Roger Williams in Massachusetts

While the framework of the colony of Connecticut was in process of construction, that of its little neighbor on the east, Rhode Island, was like-wise in a formative state. Persecution by brethren had driven into the forests on the borders of Narraganset Bay, good men who became the founders of a state. That bay had been discovered and thoroughly explored by Block, the Dutch navigator, as early as 1614, when he gave the name of Roode Eylandt or Red Island to the insular domain on its eastern side, now Roode Eylandt or Red Island to the insular domain on its eastern side, now known as Rhode Island. Eight or ten years afterward the Dutch on Manhattan carried on a profitable fur trade with the natives there, and a few years later they had the monopoly of that trade as far east as Buzzard's Bay. The Pilgrims at Plymouth were annoyed by this commercial intrusion, as we have seen, and especially when the New Netherlanders claimed territorial jurisdiction as far east as Narraganset Bay, and westward from a line of longitude from that bay to Canada. That claim was made at about the time when Roger Williams, the founder of the commonwealth of Rhode Island, sought refuge from persecution in the forests on the borders of the Narraganset. The claim was not relinquished until many years afterwards, but was never pressed with injurious vehemence.

Mr. Williams was a Welch Puritan educated in England by Sir Edward Coke, who found him in London, a mere youth, reporting sermons and Star-chamber speeches in shorthand. At the age of thirty-two years he fled from persecution to New England, where he arrived in 1631 with his beautiful bride Mary, a charming young English woman. He was soon appointed assistant minister in the church at Salem, where his broad and enlightened views respecting the freedom of conscience and the injurious character of a wedded church and state offended the dignitaries in both, at Boston, and he withdrew to Plymouth. There he was an assistant minister, acceptable to the people, for about two years, when he returned to Salem and became pastor of the congregation to whom he had ministered as assistant.

Bolder than ever, his convictions having become more firmly rooted by opposition and controversy, Mr. Williams now put forth his views in sometimes intemperate language, for in support of toleration he became intolerant. He boldly questioned the authority of magistrates in respect to the right of the king to appropriate and grant the lands of the Indians without purchase, and the right of the civil power to impose faith and worship. This denial of the right of magistrates to intermeddle, even to restrain a church from heresy or apostacy, was regarded as so monstrous and dangerous an error and innovation that the banishment of Williams from the colony was decreed unless he should recant, or take back what he had said. He would not recant. He maintained with vehemence his opinion that there was an absolute and eternal distinction between the spheres of the civil government and the Christian church. He also appealed in writing to the charter against the decision of magistrates; and he wrote a long letter to his own congregation in favor of the rigid separation of church and state. These writings were among his enumerated offences, and were called "letters of defamation" in the preface of his sentence of banishment which was now put in force, and which ran thus:

"It is therefore ordered that the said Mr. Williams shall depart out of this jurisdiction within six weeks now next ensuing, which, if he neglect to perform, it shall be lawful for the governor and two of the magistrates to send him to some place out of this jurisdiction, not to return any more without license from the court."

This sentence was pronounced late in 1635. The friends of Williams were indignant. The enlightened Edward Winslow, who was then governor of Plymouth, sympathized with him; and twenty leading men in the two colonies determined to go with him to the wilderness and share his privations of exile. Salem was in an uproar, and the magistrates began to suspect that they had made a mistake in passing the sentence. A rumor spread that he intended to found a colony among the Narragansets, with whom he had become familiar while he was at Plymouth and gained the friendship of their sachems and learned their language.

A colony founded upon the liberal principles advocated by Williams was not a pleasant subject for the contemplation of Massachusetts magistrates and clergymen at that period, and the time for his departure was extended until spring. Williams regarded this as a concession. No doubt he had formed a plan for founding a new colony, and was now glad of an excuse to leave Massachusetts; so he taught his doctrines with more fervor, and boldly proclaimed himself to be an Anabaptist-one who denies the validity of infant baptism-a Baptist of our day. This was too much for his people and the authorities in church and state, and it was resolved by Governor Haynes to send the "troubler" back to England. He had refused to obey a summons to appear before the magistrates at Boston, and they sent a pinnace to Salem, with a warrant to Captain Underhill to arrest him, take him on board the little vessel, and convey him to a ship then ready to sail for England.