42 Facts About Roger Williams

1.

Roger Williams was a staunch advocate for religious freedom, separation of church and state, and fair dealings with the American Indians.

2.

Roger Williams studied the language of the New England Indians and published the first book-length study of it in English.

3.

Roger Williams was born in London, and many historians cite 1603 as the probable year of his birth.

4.

The exact details of Roger Williams' birth are unknown, as his birth records were destroyed when St Sepulchre's Church burned during the Great Fire of London.

5.

Roger Williams's father was James Williams, a merchant tailor in Smithfield, and his mother was Alice Pemberton.

6.

At an early age, Roger Williams had a spiritual conversion of which his father disapproved.

7.

Roger Williams later attended Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he received a Bachelor of Arts in 1627.

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8.

Roger Williams demonstrated a facility with languages, acquiring familiarity with Latin, Hebrew, Greek, Dutch, and French at an early age.

9.

Roger 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.

10.

Roger Williams knew that Puritan leaders planned to migrate to the New World.

11.

Roger Williams 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.

12.

Roger Williams even charged that King James had uttered a "solemn lie" in claiming that he was the first Christian monarch to have discovered the land.

13.

Roger Williams moved back to Salem by the fall of 1633 and was welcomed by Rev Samuel Skelton as an unofficial assistant.

14.

Support for Roger Williams began to wane under this pressure, and he withdrew from the church and began meeting with a few of his most followers in his home.

15.

The execution of the order was delayed because Roger Williams was ill and winter was approaching, so he was allowed to stay temporarily, provided that he ceased publicly teaching his opinions.

16.

Roger Williams traveled 55 miles on foot through the deep snow, from Salem to Raynham, Massachusetts, where the local Wampanoags offered him shelter at their winter camp.

17.

Roger 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.

18.

Today, Roger Williams' congregation is recognized as the First Baptist Church in America.

19.

Massachusetts Bay asked for Roger Williams' help, which he gave despite his exile, and he became the Bay colony's eyes and ears, and dissuaded the Narragansetts from joining with the Pequots.

20.

Roger Williams formed firm friendships and developed deep trust among the Indian tribes, especially the Narragansetts.

21.

Roger Williams was able to keep the peace between the Indians and the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations for nearly 40 years by his constant mediation and negotiation.

22.

Roger Williams twice surrendered himself as a hostage to the Indians to guarantee the safe return of a great sachem from a summons to a court: Pessicus in 1645 and Metacom in 1671.

23.

Roger Williams arrived in London in the midst of the English Civil War.

24.

Roger Williams sought to correct the attitudes of superiority displayed by the colonists towards Indians:.

25.

However, Coddington disliked Roger Williams and did not enjoy his position of subordination under the new charter government.

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26.

Roger Williams 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.

27.

Roger Williams sold his trading post at Cocumscussec to pay for his journey even though it had provided his primary source of income.

28.

Roger Williams returned to America in 1654 and was immediately elected the colony's president.

29.

Roger Williams subsequently served in many offices in town and colonial governments.

30.

Roger Williams consistently expressed disapproval of it, though generally he did not object to the enslavement of captured enemy combatants for a fixed duration, a practice that was the normal course of warfare in that time.

31.

Roger Williams reported to Winthrop that he and Narragansett sachem Miantonomoh discussed what to do with a group of captured Pequots; initially they discussed the possibility of distributing them as slaves among the four victorious parties, which Miantonomoh "liked well", though at Roger Williams' suggestion, the non-combatants were relocated to an island in Niantic territory "because most of them were families".

32.

Miantonomoh later requested an enslaved female Pequot from Winthrop, to which Roger Williams objected, stating that "he had his share sent to him".

33.

Roger 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.

34.

King Philip's War pitted the colonists against the Wampanoags, along with some of the Narragansetts with whom Roger Williams had previously maintained good relations.

35.

Roger Williams was elected captain of Providence's militia, even though he was in his 70s.

36.

Roger Williams was a staunch advocate of the separation of church and state.

37.

Roger Williams was convinced that civil government had no basis for meddling in matters of religious belief.

38.

Roger Williams 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.

39.

Roger Williams believed that the state must confine itself to the commandments dealing with the relations between people: murder, theft, adultery, lying, and honoring parents.

40.

Roger 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.

41.

Mason-Brown has since discovered more writings by Roger Williams employing a separate code in the margins of a rare edition of the Eliot Indian Bible.

42.

Roger Williams 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.