Born in London and educated at Cambridge, Roger Williams came to Boston in 1630 to pastor a Puritan church. After he arrived, Williams, who opposed state churches, refused the position because the church had not completely separated from Anglicanism. A church in Salem called Williams to teach them. He accepted, but left after six months, primarily because of pressure from the Boston Puritans, who passed an ordinance requiring church membership for citizenship in Massachusetts. Williams moved to Plymouth, hoping to find support there since the Separatist Pilgrims had founded it. However, the Plymouth church did not satisfy Williams, who expressed disappointment that many members continued to worship with Anglicans when they visited England. Williams worked with the Narragansett Indians, from whom the English took the land for the colony of Massachusetts. Williams studied their culture, concluding that they were neither barbarous nor inferior. He emphasized their hospitality and condemned the colonists for taking their land. He also argued against forcing them to convert to Christianity. The officials of Massachusetts Bay Colony banished Roger Williams in October of 1635. He went to live with a group of Narragansett Indians, later buying land from them to establish "Providence Plantations", which became a colony in 1663 and later the state of Rhode Island. Williams became famous for his disputes with John Cotton over matters of liberty of conscience with such works as "The Bloody Tenent of Persecution", and was also known for his polemics against the Quaker George Fox. Williams never found a church that satisfied him. After helping to found one of the first Baptist churches in America, he proclaimed himself a "Seeker", and did not affiliate himself with any particular group for the rest of his life.

by Douglas Smith

• O.K. and Marjorie Armstrong, The Baptists in America. Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company, 1979.
  
• Cyclone Covey, The Gentle Radical: Roger Williams. New York: the Macmillan Company, 1966.
  
• Henry Chupack, Roger Williams. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1969.
  
• Edwin S. Gaustad, Liberty of Conscience: Roger Williams in America. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1991.
  
• W. Clark Gilpin, The Millenarian Piety of Roger Williams. Chicago: the University of Chicago Press, 1979.
  
• Anne Devereaux Jordan, and J.M. Stifle, The Baptists. New York: Hippocrene Books, 1990.
  
• Perry Miller, Roger Williams: His Contribution to the American Tradition. New York: Atheneum, 1970.
  
• Bynum Shaw, Divided We Stand: the Bapists in America. Durham, NC: Moore Publishing Company, 1974.
  
• Alan Simpson, Puritanism in Old and New England. Chicago: the University of Chicago Press, 1955.
  
• Roger Williams, "The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution", pp. 32-36. Reprinted in, Keith J. Hardman, ed, Issues in American Christianity. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1993.