Massachusetts isn’t the only place thinking about history in spite of — or as a distraction from — the gloomy fiscal future. 

State legislators here recently opted against eliminating Bunker Hill Day and Evacuation Day as official Suffolk County holidays, choosing tradition (and happy union voters) over cost-savings. Meanwhile, Rhode Island legislators just voted against tradition: On Friday, the Rhode Island Senate became the second branch to approve a 2010 referendum that, if passed, would officially change the state’s name.

The new name? Rhode Island. The current name — that is, the current official name — is “The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations,” a mouthful that voters could cast out in 2010. 

Our southern neighbor (its flag is above) has a long history of murky nomenclature. In colonial days, Providence Plantations (now Providence and its suburbs) was one community. Rhode Island — a little lump off the coast that supposedly reminded early explorers of the Isle of Rhodes — was another. When the two became a state, they ended up with the current long-winded moniker that has, over the years, morphed in a way likely to baffle tourists. “Rhode Island” is usually used to mean the whole shebang; the island of Rhode Island, home to Newport, is called Aquidneck.

But the impetus for the referendum wasn’t confusion. It was the connection between the word “plantations” and slavery. “People are starting to understand how offensive these connotations of slavery are,” the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Harold Metts, told the Providence Journal.

“Plantations” may indeed be offensive, but there’s something equally troubling about erasing an uncomfortable reminder of the region’s past. Slavery played a significant role in the region’s early economy; the benefactors of Brown University, one of the state’s premier institutions, made much of their money in the slave trade. “Plantations” has much more than a linguistic relationship to slavery. In Rhode Island, it has a tragic, historical one.

Still, opponents in the legislature sound more concerned about the distraction aspect than the revisionism. “Everyone who I’ve spoken to thinks the General Assembly is insane to be dealing with this issue with all the other social and financial issues we’re facing,” Sen. Leo Blais told the Providence Journal.

If the bill passes the governor, it will go to the voters next year.