NewEngland Rhode Island

The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, colloquially known as Rhode Island, is a state in the New England region of the United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area. Rhode Island borders Connecticut to the west, and Massachusetts to the north and east, as well as New York by sea to the southwest.

Despite being called Rhode Island in common usage, most of the state lies on the North American mainland. Providence Plantations is the mainland and Rhode Island is Aquidneck Island (now composed of the city of Newport, and the towns of Middletown and Portsmouth).

Rhode Island was the first of the thirteen original American colonies to declare independence from British rule and the last to ratify the United States Constitution.

Rhode Island has long held the nickname of "Little Rhody", though the state has officially adopted the nickname of "the Ocean State", as nearly one tenth of Rhode Island's inland area is covered by salt water, and no part of the state is more than a thirty-minute drive from the water's edge.

In 1524, Italian navigator Giovanni da Verrazzano was the first European to visit any part of what is now Rhode Island. He came to what is now Block Island and named it "Luisa" after Louise of Savoy, Queen Mother of France. When the founders of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations surveyed the land, they thought that Aquidneck Island was the place. A mistake occurred in 1614, when Luisa was charted by the Dutch explorer Adriaen Block, after whom Luisa was renamed by the Dutch West India Company; however, their motives in doing so are unknown. The official explanation by the State of Rhode Island is that Adriaen Block named the area "Roodt Eylandt" meaning "red island" in reference to the red clay that lined the shore, and that the name was later anglicized when the region came under British rule.

Another hypothesis on the origin of the name is that when Verrazzano sailed into Narragansett Bay, the many islands reminded him of the Aegean Sea, and he named it for Rhodes. This is what is said on the Verrazzano Monument in downtown Providence at Monument Park near RISD.

Roger Williams was forced out of Massachusetts as he wanted religious freedom. He brought several other people and created 'Rhode Island and Providence Plantations' as a free proprietary colony.

"Rhode Island and Providence Plantations" makes it the state with the longest name, while it also holds the title of the smallest state in the United States of America.

The smallest of the 50 states, Rhode Island covers an area of approximately 1,545 square miles (4,002 km²) and is bordered on the north and east by Massachusetts, on the west by Connecticut, and on the south by Rhode Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean. It shares a narrow maritime border with New York State between Block Island and Long Island. The mean elevation of the state is 200 feet (60 m).

Nicknamed the Ocean State, Rhode Island is home to a number of oceanfront beaches. It is mostly flat with no real mountains and the states highest natural point is Jerimoth Hill, only 812 feet (247 m) above sea level.

Located within the New England province of the Appalachian Region, Rhode Island has two distinct natural regions. Eastern Rhode Island contains the lowlands of the Narragansett Bay, while Western Rhode Island forms part of the New England Upland. Narragansett Bay is a major feature of the state's topography. Block Island lies approximately 12 miles (19 km) off the southern coast of the mainland. Within the Bay, there are over 30 islands. The largest is Aquidneck Island, shared by the municipalities of Newport, Middletown, and Portsmouth. The second-largest island is Conanicut; the third-largest is Prudence.

A rare type of rock called Cumberlandite, found only in Rhode Island (specifically in the town of Cumberland), is the state rock. There were initially two known deposits of the mineral, but since it is an ore of iron, one of the deposits was almost completely mined out in the American Civil War in order to make cannons.

In 1524, Italian navigator Giovanni de Verrazzano traversed the mid-Atlantic coast of North America, searching for an all-water route through North America to China. In March of that year, he left what is now New York Harbor and headed east until he discovered what was later called Block Island. Natives guided him into what is now Newport Harbor. He remained for two weeks while his crew surveyed the bay and the surrounding mainland. In early May 1524, Verrazzano departed to renew his search for a Northwest Passage.

In 1614, the Dutch explorer Adriaen Block visited the island that is now called Block Island.

Indigenous peoples of the Americas that lived near Rhode Island were the Wampanoag, Pequots, Narragansett, and Nipmuck. The Narragansett tribe, occupying most of the area, along with the closely related Niantic tribe. Most of the Native Americans were decimated by diseases brought with the Europeans such as smallpox, and by intertribal warfare, but remnants of the Niantic merged into the Narragansett tribe, where they remain on a federally recognized reservation.

In 1636, Roger Williams, after being banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for his religious views, settled at the tip of Narragansett Bay. He called the site Providence and declared it a place of religious freedom. It was sometimes referred to as "Rogue's Island" because of the people it attracted. Soon after Providence was known as a propreitary colony, owned and ruled by a designated person.

The following year, Anne Hutchinson was banished from Massachusetts for criticizing the clergy there. She and some others, including William Coddington and John Clarke, founded the town of Portsmouth on Aquidneck Island. In 1639, Coddington left Portsmouth and founded Newport, also on Aquidneck Island.

In that same year, a formal government was established for the island. William Coddington was the first governor, and Philip Sherman was the first secretary. In 1643, Samuel Gorton founded Shawomet, which is now called Warwick. In 1644, the name of Aquidneck Island was changed to Rhode Island.

John Clarke was granted a Charter in 1663 for Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, which effectively united the two colonies into one. Under the terms of the charter, only landowners could vote. Before the Industrial Revolution, when most people were employed as farmers, this was considered democratic. The original charter was used as the state constitution until 1842.

The relationship between the New Englanders and the Native Americans was strained, and caused some bloodshed. Roger Williams had kept the powerful Narragansetts on friendly terms with local white settlers. The Narragansetts were even persuaded to form an alliance with the English in 1637, carrying out an attack that nearly extinguished the Pequots. This peace did not last long, however, and by 1670, even the friendly tribes who had greeted Williams and the Pilgrims became estranged from the colonists, and conflicts erupted.

The most important and traumatic event in 17th century Rhode Island was King Philip's War, which occurred during 1675–1676. King Philip (also known as Metacomet) was the chief of the Wampanoag tribe. The settlers of Portsmouth had purchased their land from his father, Massasoit. King Philip rebelled against the English. The first attacks were around Narrangansett Bay, but spread throughout New England. The war culminated in Rhode Island in the Great Swamp Fight, where the colonial militia invaded and destroyed the Narragansett Indian village in the Great Swamp in southern Rhode Island, by Worden's Pond. On December 19, 1675, colonist militia from Connecticut, Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, and Rhode Island massacred about 350 Narragansetts in the Great Swamp Fight. Metacomet himself was eventually captured near Bristol, RI by agents working for Captain Benjamin Church. Metacomet was slain by his assailants.