Power Thesaurus. 1969. elegant thesaurus http://www.powerthesaurus.org/elegant/synonyms (accessed April 12, 2017).
Providence Plantations refers to the mainland portion of the state, which included Williams's Providence Plantation and Samuel Gortonâs Shawomet Purchase (1642), which was renamed Warwick Plantation. Rhode Island referred to Aquidneck Island, on which the settlements of Portsmouth (1638) and Newport (1639) were established.
At the time of the Union of the New England colonies in their confederacy of 1643, the proposal of the Providence and Rhode Island Plantations to join it was refused, on the ground that they had no charter; whereupon, the following year, Roger Williams proceeded to England, and obtained from Parliament a free charter of incorporation, by which the two plantations were united under one government.