Providence Providence Rhode Island United States

The tide in Narragansett Bay, reaches fourteen feet (four point three meters) above the ordinary tide and drowns eight Native Americans fleeing from their wigwams.

The highest ever such recorded value for a New England Hurricane, a twenty-two-foot (six point seven meter) storm tide, is recorded in some areas.

English theologian Roger Williams, a notable proponent of religious toleration and the separation of church and state and an advocate for fair dealings with Native Americans, has secured land from Canonicus, a chief of the Narragansett, and established a settlement with twelve "loving friends" (several settlers had joined him from Massachusetts since the beginning of spring).

Williams' settlement is based on a principle of equality.

It is provided that "such others as the major part of us shall admit into the same fellowship of vote with us" from time to time should become members of their commonwealth.

Obedience to the majority is promised by all, but "only in civil things."

Thirty-nine freemen, expressing their determination "still to hold forth liberty of conscience," sign another agreement in 1640.

Thus a government unique in its day is created—a government expressly providing for religious liberty and a separation between civil and ecclesiastical authority (church and state).

The colony is named Providence Plantation, due to Williams's belief that God had sustained him and his followers and brought them to this place.

When he acquires the other islands in the Narragansett Bay, Williams names them after other virtues: Patience Island, Prudence Island and Hope Island.

Williams receives a charter in 1644 uniting Providence, Portsmouth, and Newport and creating the colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, named for the principal island in Narragansett Bay and the Providence settlement, which provides a refuge for religious minorities.

In the same year, his The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience is published about religious liberty.

Williams is often credited for originating the First Baptist Church in America, which he is known to have left soon afterwards, exclaiming, "God is too large to be housed under one roof."

The colony on Rhode Island is united with Providence in 1647 under a single government, and liberty of conscience is again proclaimed.

The area is to become a safe haven for people who are persecuted for their beliefs—Baptists, Quakers, Jews, and others come here to follow their consciences in peace and safety.

Slavery is extant in Rhode Island as early as the 1600s.

Rhode Island on May 18, 1652, passes the first abolition law in the thirteen colonies, banning African slavery. (By the century’s end, however, the law will not be enforced.)

Roger Williams, a theologian, independent preacher, and linguist, had in 1636 founded a colony on land gifted by the Narragansett sachem Canonicus.

Fleeing from religious persecution in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Williams had agreed with his fellow settlers on an egalitarian constitution providing for majority rule "in civil things" and liberty of conscience.

He had named the colony Providence Plantation, in recognition of agriculture as the basis of its economy and believing that God had brought him and his followers there.

Williams had named the other islands in the Narragansett Bay after virtues: Patience Island, Prudence Island and Hope Island.

The Baptist leader Anne Hutchinson had purchased land on Aquidneck Island from the Native Americans in 1637, settling in Pocasset, now known as Portsmouth, Rhode Island.

With her had come her husband, William Coddington and John Clarke, among others.

Other neighboring settlements of refugees had followed, which all form a loose alliance.

They had sought recognition together as an English colony in 1643, in response to threats to their independence.

The revolutionary Long Parliament in London had in March 1644 granted a charter.

The colonists had refused to have a governor, but set up an elected "president" and council.

The second of the plantation colonies on the mainland (following Anne Hutchinson’s 1638 colony of Portsmouth and the 1639 colony of Newport founded by Coddington and Clarke; both on Aquidneck or Rhode Island) was Samuel Gorton’s Shawomet Purchase of 1642 from the Narragansetts.

As Gorton had settled at Shawomet, the Massachusetts authorities had laid claim to his territory and acted by force to enforce their claim.

After considerable difficulties with the Massachusetts Bay General Court, Gorton had traveled to London to enlist the sympathies of Robert Rich, the Second Earl of Warwick, Lord Admiral and head of the Parliamentary Commission on Plantation Affairs (responsible for managing the overseas plantation colonies).

Gorton had returned to his colony in 1648 with a letter from Rich, ordering Massachusetts to cease molesting him and his people.

In gratitude, Gorton had renamed Shawomet Plantation to Warwick Plantation.

The separate plantation colonies in the Narragansett Bay region are very progressive for their time, passing laws abolishing witchcraft trials, imprisonment for debt, most capital punishment, and on March 18, 1652, chattel slavery of both blacks and whites.

Most religious groups are welcomed, with only some restrictions on Catholicism.

William Coddington had in 1651 obtained a separate charter from England setting up the so-called Coddington Commission, which had made Coddington life governor of the islands of Rhode Island and Connecticut in a federation with Connecticut Colony and Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Protest, open rebellion and a further petition to Oliver Cromwell in London, lead to the reinstatement in 1653 of the original charter.

Roger Williams, after being banished in 1636 from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for his religious views, had settled at the tip of Narragansett Bay, on land granted to him by the Narragansett tribe.

He called the site Providence and declared it a place of religious freedom.

Detractors of the idea of liberty of conscience sometimes referred to it as "Rogue's Island".

After conferring with Williams in 1638, Anne Hutchinson, William Coddington, John Clarke, Philip Sherman, and other religious dissidents had settled on Aquidneck Island (then known as Rhode Island), purchased from the local natives, who called it Pocasset.

The settlement of Portsmouth was governed by the Portsmouth Compact.

Disagreements among the founders had caused the southern part of the island to become the separate settlement of Newport.

Samuel Gorton had purchased the Native American lands at Shawomet in 1642, precipitating a military dispute with the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

In 1644, Providence, Portsmouth, and Newport had united for their common independence as the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, governed by an elected council and "president".

Gorton had received a separate charter for his settlement in 1648, which he named Warwick after his patron.

In 1651, William Coddington had obtained a separate charter from England setting up the so-called Coddington Commission, which made Coddington life governor of the islands of Rhode Island and Connecticut in a federation with Connecticut Colony and Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Protest, open rebellion and a further petition to Oliver Cromwell in London, led in 1653 to the reinstatement of the original charter.

Meanwhile, medical doctor and Baptist minister, John Clarke, a leading advocate of religious freedom in the Americas, had traveled to London in 1652 with Roger Williams to secure a new charter for the colony of Rhode Island.

Williams had returned to Rhode Island in 1654, but Clarke remains in England until the charter is granted.

After the overthrow of the English revolutionary government in 1660, it was necessary to gain a Royal Charter from the new king, Charles II of England.

Charles, a Catholic sympathizer in staunchly Protestant England, approves the colony's promise of religious freedom.

He grants the request on July 8, 1663, giving the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations an elected governor and legislature.

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