On this day 250 years ago in Providence, the Rhode Island Assembly adopted the Rhode Island Act of Renunciation that officially broke ties with Britain. Many historians assert that with this Act Rhode Island became the first independent state in North America.

The Act was introduced by Jonathan Arnold, and passed the Upper House of the Rhode Island Assembly unanimously, with only six dissenting votes in the Lower House. The Act of Renunciation declared that the King’s authority in the colony was void. Laws, judgments, commissions and writs would no longer be issued in the name of the King, but instead in the name of the governor and company of the colony, and the phrase “God save the King” was replaced with the phrase “God save the United Colonies.”

Jonathan Arnold was a distant cousin of Benedict Arnold, and unlike his cousin, remained loyal to the United States throughout the Revolution. He had been a Captain in the Providence Grenadiers Militia at the beginning of the War, then a Surgeon in the Continental Army. He then served in the Rhode Island Assembly during the remainder of the War, at the end of the War in the Continental Congress and after the War as an elected official and judge in Vermont.

sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Cooke; https://newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/may-4-1776-rhode-island-independence-day/; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Arnold