Which colony first renounced allegiance to the British Crown in 1776?

Rhode Island was the first of the Thirteen Colonies to renounce allegiance to the British Crown in 1776.

Its legislature adopted an Act of Renunciation on May 4, 1776. The measure ended the colony’s formal allegiance to King George III and removed references to the Crown from its government. This happened two months before Congress approved the national Declaration of Independence.

Rhode Island had already developed a reputation for resistance to British authority. In 1772, local men attacked and burned the British customs schooner Gaspee near Narragansett Bay, an early armed confrontation of the revolutionary era.

Rhode Island’s early independence stance should not be confused with its later constitutional history. The colony became the fourth state to ratify the Articles of Confederation in 1778, but it was the last of the former colonies to ratify the U.S. Constitution, doing so in 1790.