#12 commons little compton rhode island free#

Ideas about community and what was properly owned in common changed dramatically over the following decades.

#12 commons little compton rhode island free#

(Not an inclusive group, though: the town’s Native population, its enslaved and free African-Americans, and women were not present at the town meetings.) Among the early decisions at the town hall: the laying out of roads, apportioning the town’s allotment of salt, and the division of the town’s woods. It was a place for community in a community that still owned much in common and made decisions as a group. In 1694 the town erected a building to be used as a combined town hall and church, tavern and poor house. This plot was called the Commons from the start. An additional equal section was set aside for “Minister,” land to be rented or sold to support the church.Īnd then a plot of land in the center of town, about 20 acres, was set aside for the church and for government offices, a common burial ground, a pound for wandering animals, and space for the drilling of militia. When Little Compton was laid out in the late 17th century, each purchase from the Sakonnet people was divided among the 29 “First Proprietors,” men from Plymouth Colony who had been promised land on the frontier.

(This sets Little Compton apart from most Rhode Island towns, which lack town greens, and opposed established churches.) Little Compton was originally part of the Plymouth Colony, which designed towns to include a space for the government and church in the center of things, embracing the idea of the commons both as civic space and as a way of governing. The town green is officially “the Commons.” Little Compton, Rhode Island, where I live, has an actual, physical commons. To understand the long history of the commons in American life, I went looking for it. We hear more about the “tragedy of the commons”-the economist’s phrase for what happens to jointly held resources like clean water or air when everyone acts in their own self-interest-than about the value of the commons. Today, the concept of the commons is under threat in a country that has become more focused on individual rights than on collective ones. It was a place where all could graze their cattle, bury their dead, and meet for church and to make community decisions. It also has a distinct history in the U.S., harking back to early American towns having an actual commons, an undivided piece of land owned jointly by all the residents of a town. The commons are property we all share, property that’s owned not by any one person or group, but that’s held-well, in common.

This week: Historian Steven Lubar searches for “the commons” in his Rhode Island town and finds something “increasingly complicated, splintered.” Zócalo’s editors are diving into our archives and throwing it back to some of our favorite pieces.