1747- Session laws of the Colony and State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Of note, although the first settlement of Providence by Roger Williams was in 1636, the charter was not granted by King Charles II until 1663. That charter served as Rhode Island’s constitution until 1842 and provided for a General Assembly, which was to meet twice annually. While the Assembly must have met in the intervening years, the first printed session laws recorded in Pimsleur’s Checklists of Basic American Legal Publications are those for the regular session held in October of 1747. After Rhode Island declared its independence from English rule on May 4, 1776, the first session of the General Assembly of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations was held in July of that year. Of note, no laws were passed during these sessions: October 31, 1775, August 1787. The May-October 1821 session was printed only in Acts and Resolves. Some session laws were also issued in accumulated volumes with continuous pagination. See LLMC *41371. (Documents from Early State Records were digitized from a microfilm copy of titles originally held by the Library of Congress, the John Carter Brown Library in Providence, Rhode Island, and the American Antiquarian Society Library in Worcester, Massachusetts).
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