Williams, Roger, - 1683

Roger Williams was the son of James and Alice Williams of London, England.  He studied at the Charterhouse School and, as a young man, worked for the jurist Sir Edward Coke.  After his graduation from Pembroke Hall, Cambridge (1627), he became chaplain for the household of Essex Puritan Sir William Masham.  By 1629, Williams joined Thomas Hooker and John Cotton’s plans for immigration to New England.  He and his family arrived in Massachusetts in early 1631 but left for Plymouth Plantation for religious reasons.  There he began relationships with Native American leaders and wrote that the English monarchy had no right to grant Indian land.  Continued religious dissent forced Williams to flee to Narragansett Country where he bought land from Canonicus and Miantonomo near the Seekonk River, which later became the Town of Providence.  During the outbreak of the Pequot War, Williams reported news from Indian County to colonial leaders in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Plymouth.  He altered the course of the coming war by persuading the Narragansetts not to ally with the Pequots.  After the war, he continued an Indian policy of peaceful coexistence with the local Native people.  Growth of the non-conformist settlements in Narragansett Country caused Massachusetts authorities to lay claim to the region.  In 1643, he traveled to England to obtain a Parliamentary patent for the settlement of Providence Plantations.  While in London, Williams published A Key into the Language of America (1643) about the language and customs of the New England Indians and The Bloudy Tenant of Persecution (1644) about intolerance in Massachusetts.  From 1644 to 1647, Williams served as the chief officer and in 1654 president of Rhode Island but his leadership waned under a highly factional political atmosphere.  He established a trading post on Narragansett Bay, where he raised livestock and traded with the Indians.  Williams’ influence on the Narragansett during King Philip’s War was less effective than his efforts in 1637 as he failed to stop tribal leaders from joining Metacom’s cause.  When Providence was attacked in early 1676, William’s house was burned and he joined a militia company and afterward joined in selling captive Indians into slavery.  ODNB.  ANBO.