RHODE ISLAND AT THE ONSET OF THE AMERICAN Revolution was a jewel among the roughhewn colonies of British America. In Kings County, princely estates lay along the southern shores of Narragansett Bay. From the water, newcomers would have seen great swaths of cleared meadows dotted with sheep and cattle, hayfields, cornfields, gardens, and orchards all bordered by stone walls, wooden fences, and boxwood hedges. These farms comprised thousands of acres and exported horses, oxen, sheep, pigs, bricks, lumber, and other goods at a prodigious rate, due to the labor of both indigenous men and imported African slaves.