data