A Livelie Experiment

Roger Williams sought to proclaim a true and absolute soul-freedom to all the people of the land impartially, so that no person would be forced to pray or pay otherwise than as his soul believed and consented. In Providence, much was done differently than in other European settlements. Williams built his home and laid out the settlement's first home lots up the hill to the right, and he offered equal allotments of land to all settlers, paving the way for democratic voting. Unusual for the time, two of the original nine home lots were owned by women, Alice Daniels and the Widow Margery Reeve. Living there, Williams and his fellow dissidents were reminded daily of their "livelie experiment."

Providence, Rhode Island · United States