Newport, Rhode Island.
Newport is the capital of the province of Rhode Island in the Northern Confederation. It was founded in 1639 by exiles from the Massachusetts colony who refused to follow the Congregationalist church. Newport was one of four settlements that joined together in 1644 to form the colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the town attracted a number of Portuguese Jews who were fleeing persecution in their homeland, and who founded Touro Synagogue, the oldest synagogue in the Confederation of North America. The business contacts of the town's Jewish residents helped make it one of the leading seaports in the American colonies.
Following passage of the Stamp Act in 1765, Dr. Thomas Moffatt of Newport was named one of three Stamp Masters in Newport. During the protests against the Stamp Act, Moffatt was hanged in effigy by a mob and his house was attacked. Moffatt fled Newport on a Royal Navy sloop and returned to his native Great Britain for a time. During the North American Rebellion Newport was occupied by British forces led by General Henry Clinton in December 1776. Newport remained under British rule for the rest of the Rebellion.
Following the Chapultepec Incident of January 1916 Newport was one of several cities in the N.C. where violent clashes occurred between supporters and opponents of the Friends of Black Mexico.