Roger Williams

Roger Williams was born between 1603 and 1606. He grew up a member of the privileged class and received a thorough liberal arts education. Williams attended Cambridge, receiving his B.A. in 1627. He abandoned the study of law to become a priest in the Church of England.

• Williams was interested in the Puritan movement and the newly established Massachusetts Bay Colony.
• He was warmly welcomed to the New World by Massachusetts governor John Winthrop when he arrived in Boston.
• Williams was an adamant separatist and accepted a post as an assistant pastor in Salem, reputedly a friendly place. However, his teachings were deemed radical and he was banished from Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1635.
• Williams founded the colony of Rhode Island in 1636 and secured a charter for Providence Plantation in 1664.
• His greatest gift to the colonies was his authorship of the declaration of the principle of religious liberty.
• Roger Williams died in 1683, around the age of 80.
• Three hundred years after his banishment from Massachusetts, a monument in his honor was erected in Providence, Rhode Island. Set in a public park once part of Williams' property, it reminds Rhode Islanders of their illustrious founder and champion of religious freedom.