Roger Williams

Roger Williams was born in London, and many historians cite 1603 as the probable year of his birth.[6] His birth records were destroyed when St. Sepulchre church burned during the Great Fire of London,[7] and his entry in American National Biography notes that Williams gave contradictory information about his age throughout his life.[8] His father was James Williams (1562–1620), a merchant tailor in Smithfield, and his mother was Alice Pemberton (1564–1635).

Williams attended Pembroke College, Cambridge

At an early age, Williams had a spiritual conversion of which his father disapproved. As an adolescent, he apprenticed under Sir Edward Coke (1552–1634), the famous jurist, and was educated at Charterhouse School under Coke's patronage. Williams later attended Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he received a Bachelor of Arts in 1627.[9] He demonstrated a facility with languages, acquiring familiarity with Latin, Hebrew, Greek, Dutch, and French at an early age. Years later, he tutored John Milton in Dutch and Native American languages in exchange for refresher lessons in Hebrew and Greek.[10][11]

Williams took holy orders in the Church of England in connection with his studies, but he became a Puritan at Cambridge and thus ruined his chance for preferment in the Anglican church. After graduating from Cambridge, he became the chaplain to Sir William Masham. In April 1629, Williams proposed marriage to Jane Whalley, the niece of Lady Joan (Cromwell) Barrington, but she declined.[12] Later that year, he married Mary Bernard (1609–76), the daughter of Rev. Richard Bernard, a notable Puritan preacher and author; they were married at the Church of High Laver in Epping Forest, a few miles east of London.[13] They had six children, all born in America: Mary, Freeborn, Providence, Mercy, Daniel, and Joseph.

Williams knew that Puritan leaders planned to immigrate to the New World. He did not join the first wave of settlers, but later decided that he could not remain in England under the administration of Archbishop William Laud. Williams regarded the Church of England as corrupt and false, and he had arrived at the Separatist position by 1630; on December 1, he and his wife boarded the Boston-bound Lyon in Bristol.[14]

The Landing of Roger Williams in 1636 (1857) by Alonzo Chappel depicts Williams crossing the Seekonk River

In the spring of 1636, Williams and a number of others from Salem began a new settlement on land which he had bought from Massasoit in Rumford, Rhode Island. After settling, however, Plymouth Governor William Bradford sent him a friendly letter which nonetheless warned him that he was still within jurisdiction of Plymouth Colony and concerned that this might antagonize the leaders in Boston.

Accordingly, Williams and Thomas Angell crossed the Seekonk River in search of a new location suitable for settlement. Upon reaching the shore, Williams and Angell were met by Narragansett Native Americans who greeted them with the words "What cheer, Netop" (transl. Hello, friend). The settlers then continued eastward along the Providence River, where they encountered a cove and freshwater spring. Finding the area suitable for settlement, Williams acquired the tract from sachems Canonicus and Miantonomi.[21] Here, Williams and his followers established a new, permanent settlement, convinced that divine providence had brought them there. They named it Providence Plantations.[22]

Williams wanted his settlement to be a haven for those "distressed of conscience," and it soon attracted a growing number of families who did not see eye-to-eye with the leaders in Massachusetts Bay. From the beginning, a majority vote of the heads of households governed the new settlement, but only in civil things. Newcomers could also be admitted to full citizenship by a majority vote. In August 1637, a new town agreement again restricted the government to civil things. In 1640, 39 freemen (men who had full citizenship and voting rights) signed another agreement that declared their determination "still to hold forth liberty of conscience." Thus, Williams founded the first place in modern history where citizenship and religion were separate, providing religious liberty and separation of church and state. This was combined with the principle of majoritarian democracy.

The First Baptist Church in America which Williams co-founded in 1638

In November 1637, the General Court of Massachusetts exiled a number of families during the Antinomian Controversy, including Anne Hutchinson and her followers. John Clarke was among them, and he learned from Williams that Rhode Island might be purchased from the Narragansetts; Williams helped him to make the purchase, along with William Coddington and others, and they established the settlement of Portsmouth. In spring 1638, some of those settlers split away and founded the nearby settlement of Newport, also situated on Rhode Island (now called Aquidneck).

In 1638, Williams and about 12 others were baptized and formed a congregation. Today, Williams' congregation is recognized as the First Baptist Church in America.[23]

Pequot War and relations with Native Americans

In the meantime, the Pequot War had broken out. Massachusetts Bay asked for Williams' help, which he gave despite his exile, and he became the Bay colony's eyes and ears, and also dissuaded the Narragansetts from joining with the Pequots. Instead, the Narragansetts allied themselves with the colonists and helped to defeat the Pequots in 1637–38.

Williams formed firm friendships and developed deep trust among the Native American tribes, especially the Narragansetts. He was able to keep the peace between the Native Americans and the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations for nearly 40 years by his constant mediation and negotiation. He twice surrendered himself as a hostage to the Native Americans to guarantee the safe return of a great sachem from a summons to a court: Pessicus in 1645 and Metacom ("King Philip") in 1671. The Native Americans trusted Williams more than any other Colonist, and he proved trustworthy.

A mid-19th century depiction of Williams meeting with Narragansett leaders

Williams arrived in London in the midst of the English Civil War. Puritans held power in London, and he was able to obtain a charter through the offices of Sir Henry Vane the Younger despite strenuous opposition from Massachusetts' agents. His book A Key into the Language of America proved crucial to the success of his charter, albeit indirectly.[24][25] It was published in 1643 in London and combined a phrase-book with observations about life and culture as an aid to communicate with the Native Americans of New England. It covered everything from salutations to death and burial. Williams also sought to correct the attitudes of superiority displayed by the colonists towards Native Americans:

Boast not proud English, of thy birth & blood;

Thy brother Indian is by birth as Good. Of one blood God made Him, and Thee and All,

As wise, as fair, as strong, as personal.

Gregory Dexter printed the book, which was the first book-length study of an Native American language. In England, it was well received by readers who were curious about the Native American tribes of the New World.[26]

Williams secured his charter from Parliament for Providence Plantations in July 1644, after which he published his most famous book The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience. The publication produced a great uproar; between 1644 and 1649, at least 60 pamphlets were published addressing the work's arguments. Parliament responded to Williams on August 9, 1644 by ordering the public hangman to burn all copies. By this time, however, Williams was already on his way back to New England where he arrived with his charter in September.[26]

Return of Roger Williams from England with the First Charter from Parliament for Providence Plantations in July 1644

It took Williams several years to unify the settlements of Narragansett Bay under a single government, given the opposition of William Coddington. The settlements of Providence, Portsmouth, Newport, and Warwick finally united in 1647 into the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Freedom of conscience was again proclaimed, and the colony became a safe haven for people who were persecuted for their beliefs, including Baptists, Quakers, and Jews. However, Coddington disliked Williams and did not enjoy his position of subordination under the new charter government. He sailed to England and returned to Rhode Island in 1651 with his own patent making him "Governor for Life" over Rhode Island and Conanicut Island.

As a result, Providence, Warwick, and Coddington's opponents on the island dispatched Williams and John Clarke to England, seeking to cancel Coddington's commission. Williams sold his trading post at Cocumscussec (near Wickford, Rhode Island) to pay for his journey even though it had provided his primary source of income. He and Clarke succeeded in rescinding Coddington's patent, with Clarke remaining in England for the following decade to protect the colonists' interests and secure a new charter. Williams returned to America in 1654 and was immediately elected the colony's president. He subsequently served in many offices in town and colonial governments.

Ezekiel Holliman baptized Williams in late 1638. A few years later, Dr. John Clarke established the First Baptist Church in Newport, Rhode Island, and both Roger Williams and John Clarke became the founders of the Baptist faith in America.[49] Williams did not affiliate himself with any church, but he remained interested in the Baptists, agreeing with their rejection of infant baptism and most other matters. Both enemies and admirers sometimes called him a "Seeker," associating him with a heretical movement that accepted Socinianism and Universal Reconciliation, but Williams rejected both of these ideas.[50]

Williams' final resting place in Prospect Terrace Park

The "Roger Williams Root"

King Philip's War (1675–1676) pitted the colonists against the Wampanoags, along with some of the Narragansetts with whom Williams had previously maintained good relations. Williams was elected captain of Providence's militia, even though he was in his 70s. On March 29, 1676, Narragansetts led by Canonchet burned Providence; nearly the entire town was destroyed, including Williams' home.[51]

Williams died sometime between January 16 and March 16, 1683[52] and was buried on his own property.[53] Fifty years later, his house collapsed into the cellar and the location of his grave was forgotten.[53]

Providence residents were determined to raise a monument in his honor in 1860; they "dug up the spot where they believed the remains to be, they found only nails, teeth, and bone fragments. They also found an apple tree root," which they thought followed the shape of a human body; the root followed the shape of a spine, split at the hips, bent at the knees, and turned up at the feet.[54]

The Rhode Island Historical Society has cared for this tree root since 1860 as representative of Rhode Island's founder. Since 2007, the root has been displayed at the John Brown House.[55]

The few remains discovered alongside the root were reinterred in Prospect Terrace Park in 1939 at the base of a large stone monument.

Williams was a staunch advocate of the separation of church and state. He was convinced that civil government had no basis for meddling in matters of religious belief. He declared that the state should concern itself only with matters of civil order, not with religious belief, and he rejected any attempt by civil authorities to enforce the "first Table" of the Ten Commandments, those commandments that deal with an individual's relationship with and belief in God. Williams believed that the state must confine itself to the commandments dealing with the relations between people: murder, theft, adultery, lying, honoring parents, etc.[56] He wrote of a "hedge or wall of Separation between the Garden of the Church and the Wilderness of the world." Thomas Jefferson later used the metaphor in his 1801 Letter to Danbury Baptists.[57][58]

Williams considered the state's sponsorship of religious beliefs or practice to be "forced worship", declaring "Forced worship stinks in God's nostrils."[59] He also believed Constantine the Great to be a worse enemy to Christianity than Nero because the subsequent state involvement in religious matters corrupted Christianity and led to the death of the first Christian church and the first Christian communities. He described laws concerning an individual's religious beliefs as "rape of the soul" and spoke of the "oceans of blood" shed as a result of trying to command conformity.[60] The moral principles in the Scriptures ought to guide civil magistrates, he believed, but he observed that well-ordered, just, and civil governments existed even where Christianity was not present. Thus, all governments had to maintain civil order and justice, but Williams decided that none had a warrant to promote or repress any religious views. Most of his contemporaries criticized his ideas as a prescription for chaos and anarchy, and the vast majority believed that each nation must have its national church and could require that dissenters conform.

In 1643, Williams published A Key into the Language of America, the first published study of an Native American language.

Williams's career as an author began with A Key into the Language of America (London, 1643), written during his first voyage to England. His next publication was Mr. Cotton's Letter lately Printed, Examined and Answered (London, 1644; reprinted in Publications of the Narragansett Club, vol. ii, along with John Cotton's letter which it answered). His most famous work is The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience (published in 1644), considered by some to be one of the best defenses of liberty of conscience.[61]

An anonymous pamphlet was published in London in 1644 entitled Queries of Highest Consideration Proposed to Mr. Tho. Goodwin, Mr. Phillip Nye, Mr. Wil. Bridges, Mr. Jer. Burroughs, Mr. Sidr. Simpson, all Independents, etc. which is now ascribed to Williams. These "Independents" were members of the Westminster Assembly; their Apologetical Narration sought a way between extreme Separatism and Presbyterianism, and their prescription was to accept the state church model of Massachusetts Bay.

Williams published The Bloody Tenent yet more Bloudy: by Mr. Cotton's Endeavor to wash it white in the Blood of the Lamb; of whose precious Blood, spilt in the Bloud of his Servants; and of the Blood of Millions spilt in former and later Wars for Conscience sake, that most Bloody Tenent of Persecution for cause of Conscience, upon, a second Tryal is found more apparently and more notoriously guilty, etc. (London, 1652) during his second visit to England. This work reiterated and amplified the arguments in Bloudy Tenent, but it has the advantage of being written in answer to Cotton's A Reply to Mr. Williams his Examination.[62]

Other works by Williams include:

• The Hireling Ministry None of Christ's (London, 1652)
• Experiments of Spiritual Life and Health, and their Preservatives (London, 1652; reprinted Providence, 1863)
• George Fox Digged out of his Burrowes (Boston, 1676) (discusses Quakerism with its different belief in the "inner light," which Williams considered heretical)

A volume of his letters is included in the Narragansett Club edition of Williams' Works (7 vols., Providence, 1866–74), and a volume was edited by John Russell Bartlett (1882).

• The Correspondence of Roger Williams, 2 vols., Rhode Island Historical Society, 1988, edited by Glenn W. LaFantasie

Brown University's John Carter Brown Library has long housed a 234-page volume referred to as the "Roger Williams Mystery Book".[63] The margins of this book are filled with notations in handwritten code, believed to be the work of Roger Williams. In 2012, Brown University undergraduate Lucas Mason-Brown cracked the code and uncovered conclusive historical evidence attributing its authorship to Williams.[64] Translations are revealing transcriptions of a geographical text, a medical text, and 20 pages of original notes addressing the issue of infant baptism.[65] Mason-Brown has since discovered more writings by Williams employing a separate code in the margins of a rare edition of the Eliot Indian Bible.[66]

Tributes to Roger Williams

Roger Williams University in Bristol, Rhode Island

Memorial statue in Roger Williams Park

Roger Williams National Memorial in Providence

Roger Williams Middle School in Providence

Williams' defense of the Native Americans, his accusations that Puritans had reproduced the "evils" of the Anglican Church, and his insistence that England pay the Native Americans for their land all put him at the center of many political debates during his life. He was considered an important historical figure of religious liberty at the time of American independence, and he was a key influence on the thinking of the Founding Fathers.

Slate Rock

Slate Rock

1832 painting of Slate Rock by Edward L. Peckham

Memorial in Roger Williams Square

Slate Rock is a prominent boulder on the west shore of the Seekonk River (near the current Gano Park) that was once one of Providence's most important historic landmarks.[67][68][69] It was believed to be the spot where the Narragansetts greeted Williams with the famous phrase "What cheer, netop?" The historic rock was accidentally blown up by city workers in 1877.[67][68] They were attempting to expose a buried portion of the stone, but used too much dynamite and it was "blasted to pieces."[67] A memorial in Roger Williams Square commemorates the location.[67][69][68]

• Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations
• Rhode Island
• List of early settlers of Rhode Island
• John Cotton (puritan)
• John Winthrop
• Joseph Kinnicutt Angell
• Roger Williams National Memorial
• Roger Williams Park

• Barry, John, Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul (New York: Viking Press, 2012).
• Bejan, Teresa, Mere Civility: Disagreement and the Limits of Toleration (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017). Addresses Roger Williams' ideas in dialogue with Hobbes and Locke, and suggests lessons from Williams for how to disagree well in the modern public sphere.
• Brockunier, Samuel. The Irrepressible Democrat, Roger Williams, (1940), popular biography
• Burrage, Henry S. "Why Was Roger Williams Banished?" American Journal of Theology 5 (January 1901): 1–17.
• Byrd, James P., Jr. The Challenges of Roger Williams: Religious Liberty, Violent Persecution, and the Bible (2002). 286 pp.
• Davis. Jack L. "Roger Williams among the Narragansett Indians", New England Quarterly, Vol. 43, No. 4 (Dec. 1970), pp. 593–604 in JSTOR
• Davis, James Calvin. The Moral Theology of Roger Williams: Christian Conviction and Public Ethics. (London: Westminster John Knox, 2004).
• Elton, Romeo. Life of Roger Williams, the earliest Legislator and true Champion for a Full and Absolute Liberty of Conscience (G.P. Putnam).
• Field, Jonathan Beecher. "A Key for the Gate: Roger Williams, Parliament, and Providence", New England Quarterly 2007 80(3): 353–382
• Fisher, Linford D., and J. Stanley Lemons, and Lucas Mason-Brown. Decoding Roger Williams: The Lost Essay of Rhode Island’s Founding Father. (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2014).
• Gammell, William. Life of Roger Williams, the Founder of the State of Rhode Island (Gould and Lincoln, 1854).
• Goodman, Nan. "Banishment, Jurisdiction, and Identity in Seventeenth-Century New England: The Case of Roger Williams", Early American Studies, An Interdisciplinary Journal Spring 2009, Vol. 7 Issue 1, pp. 109–139.
• Gaustad, Edwin, S. Roger Williams (Oxford University Press, 2005). 140 pp. short scholarly biography stressing religion
• Gaustad, Edwin, S. Roger Williams: Prophet of Liberty (Oxford University Press, 2001).
• Gaustad, Edwin, S., Liberty of Conscience: Roger Williams in America. (Judson Press, Valley Forge, 1999).
• Gray, Nicole. "Aurality in Print: Revisiting Roger Williams's A Key into the Language of America". Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 131 (2016): 64–83.
• Hall, Timothy L. Separating Church and State: Roger Williams and Religious Liberty (1998). 206 pp.
• Johnson, Alan E. The First American Founder: Roger Williams and Freedom of Conscience (Pittsburgh, PA: Philosophia Publications, 2015). In-depth discussion of Roger Williams's life and work and his influence on the US Founders and later American history.
• Knowles, James D. Memoir of Roger Williams the Founder of the State of Rhode-Island (Lln, Edmands and Co., 1834).
• Miller, Perry, Roger Williams, A Contribution to the American Tradition, (1953). much debated study; Miller argues that Williams thought was primarily religious, not political as so many of the historians of the 1930s and 1940s had argued.
• Morgan, Edmund S. Roger Williams: the church and the state (1967) 170 pages; short biography by leading scholar
• Mudge, Z. A. Foot-Prints of Roger Williams: A Biography, with sketches of important events in early New England History, with which he was connected, (Carlton & Lanahan, 1871).
• Neff, Jimmy D. "Roger Williams: Pious Puritan and Strict Separationist", Journal of Church and State 1996 38(3): 529–546 in EBSCO
• Phillips, Stephen. "Roger Williams and the Two Tables of the Law", Journal of Church and State 1996 38(3): 547–568 in EBSCO
• Rowley, Matthew. "'All Pretend an Holy War: Radical Beliefs and the Rejection of Persecution in the Mind of Roger Williams', The Review of Faith & International Affairs 15.2 (2017):66–76.
• Skaggs, Donald. Roger Williams' Dream for America (1993). 240 pp.
• Stanley, Alison. "'To Speak With Other Tongues': Linguistics, Colonialism and Identity in 17th Century New England", Comparative American Studies March 2009, Vol. 7 Issue 1, p. 1, 17 pp
• Winslow, Ola Elizabeth, Master Roger Williams, A Biography. (1957) standard biography
• Wood, Timothy L. "Kingdom Expectations: The Native American in the Puritan Missiology of John Winthrop and Roger Williams", Fides et Historia 2000 32(1): 39–49

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article "Williams, Roger".

• Literature by and about Roger Williams in the German National Library catalogue
• Works by Roger Williams at Project Gutenberg
• "Roger Williams". Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL) (in German).
• Works by or about Roger Williams at Internet Archive
• Side of the US-American Roger Williams circle of friends
• Documentary about Roger Williams life: Roger Williams – Freedom's Forgotten Hero (Part 1 to 7)
• Lecture by Martha Nussbaum: Equal Liberty of Conscience: Roger Williams and the Roots of a Constitutional Tradition
• Roger Williams Hireling Ministry None of Christ's
• Chronological list of Rhode Island leaders Archived 2 April 2021 at the Wayback Machine
• A Key into the Language of America – digitization of a first edition copy held at the John Carter Brown Library