Riddel's & Relatives Genealogy

Williams, Roger
I INTRODUCTION

Williams, Roger (1603?-1683), English Puritan clergyman and founder of the American colony of Rhode Island. He was born in London and educated at the University of Cambridge, which had become a center of religious controversy. An advocate of the Calvinist theology, he was a member of the party that opposed the ecclesiastical organization of the established church. Upon taking holy orders, he served as chaplain to a Puritan household in Essex, and his association there with the Puritan leaders Oliver Cromwell, John Winthrop, and Thomas Hooker led to his complete separation from the Anglican church (Puritanism).

Shortly after the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the New World by Winthrop and others, as a refuge for the persecuted Puritans of England, Williams immigrated to New England, arriving in Boston in February 1631. He rejected an invitation to serve as temporary pastor of the Boston congregation because that church had not officially severed ties with the Church of England. He then obtained an appointment as teacher of the church in Salem, Massachusetts, but following a disagreement with the Boston authorities concerning the regulation of religious matters, he went to Plymouth Colony as assistant pastor. In 1633 he was permitted to return to Salem as an assistant teacher, and in 1634 he was appointed teacher. Williams again found himself in conflict with the colonial government when he challenged the validity of the Massachusetts Bay charter, which gave the authorities power to appropriate Native American lands without compensation and to establish a uniform faith and worship among the colonists. He asserted that only direct purchase from the Native Americans constituted a valid title to land, and he denied the right of the government to punish what were considered religious infractions. In October 1635, the Massachusetts general court issued an order banishing Williams from the colony; in January 1636, he escaped deportation by the authorities and began a journey to Narragansett Bay.

II RELIGIOUS TOLERATION

Williams became friendly with the Narragansett, making a study of their language. In 1636 he purchased lands from the tribe. Together with a few companions he established the settlement of Providence and the colony of Rhode Island, naming the settlement in gratitude “for God's merciful providence unto me in my distress.” The government of the colony was based upon complete religious toleration and upon separation of church and state. Each household exercised a voice in the conduct of government and received an equal share in the distribution of land. Accepting the practice of adult baptism by immersion, Williams was baptized by a layman in 1639; he subsequently baptized a small group and thus founded the first Baptist church in America (see Baptists). Later in the same year he withdrew from the church he had founded and declared himself to be a “seeker,” that is, one who accepts the fundamental beliefs of Christianity but does not profess a particular creed.

III THE PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS

Williams went to England in 1643 and obtained (1644) a colonial charter incorporating the settlements of Providence, Newport, Plymouth, and Warwick as “The Providence Plantations in Narragansett Bay.” During his sojourn abroad he wrote A Key into the Language of America (1643) and The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution (1644), the latter treatise being a notable work on the nature and jurisdiction of civil government. He also wrote the tract Christenings Make Not Christians (1645).

Upon returning to Rhode Island, Williams found that leadership of the colony had been assumed by the opponents of his democratic system, and in 1651 he returned to England in order to confirm the rights granted by the charter. During this visit he became a friend of the English poet John Milton. Williams returned to Rhode Island in 1654 and was elected president of the colony, serving until 1657. Because of his policy of complete religious toleration, the colony was a haven for refugees from bigotry. Notable among these were Quakers (see Friends, Society of) forced by persecution to leave the Boston area. Williams became involved, however, in a controversy with the Quakers, the substance of which is contained in his work George Fox Digg'd Out of His Burrowes (1676). When the Narragansett tribe joined the Native American revolt of 1675, known as King Philip's War, Williams served as a captain of forces defending Providence. Thereafter, he participated in the political life of the colony until the time of his death in early 1683. He is chiefly remembered as one of the notable champions of democracy and religious freedom in the American colonies.

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