I HAVE ALWAYS believed that we learn more by looking at ourselves and our history honestly than we do by hiding or trying in vain to erase our past. So I have followed with great interest the news stories and blog sites regarding the renewed efforts to remove the word Plantations from the official name of our state: the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.

This issue is of particular interest to me as a native Rhode Islander and descendant of the first African-American elected to the Rhode Island General Assembly in 1885, the Rev. Mahlon Van Horne of Newport. During his tenure he, along with George T. Downing and other men of color in Newport and Providence, worked not only to integrate public schools in Rhode Island, but also to develop a platform for expanded civil rights, employment opportunities, and recognition of the dignity of all Rhode Islanders.

Reflecting on the notable lives of these men only one generation removed from actual slavery, I have asked myself how they would have reacted to this debate. I cannot know exactly, but I do know from the breadth of social and political issues they faced they intuitively comprehended that persons of color would succeed by moving forward and escaping the physical and mental shackles of slavery.

I have had the privilege of presenting African and African-American history lectures that include extensive discussions of slavery to audiences across the state and nation who genuinely desire to discuss race relations, past, present and future. I do recognize the word plantations might, to some, carry negative connotations of the slave plantations of early America. However, I also know that removing the name will not remove the past.

No one should trivialize African enslavement and its legacy of discrimination in Rhode Island, but there also needs to be recognition of our state’s historic sense of balance, in which justice and compassion have prevailed. With that desire for balance, I would like to present an important historical fact that has been lost within the plantations debate.

The historic use of the word plantation does not simply refer to early farms or settlements. It was specifically crafted and applied by our founding settlers as a means to express their newly achieved experience of religious liberty and expression.

The word as part of our official state name was also influenced by the sermons and writings of one of New England’s most prominent 17th Century clergyman: the Rev. John Cotton. Cotton was a Puritan and religious scholar who greatly influenced early Rhode Island Colony founders Roger Williams, John Clarke and Ann Hutchinson. His sermons included references to “A plantation of them into the promised land,” contemplating the search for religious freedom of the Puritans and the real possibility of finding it in the new world.

Williams, Hutchinson and Clarke expanded upon Cotton’s beliefs to embrace a universal liberty of conscience for all men and women. In fact, the Rhode Island Charter of July 8, 1663, which was mostly penned by Clarke of Newport, has a very specific declaration of planting both crops and religious ideals in the fledgling colony, “where, by the good Providence of God, from whom the Plantations have taken their name, upon their labor and industry, they have not only been preserved to admiration, but have increased and prospered, and are seized and possessed, by purchase and consent of the said natives, to their full content, of such lands, islands, rivers, harbors and roads, as are very convenient both for plantations and also for building of ships, supply of pipestaves, and other merchandise.”

This section of the charter refers to the Plantations name alongside the naming of our first settlement Providence, as the recognition that God (and through his divine providence) had guided these settlers in search of religious self-determination to form this new colony. It is imperative that all Rhode Islanders recognize that the name Plantations as part of Rhode Island’s founding history means much more than simply a farm or settlement. The name is at the very heart of the formation of a colony that established the belief and practice of liberty of conscience and separation of church and state.

This essential liberty of worship would become the American building block for future civil liberties, later to be codified in the U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights, notably the First Amendment.

For me, it is profoundly ironic that the name Plantations in Rhode Island would be reviled as a symbol of oppression, when in historical truth the name should be synonymous with civil liberty and rights, not African slavery.

By investing our personal, intellectual, and financial resources to learning and celebrating our true Rhode Island heritage, we can set the stage for all Rhode Islanders to join together in the recognition of our great contributions to American history.

Removing the name Plantations provides little to no opportunity to hold all Rhode Islanders answerable to the proper recognition of our history. And while I clearly understand proponents’ passion for this issue, it is also important to understand that the right thing to do is not always the most passionate.

Keep the Plantations name and continue the open and honest dialogue.

Keith W. Stokes, of Newport, is the executive director of the Newport County Chamber of Commerce.