Rhode Island, one of the original Thirteen Colonies that constituted the British territories, had a tradition of religious toleration—many of the abolitionists held strong religious beliefs—and it was here in 1774 that slavery was first abolished in North America. As the smallest of the colonies (and the future smallest state), Rhode Island was not a major center of slave-owning; however, as one of the northern colonies, it set a precedent that was to be followed by others, gradually creating the divide between the abolitionist north and the slave-owning south.