Founders of Rhode Island: Roger Williams, Anne Hutchinson & John Clarke

The Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations was founded by religious dissenters expelled from Massachusetts Bay:

Roger Williams (1603–1683)

• Puritan minister; arrived 1631.
• Banished Oct 1635 for "dangerous opinions": separation of church/state, fair dealings with Natives, liberty of conscience.
• Wintered with Narragansett; bought land spring 1636 → Providence (first permanent settlement).
• Obtained parliamentary charter 1644; royal charter 1663 (unprecedented religious freedom).

Anne Hutchinson (1591–1643)

• Antinomian leader; tried/banished 1638.
• Settled Portsmouth (Aquidneck Island) with followers (Coddington, Clarke).
• Later moved to New Netherland; killed in Kieft's War.

John Clarke (1609–1676)

• Physician, Baptist minister, legal architect.
• Co-founded Portsmouth (1638) and Newport (1639).
• Secured 1663 Royal Charter guaranteeing "full liberty in religious concernments."
• First Baptist church in America (Newport, 1644).

Other Early Settlements

• Warwick (1642): Samuel Gorton.
• Block Island (1661): Mainland families.

Rhode Island became the first polity in modern history to separate citizenship from religious conformity — a radical experiment that shaped the First Amendment.