On October 9, 1635 the General Court of Massachusetts ordered Roger Williams, who they considered an obnoxious religious and political crank, into exile from the colony. Specifically, the 32
year old was convicted of both heresy and
sedition for spreading, “diverse, new, and dangerous opinions.”
Williams was born in 1603 to a conventional Anglican family. His father was a prosperous master tailor and merchant in Smithfield, London.
A bright, inquisitive, and pious boy, Williams had
a personal religious conversion
experience which began his long journey as a dissenter. His father disapproved but allowed his wayward son to continue his education, including an apprenticeship with the great legal scholar and jurist Sir Edward Coke.
He attended Charterhouse, a prestigious public school before enrolling at Pembroke College, Cambridge from which he graduated in 1627. He excelled at classical—Hebrew, Greek, and Latin—and modern—Dutch and French—languages.
While at
Cambridge Williams became a Puritan—an
advocate of purifying the Church of England by stripping away the remaining trappings of Catholicism including the Mass,
use of Latin in liturgy, and idolatry in
the form of statues of saints and icons.
He took Holy Orders as an
Anglican priest, but his chances at advancement
were blocked by the firmly High
Church hierarchy. He took a position as a private chaplain to Sir
William Macham, a leading Puritan lord. As such he was privy to plans to seed a
Puritan colony in the New World. Newly married,
he passed on his opportunity to go in the first
ships sent to found what would become Massachusetts
in 1630. But he was soon so disgusted
with church leadership that he determined to join the migration. He also privately
abandoned any hope of reforming the corrupt church and became a Separatist.
Williams and
his wife Mary set sail for New England in December on the Lyden
and arrived in Boston in February
1731. He found himself not only welcome but honored. He was offered as a
position as Teacher—sort of an associate
pastor—of the Boston congregation. He declined the position and openly declared
himself as a Separatist. He also
insisted that civil magistrates
should have no authority over religious maters and that individuals were free to develop and express their own religious convictions. These
positions shocked and appalled the Puritan worthies who demanded complete conformity to their beliefs in matters both civil and
religious.
The church
in Salem was then tending toward
Separatism and invited Williams to become Teacher there. Outraged leaders in Boston threatened the Salem church, which rescinded the invitation. By August 1631 he had left Massachusetts for
a friendly welcome among the
Separatists of Plymouth. Although
not given an official position, he assisted the local minister and occasionally
preached. Governor William Bradshaw found his preaching, “entirely amicable”
to the local church.
But Williams
was never one to go long without examining
his conscience and in holding the church to the exceedingly high standards he demanded. He began to doubt that the Plymouth church
was sufficiently separated from
Anglicanism. And his growing and admiring contact with native inhabitants led him to question
the legitimacy of Royal Charters that granted land that the King did not own. Instead, he maintained
that land need be purchased from its
rightful owners, the native tribes. In December 1632 Williams wrote a lengthy
tract on these subjects which he circulated to churches in both Plymouth
and Massachusetts colonies.
By this time
Bradford noted that Williams had fallen “into some strange opinions which caused some controversy between the church
and him.” In 1633 he had worn out his
welcome and was back in Salem, which now seemed more inclined to support
him. Upon learning of his return, the
Massachusetts General Court summoned him to Boston. Williams apparently agreed to make some concessions and all known copies of his critical tract were burned.
Allowed to return to Salem, he became acting pastor when his sponsor, Rev. Samuel Skelton died.
Soon
Williams had returned to his criticisms of both civil authority over religious
matters and of the legitimacy of colonial charters. He was called before the General Court again
in March of 1635 and in April he so vigorously opposed a new oath of allegiance to the colonial government that it became
impossible for the magistrates to enforce it.
Unable to rein
in Williams, the General Court turned on the Town of Salem. It refused a
routine petition to annex adjacent land on the Marblehead Neck and took other actions against Salem’s interest. In July the Court formally demanded that
Williams be removed from the pulpit
of the Salem Church. The Salem Church
asserted that the order was a violation
of congregational polity and independence and circulated a protest letter to other churches. The General Court ordered that the letter not
be read in the other churches and refused to seat delegates from the
town of Salem until the Church was in compliance.
As pressure
grew on the Church, Williams demanded that it formally separate itself from the
Standing Order. His support within the Church then collapsed. Williams withdrew as minister and began meeting
privately with a few followers
in his home.
Without the
protection of the Salem church or Town, the General Court went ahead with its sedition
and heresy trial in October. When
the conviction was handed down,
Williams was confined to his bed by illness. He was given a reprieve from banishment
until spring on condition that he remain quiet. Typically, Williams would not shut up. The Sheriff
was sent to seize him in January
1636 but found Williams gone.
Rather than
be taken into custody and dumped, most likely, in hostile Indian country, Williams fled on foot through the deep mid-winter snows. He marched 105 miles from Salem to find
refuge at the head of Narragansett Bay,
where he was welcomed by his friend Massasoit,
sachem of the Wampanoags. That spring he
was joined by his most loyal followers from Salem and began to settle on land
he purchased from the Wampangoags.
Learning that his claim was within the boundaries of the Plymouth
Colony, however, Williams and his people crossed Seekonk River to territory beyond any charter and purchased
land from Canonicus and Miantonomi, chief sachems of the Narragansetts. Williams named his new settlement Providence.
Williams
declared his settlement a haven for
those of distressed of
conscience. It was soon attracting dissidents and exiles from both Massachusetts and Plymouth colonies. The
settlement was governed by a majority vote of the heads of households, and newcomers could be admitted to full citizenship by a majority vote.
The Landing of Roger Williams in 1636 painted in1857 by Alonzo Chappel depicts Williams crossing the Seekonk River to meet with Native peoples to purchase their land.
In August of
1637 electors drew up a town agreement,
which limited the government to civil matters.
In 1640 another agreement declared their determination “still to hold
forth liberty of conscience.”
Williams had founded the first place in modern history where citizenship
and religion were separated, and where there was
religious liberty and separation of church and state. In fact, Williams advocated what he called a
“wall of separation” between church
and state—a term Thomas Jefferson would
borrow over a 140 years latter in
his famous Letter to the Danville
Baptists.
Meanwhile, a
second wave of exiles arrived on the
Narragansett Bay. In 1837 the
Massachusetts Court moved against the followers of Anne Hutchins. Williams
invited them to settle near him and arranged for them to purchase land on Aquidneck Island. They named their settlement Portsmouth and the island Rhode Island. Their elected leader, William Coddington quickly turned out
to be a civil and religious tyrant and
was ousted. He formed a second town, Newport. Eventually these two settlements reunited with separate local
administrations.
Meanwhile
the Pequot War had broken out
and much of Massachusetts was in flames. Leaders there were forced to do what they
loathed most—turn to Roger Williams for help.
And help he did. Not only did his
extensive contacts among all of the
tribes—he was making his living by this time trading with the natives for furs—provide
vital intelligence, but he also
persuaded his friends the Narragansetts not to join the uprising and to become allies
of the settlers. The assistance of the
Narragansetts became critical to the final victory
in that ugly war.
Williams,
his colony and his native allies became regional powers. In the next
three decades Massachusetts, Connecticut,
and Plymouth exerted pressure to destroy both Rhode Island and the
Narragansetts. In 1643 those colonies
joined in an alliance excluding the towns around Narragansett Bay and
hostile to them—the United Colonies. To prevent the alliance from overwhelming
them, Williams went to England to secure a Charter of his own. He arrived just as his breakthrough dictionary of Native
American words was published and creating a sensation among the English intellectual elite. Through their influence he was able to
get his charter for Providence
Plantations over the vehement objection of Massachusetts agents.
While in
England, however, Williams could not refrain from stirring the pot.
In July of 1643 he published his most famous book, The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience, a scathing indictment of religious
intolerance and plea for separation of church and state. The book caused an uproar and cost him the
support of many former friends. The Public Hangman was ordered to confiscate and burn copies. Luckily
Williams was on board ship home with his charter in his pocket or he might have
been arrested and even executed.
Back home it took Williams until 1643 to bring the two towns of Rhode
Island—by then prosperous seaports
with larger populations than Providence—into a single government under his
Charter. Coddington, in fact, plotted to usurp Williams. He sailed to England and in an astonishing
bit of power politics returned in 1751with a document naming him governor for life over Rhode
Island. Providence and its allied town
of Warwick sent Williams back to
England to reverse the decision joined John
Clarke representing Coddington’s numerous critics from Portsmouth and
Newport. Williams had to sell his trading
post, the only source of income for his family, which now included six
children, to pay for his crossing. The
two somehow succeeded in overturning Coddington’s patent.
Williams
returned to America in 1654 and was immediately elected the President of the colony. He
subsequently served in many offices in the town and colonial governments, and
in his 70s he was elected captain of the militia in Providence
during King Philip’s War in 1676.
Clark stayed
in England and in 1664 obtained a new charter under the name Rhode Island that covered all of the
towns on the mainland and on the island.
The colony remained a haven for all sorts of religious minorities—Baptists, Quakers, even Jews and Catholics.
Williams is
usually described as a Baptist. And
indeed by 1638 had come to adopt the key Baptist tenant of believer’s baptism
or credobaptism as opposed to the
Puritan and Separatist practice of infant
baptism. He had been exposed to the
writing of English General Baptists
but arrived at the conclusion on his own.
He was baptized by Ezekiel Holliman in late 1638 and founded the First Baptist Church in America in
Providence. A few years later John
Clarke formed a second church in Newport.
Following the traditions of their founders, Baptists in America became
the leading advocates of church and
state separation.
Yet the
restless Williams did not himself remain a Baptist long, although he remained sympathetic
to them. He concluded that the
corruption of the early church when
it was co-opted by the Roman Empire under the Empower Constantine had broken the sacred covenant between God and the Church. A new church, he now believed, could not
be established without a special new divine
commission. He declared, “There is
no regularly constituted church of Christ
on earth, nor any person qualified to administer any church ordinances; nor
can there be until new apostles are
sent by the Great Head of the Church for whose coming I am seeking.”
Williams
spent the rest of his days praying privately with friends awaiting that great
day. Despite his honors in the colony,
he founded and his many achievements, Williams died in relative poverty and obscurity some time
in early 1683. He was buried in an unmarked grave on his property.
