June 1636: Founding of Rhode Island

​Roger Williams (1603?-1683) was a Puritan minister and a vocal advocate for the separation of church and state.  This conviction would guide Williams to the founding of Rhode Island as part of his quest to provide a haven for religious liberty in the American colonies.  Williams was born and educated in England and moved to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1631 to escape persecution.  Once he arrived, however, he was frustrated with the same type of blending of government with religion that he experienced in England. 

Additionally, his insistence that the European settlers should purchase rather than just take the land from Indigenous groups eroded his acceptance with the Massachusetts authorities, who threatened to deport him.  Williams was subsequently banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony.  He relocated to what is now Providence, which he established as a refuge for dissidents after purchasing the land from the Narragansett people.  Other banished dissidents, including feminist religious leader Anne Hutchinson, also moved to the Rhode Island area.

​From its earliest settlement, Rhode Island was a sanctuary for people persecuted for their religious beliefs. Baptists and Quakers, fleeing the persecutions of New England Puritans to settle in Rhode Island, were joined in 1658 by a Sephardic Jewish community at Newport. Then in 1686 a community of Huguenots (French Protestants) was established in the colony (Library of Congress). In 1790, George Washington wrote a letter to the Jewish community in Newport guaranteeing freedom of religion (National Archives).  Rhode Island's charter, granted by the Long Parliament in 1644 and later confirmed in 1663, became a landmark document for religious liberty, establishing rights that would influence the development of American democracy (EBSCO).  Rhode Island became a refuge not only for those fleeing persecution in Europe but also for those escaping theocratic-like governance in other North American colonies.
 
Sources:
·       https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/february-05/
·       https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-06-02-0135
·       https://www.nps.gov/rowi/learn/historyculture/people.htm
·       https://www.thearda.com/us-religion/history/timelines/entry?etype=5&eid=3
·       https://www.thearda.com/us-religion/history/timelines/entry?etype=1&eid=2
·       https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Rhode_Island
·       https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/founding-rhode-island