Rhode Island's Name: the Isle of Rhodes or a Dutch Red Island?

Rhode Island started as the name of one island, and nobody agrees on why: some say it looked like the Isle of Rhodes, others say it looked red. The island is Aquidneck, in Narragansett Bay, and the name spread from it to the whole state.

An island’s new name

Samuel Greene Arnold, who published a history of the state in 1859, explains the start. The island was first known by its Native name, which he spells Aquedneck and says was written “in several ways.” In March 1644, the island’s General Court “changed the name of Aquedneck to the ‘Isle of Rhodes or Rhode Island.’”

At first the name only covered the island. In 1643 Roger Williams got a charter in England that put the island’s towns and Providence under one government, and it called the colony “The Incorporation of Providence Plantations in the Narraganset Bay in New England.” Then the second charter, in 1663, swapped that for “Rhode Island and Providence Plantations,” which Arnold says was “now abbreviated in common use to the name Rhode Island.”

Story one: the Isle of Rhodes

The Rhodes idea goes back to Verrazzano, “a Florentine navigator in the service of Francis I. of France,” as Arnold calls him. Arnold says he spent more than two weeks in 1524 in the harbor where Newport now stands, and his account mentions an island that reminded him of Rhodes, the island off what Arnold calls “the coast of Asia Minor.”

Plenty of people took that as the source of the name. Arnold was not one of them. “By what strange fancy this island was ever supposed to resemble that of Rhodes,” he writes, “is difficult to imagine.” He says people believed it because “it is easier to adopt a geographical absurdity than to investigate an historical point.”

His argument is that Verrazzano was talking about a different island. The passage, Arnold says, “refers to Block Island,” which looks a lot more like Rhodes than Aquidneck does.

Story two: the red island

Arnold’s own answer is Dutch. Adrian Block, the Dutch navigator who left his name on Block Island, later sailed into Narragansett Bay. There, Arnold writes, he noticed “the fiery aspect of the place, caused by the red clay in some portions of its shores,” and named it “Roodt Eylandt,” the Red Island. From there, “by easy transposition,” it became Rhode Island.

Henry Gannett’s 1905 government bulletin on American place names gives both stories and picks neither. Rhode Island, he says, is “said to have received its name from a small island in Narragansett Bay named Roode Eylandt, ‘red island;’ according to another authority, named for the island of Rhodes.” Notice he says a small island, though. Arnold calls Aquidneck “the large and beautiful island,” so Gannett’s red island may not even be the same place.

So which is it? Arnold makes a good case for the red island, but he wrote more than two hundred years later, and the 1644 order he quotes says “Isle of Rhodes.” His answer is that people had “inadvertently transferred” Verrazzano’s note about Block Island to this one. Gannett won’t choose, and you can see why. That’s why we mark this one as disputed.

The long name gets shorter

For most of its history, the state’s official name was even longer. The U.S. Geological Survey’s note on the state says Rhode Island became “The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations when it declared statehood in 1790.” Then, “on November 3, 2020, the state’s voters approved a statewide referendum to remove the words ‘and Providence Plantations.’” If you live there now, the island’s name is the whole name.

Sources & further reading

• Samuel Greene Arnold, History of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, vol. 1 (New York, 1859), pp. 69–70, 113–114, 158. Pp. 69–70: “the large and beautiful island of Aquedneck.” Note on p. 70: the Native name “is spelled in several ways,” “Aquetnet, Aquidneck,” and others; the 1643 patent, “The incorporation of the Providence Plantations in Narraganset bay in New England,” gave place in 1663 to “Rhode Island and Providence Plantations,” “now abbreviated in common use to the name Rhode Island”; the colonists changed the Indian name to “Rhode Island,” or the “Isle of Rhodes” (the OCR prints the year as 1614; p. 158 dates it March 1643-4, Old Style, that is, 1644); “By what strange fancy this island was ever supposed to resemble that of Rhodes, on the coast of Asia Minor, is difficult to imagine”; “it is easier to adopt a geographical absurdity than to investigate an historical point”; Verrazano “spent more than two weeks in the spring of 1524 in the spacious harbor upon which Newport now stands”; the passage “refers to Block Island”; Adrian Block “commemorated the fiery aspect of the place, caused by the red clay in some portions of its shores, by giving it the name of Roodt Eylandt,” which he glosses as “the Red Island,” “and by easy transposition, Rhode Island.” Pp. 113–114: the 1643 patent was “a charter uniting the three Rhode Island colonies,” as “The Incorporation of Providence Plantations in the Narraganset Bay in New England.” P. 158: in March 1644 the court “changed the name of Aquedneck to the ‘Isle of Rhodes or Rhode Island.’”
• Henry Gannett, The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States (USGS, 1905), p. 262. “Rhode Island; one of the original thirteen States, said to have received its name from a small island in Narragansett Bay named Roode Eylandt, ‘red island;’ according to another authority, named for the island of Rhodes.” Notice he says a small island, though. Arnold calls Aquidneck “the large and beautiful island,” so Gannett’s red island may not even be the same place.
• U.S. Geological Survey, GNIS feature 1219835, history note. “Rhode Island was incorporated as The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations when it declared statehood in 1790. On November 3, 2020, the state’s voters approved a statewide referendum to remove the words ‘and Providence Plantations.’”
• U.S. Census Bureau, state codes (2020). Lists Rhode Island’s permanent federal place-name record number (GNIS 1219835).