Colonial America Biographies | Roger Williams Biography

c.1603

London, England

1683

Rhode Island

Pioneer of religious freedom, founder of Rhode Island

" . . . all men may walk as their consciences persuade them."

Roger Williams.

Roger Williams was a religious leader whose spiritual journey forced him to leave one church and then another. He began his quest in 1636, five years after he arrived in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, when he became an enemy of the Puritans (those who advocated strict moral and spiritual codes). In the process he founded and governed Rhode Island, the first American colony to be based on separation of church and state. Unlike other colonists, Williams also believed that land in New England belonged to Native Americans and therefore should be purchased, rather than seized, by the British government. He is credited with starting the first Baptist church in...