Rhode Island became the first colony in America to declare independence from Great Britain on May 4, 1776.
The colony’s legislature formally renounced allegiance to King George III nearly two months before the Continental Congress approved the United States Declaration of Independence. Rhode Island had already developed a strong resistance tradition, including the 1772 attack on the British revenue schooner HMS Gaspee.
Rhode Island’s action did not create the United States by itself. It was a colony-level declaration that ended the colony’s constitutional connection to the British Crown. Continental independence came later through Congress’s Lee Resolution and the Declaration of Independence.
Rhode Island also had an unusual position among the original states. It was the last of the thirteen states to ratify the United States Constitution, doing so in 1790. Its early declaration of independence and later constitutional delay show that colonial resistance did not always translate into immediate support for every national institution.