New England Colonies New England Colonies The New England Colonies of British America included Connecticut Colony, the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Massachusetts Bay Colony, and the Province of New Hampshire, as well as a few smaller short-lived colonies. The New England colonies were part of the Thirteen Colonies and eventually became five of the six states in New England. Captain John Smith's 1616 work "A Description of New England" first applied the term "New England" to the coastal lands from Long Island Sound to Newfoundland. France, England, and other countries made several attempts to colonize New England early in the
Geology of Rhode Island Pleistocene glaciations. The state's geology is part of the broader geology of New England. Rhode Island is divided into two distinct physiographic regions. The Eastern Highlands occupy the northwestern interior of the state, near the state line with Connecticut while the majority of the state's land area is grouped with the larger Atlantic Coastal Plain that extends along the eastern seaboard of the US. Rhode Island is the only state in New England formed entirely atop basement rock from the microcontinent Avalonia. The bedrock of Rhode Island first took shape with the emergence of a volcanic arc near a subduction