John Smith

3rd President of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (1600-1663)

PersonhumanQ288068

Born: 1600
Died: July 1663
Place of death: Warwick
Citizenship: United States
Occupation: settler
, politician
, colonial governor
Positions held: President of colonial Rhode Island(1652–1653)
, President of colonial Rhode Island(1649–1650)

Overview

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia · Read full article · Text CC BY-SA 4.0

John Smith was an early colonial settler and President of the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. He first settled in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, but was later an inhabitant of Warwick in the Rhode Island colony where he was a merchant, stonemason, and served as assistant. In 1649 he was selected to be President of the colony, then consisting of four towns. In 1652 he was once again chosen President, but the two towns on Rhode Island had been pulled out of the joint colony, so he only presided over the towns of Providence and Warwick. An important piece of legislation enacted during this second term in 1652 abolished the slavery of African Americans, the first such law in North America.

Overview

Life at a glance

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All data

15 statements · 7% with external sources · numbers in brackets are citations

Sex or gender: male
Given name: John
Family name: Smith

On other databases

2 identifiers linking John Smith across the web's reference databases

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externally sourced

Source last edited July 15, 2026. AIDB refreshes this page daily.

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AIDB. (2026). John Smith (Q288068). Retrieved from https://aidb.si/e/john-smith-Q288068