Roger Williams, RI Founder

Roger Williams departed Salem, Massachusetts in the midst of a gloomy, winter landscape, just as the sun was setting. Snow carpeted the forest floor, and a cruel wind whipped through the dark and forbidding trees: Thus a 19th Century artist (1) set about portraying the banishment of Roger Williams.

This episode marked the start of a journey which led to the founding of a civil government permitting unlimited toleration of religions and where no one could be punished for following the dictates of conscience. In 1636 his small settlement on the Narragansett Bay at the Seekonk and Providence Rivers created the force which within a short period of time became the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Williams the puritan minister, banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for his belief in Liberty of Conscience, could now demonstrate that his settlement, with HOPE IN THE DIVINE, was able to stand its ground against external dangers and internal confusion. While he was living in

Massachusetts he had cultivated an acquaintance with the Indians and before he left that colony he had met Canonicus and Massasoit. This friendship with the Indians was the key to how Williams was able to plan his new settlement within the very center of Indian Territory.

In the fall of 1635, Williams had denounced the rules of Massachusetts. He was summoned to court to answer charges on his denunciation of the "freeman's oath" which he saw as a transfer of allegiance from King Charles I to the government of Massachusetts. His refusal to obey that summons caused him to flee through the wilderness to the Mount Hope Bay and the kingdom of Massasoit. This great Wampanoag sachem granted Williams a tract of land on the Seekonk River. There he was joined by friends from Salem and they began to build; however in order to avoid any complication with the Plymouth Colony they crossed the Seekonk and moved to the site of Providence where they made their first permanent settlement in June, 1636.

Williams' friendship with the Indians, and their respect from him, derived from his firm belief that "nature knows no difference between European and American (Indian) in blood, birth, bodies.." He did not share the contempt of the English for the"Savage". Williams traded and preached with the Indian, taking the trouble to learn their language.

The new settlements within the Narragansett Bay area provided a unique opportunity for religious liberty and it also gave many enterprising individuals an opportunity to succeed in business. In 1643, these loosely knit settlements in the Narragansett Bay area recognized the need for some form of central government. That following year Williams was able to arrange for a patent or legal document which gave political sovereignty to these settlements and for the first time the inhabitants of the region were joined together into a single body politic.

Roger Williams, founder, led the development of political and religious liberty, and practical democracy. We must not forget his friends Massasoit, Canonicus, Miantonomi and the Wampanoag and Narragansett Nations.