Today in history: October 9, 1635: Roger Williams banished from Massachusetts Bay

Roger Williams deserves to be much better known. Not just because he was a great man, but because his life exposes some of the myths about the founding of the United States colonies.

Williams was born in London, probably in 1603. He studied law under the famous William Coke and also studied languages (he knew Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Dutch and French). He took holy orders in the Church of England and seemed destined for a career in the law or in the church. But then he had a religious conversion and became a Puritan, thus ruining both careers (and alienating himself from his father).

He emigrated to Boston to escape the administration of Archbishop Laud. In this, he was similar to many other Puritans. However, Williams (unlike most other Puritans at the time) actually believed in this weird idea: He thought other people should also be free to practice their religions. Even more radically, he strongly believed in separation of church and state.

These positions were no more approved of by the authorities in Boston than they had been by the authorities in England. They threw him out of Massachusetts Bay colony on October 9, 1635. He founded the city of Providence.

Williams had some other odd ideas too. He thought the people who were here before the Europeans got here were fully human and deserving of respect. He developed relations with many tribes, but especially the Narragansetts, and negotiated peace between the other colonies and the Indians for many years. Eventually, though, the other colonies decided that he was their enemy. He returned to England to get a charter for his new colony.

And here’s yet another weird idea Williams had: He opposed slavery. In 1641, Massachusetts Bay made slavery legal (the first colony to do so). Williams tried to ban slavery in Rhode Island, but he failed.