04 November 2010

This is the state of Rhode Island AND ....

... AND Providence Plantations.  I may have learned that at some time in my life, but if so I had totally forgotten it and only re-learned it because a proposal to shorten the official name of the state to "Rhode Island" was defeated during this election.
The name Rhode Island and Providence Plantations derives from the merger of two colonies, Providence Plantations and Rhode Island. Providence Plantations was the name of the colony founded by Roger Williams in the area now known as the City of Providence. Rhode Island, the other colonial settlement, was founded in the area of present-day Newport, on Aquidneck Island, the largest of several islands in Narragansett Bay.

It is unclear how Aquidneck Island came to be known as Rhode Island. In 1524, the explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano noted the presence of an island near the mouth of Narragansett Bay, which he likened to the Greek island of Rhodes...
Image credit.

Addendum: As Boliyou points out in his comment, an alternative etiology for the name is Dutch explorers calling it "Roode Eylant" (Red Island).  That seems to make more sense to me.

2 comments:

  1. A. FischerNovember 4, 2010 at 4:42 PM

    And I was proud to vote against this incredibly dumb measure. We can all go back to worrying about real issues now.

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownNovember 6, 2010 at 8:52 AM

    Another Rhode Islander reporting in. The proposal was defeated quite soundly, by something like 78% against.

    BTW, another theory on the origin of "Rhode Island" is from Dutch explorers calling it Red Island (Roode Eylant).

    ReplyDelete