Rhode Island Name

In 1524, the famous Italian navigator, Giovanni da Verrazzano was the first European to visit any part of what is now Rhode Island. He came to what is now Block Island and named it "Luisa" after Louise of Savoy, Queen Mother of France. Verrazzano described Luisa as "about the size of the Island of Rhodes". When the founders of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations surveyed the land, they thought that Aquidneck Island was the place. A mistake occurred in 1614, when Luisa was charted by the Dutch explorer Adriaen Block, after whom it was renamed by the Dutch West India Company; however, their motives in doing so are unknown.[5] Another possibility of the name's origin that has been suggested is that Adriaen Block named it "Roodt Eylandt" meaning "red island" in reference to the red clay that lined the shore, and that the name was later anglicized when the region came under British rule.[6]