On May 29, 1790, Rhode Island became the last of the original 13 colonies to ratify the U.S. Constitution, making it our 13th state. When the first Europeans arrived, Algonquian Indians lived in the area that is now Rhode Island. A Portuguese navigator, Miguel de Cortereal, may have reached the Rhode Island coast as early as 1511. Giovanni da Verrazano, an Italian explorer working for France, reached Narragansett Bay in 1524. Verrazano may have given Rhode Island its name, after the Island of Rhodes in the Mediterranean Sea.