Roger Williams, founder of Rhode Island, was born in London in 1603, graduated from Cambridge University in 1627, took holy orders in the church of England, and emigrated to the New World in 1630 to settle in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He believed in the separation of church and state, complete religious freedom, and that the Indians were the rightful owners of the land, making the English Crown's grant for the colony illegal. For these views, Bay Colony magistrates ordered him deported, and about mid-January 1635 he began a hard winter journey toward Narragansett Bay, first seeking shelter with the Wampanoag sachem Massasoit at Swomans (Warren) until spring. He was then given land in present-day East Providence to start a settlement, but when the Plymouth Governor forced him to leave, he canoed across the Seekonk River to the west bank, where the Narragansetts greeted him. He paddled around Fox Point to the confluence of the Woonasquatucket and Moshassuck, where the Narragansett sachems Canonicus and Miantonomi gave him land. He named the place in commemoration of God's Providence and dedicated it as a shelter for persons distressed for conscience, and as the settlement grew it became a haven for religious refugees. To secure legal title, he returned to England twice and eventually helped obtain a charter for the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Though he barely made a living as a farmer and operated a trading post near Wickford while keeping a household in Providence, he regarded himself above all as a friend to the Indians, spent much of his life negotiating between them and Massachusetts Bay authorities, and earned unusual respect among the Indians, including from King Philip and the dying Narragansett sachem Canonicus. Williams died at age 80 in the winter of 1683 after establishing a colony that the Royal Charter called a lively experiment with full liberty in religious concernments.
