May 14, 1776

May 4 is Rhode Island Independence Day, marking the date in 1776 when the provincial assembly passed an act renouncing allegiance to King George III. News of this act reached Philadelphia about ten days letter, as the Continental Congress was preparing to issue a resolution recommending that each colony adopt new governments and move away from royal authority.

Although the Rhode Island act was only referenced in the Pennsylvania Evening Post on May 14, the full text, soon arrived in Philadelphia. It was actually entitled “An Act repealing an Act entitled ‘An Act for the effectual securing to His Majesty the Allegiance of His Subjects in this His Colony and Dominion of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations’ and altering the Form of Commissions of all Writs and Processes in the Courts, and of the Oaths prescribed by Law.” By this act, the Rhode Island Assembly clarified that “the Courts of Law be no longer entitled nor considered as the Kings Courts,” that “no Instrument in Writing of any Nature or Kind, whether public or private, shall in the Date thereof mention the Year of the said King’s Reign,” and that no commissions or other documents would be “made or executed, on Account of the Name and Authority of the said King.” 

The Pennsylvania Evening Post
Printed by Benjamin Towne

Extract of a letter from New-York, dated May 13.

“The Assembly of Rhode-Island have passed an act absolving the inhabitants of that colony from their allegiance to the King of Great-Britain.”