Details of a 250-year-old R.I. home's ties to slavery were uncovered last year. Now its future lies in its past.

Boston Globe

17-06-2025

And last year, the beginning of a newly detailed chapter from the long history of what is now known as the 'Shakespeare's Head' building also began with words — exactly three in blurry font, written in 1930s paperwork: 'Probable slave pits.'
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The Providence Preservation Society, which owned the building, found those words, prompting the organization to halt plans to sell the College Hill building last year, and instead commission research about the property's history with slavery, including the lives of three slaves who worked at the home.
'Once we started to uncover [the history], there was a feeling of, almost like a very deep feeling of responsibility about the sale, not just, you know, finding a buyer who understood how to steward a historic property, but finding a buyer who was going to be a steward of these histories,' Marisa Angell Brown, the society's executive director, said.
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Now that work is at the forefront of the property's future.
The
An announcement of the sale said the Center for Reflective History 'views storytelling as a powerful act of restitution — restoring agency to those once omitted from the historical record.'
'Civis is really interested in understanding the experience of the other — having people really ... raise awareness and understanding about other people's experiences, and use that to help inform an idea about how we relate both to current society, but how we can all take responsibility for a shared future,' Stephanie Fortunato, project manager for the center, said in a recent interview.
The initiative comes as
This year, President Donald Trump has vowed to push back on what his administration deems revisionist history.
In March, Trump signed an
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A sign outside the 'Shakespeare Head' building in Providence.
Christopher Gavin/Globe Staff
The Civis Foundation, which operates in other cities around the country, has been backing projects that provide people the opportunity to 'respond to the current moment certainly, but they're also providing funding … for new knowledge and new ideas to, I think, enter into the conversation,' Fortunato said.
Traci Picard is the public historian who was brought in by the preservation society to take a deeper look at the house's connection to slavery. Picard eventually learned two Black women were enslaved at the house for nearly 20 years: A woman named Ingow and her daughter, Fanny.
Both were released from slavery in 1789, although Fanny remained at the site as an indentured servant until she turned 18 years old. Primus King, a man enslaved by Benjamin King, of Newport, also worked in the house during the time around the Revolutionary War.
'People have said about John Carter, he was an abolitionist. I found no evidence of this,' Picard said.
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Carter printed at least one abolitionist essay, but also a 'huge amount' of advertisements for slaves available for purchase, Picard said.
'The bread and butter of the Providence Gazette isn't just people, but it's cotton, sugar, shipping — the whole business of slavery,' Picard said.
'The whole newspaper just reflects slavery from top to bottom,' she added.
This 1772 house on Meeting Street in Providence, R.I., was recently sold to the new Center for Reflective History.
Christopher Gavin/Globe Staff
As immigrants poured into Providence in the 1800s, the home took on a different life: It became a boarding house for laborers and the working class. The building housed as many as 25 tenants at a time inside its walls.
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Brown said she is looking forward to seeing what the Civis Foundation does with the property.
'I think it'll be a really important place in the city, in the state, in New England, for continuing to really reckon with these histories,' she said.
Fortunato said the property will be named 'Primus House.' The Center for Reflective History intends to spend this year 'doing a deep dive on the research' — which Picard will continue — and creating plans, before beginning some public programs next year. Possibilities include walking tours and hosting discussions, with more to come in 2027.
Programs 'will bring the experiences of the buildings' diverse occupants to life in ways that contextualize and reflect the relationships to labor, immigration, gender, class, housing, financial institutions, and economic hardship,' according to a press release.
The center will also 'invite interdisciplinary scholars, artists, cultural practitioners, and thought leaders to create new work that illuminates the lives and experiences of people connected to the site and to inspire meaningful social transformation.'
'It is really our intent to use that research to help inform our conversations about the systems today, and also to help shape people's own relationship and stewardship going forward,' Fortunato said.
The 'Shakespeare Head' building in Providence, R.I. was recently sold.
Christopher Gavin/Globe Staff
Christopher Gavin can be reached at