Rhode Island
Established in 1636
June 1, 2022
Rhode Island
Godly Roots for Rhode Island
The political and religious leader Roger Williams (c. 1603?-1683) is best known for founding the state of Rhode Island and advocating separation of church and state in Colonial America. He is also the founder of the first Baptist church in America. His views on religious freedom and tolerance, coupled with his disapproval of the practice of confiscating land from Native Americans, earned him the wrath of his church and banishment from the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Roger Williams and his followers settled on Narragansett Bay, where they purchased land from the Narragansett Indians and established a new colony governed by the principles of religious liberty and separation of church and state. Rhode Island became a haven for Baptists, Quakers, Jews and other religious minorities. Nearly a century after his death, Williams’ notion of a “wall of separation” between church and state inspired the founders of the United States, including Thomas Jefferson, to consider the limits of the First Amendment.
Roger Williams' Early Life
Roger Williams was born around 1603 in London, England. He studied with the famous jurist Sir Edward Coke before completing his studies at Pembroke College in Cambridge, where he was known for his skill with languages—a skill that would later help him rapidly learn American Indian languages in the colonies. Though he was ordained in the Church of England, his conversion to Puritanism while at Cambridge led him to feel disillusioned with the church and its power in England. He left the country with his wife, Mary Bernard, and set sail for the colonies in December of 1630.
Roger and his wife Mary sailed to Boston in 1631. On arrival he was noted by John Winthrop as “a godly minister,” but the two soon clashed. Williams became a separatist, a Puritan wanting to leave the Anglican Church — not separating from the established church was “middle walking” and “halting between Christ and antichrist.”
Williams left Boston and went to Salem, a more moderate settlement within the Massachusetts Bay colony. There he continued to preach and bother the elders of the Massachusetts Bay colony. Running into trouble there, he then went to the separatist settlement at Plymouth, outside the boarders of the Massachusetts Bay colony.
At Plymouth, Williams denounced “hireling” ministers paid from taxes and civil oaths taken in God’s name. Unable to preach because of his anti-establishment views, to earn a living, he began trading English goods for food and furs from the Wampanoag and Narragansett Tribes, soon becoming a friend of Wampanoag Chief Massasoit. In return for these trade goods, Williams received furs and food. In these dealings he became good friends with Massasoit, chief sachem of the Wampanoag and Cononicus, chief sachem of the Narragansett. These relationships were crucial for Williams to begin to understand the native peoples in southern New England. He learned the Narragansett language and in the process gained a great respect for the way they lived. He later used examples of their behavior as a critique of the seemingly non-Christian behavior of the English.
Boast not proud English of thy birth & blood
Thy brother Indian is by birth as Good.
Of one blood God made Him, and Thee & All,
As wise, as faire, as strong, as personall.
By natures wrath’s his portion, thine no more
Till grace his soule and thine in Christ restore
Make sure thy second birth, else thou shalt see,
Heaven ope to Indian, but shut to thee.
Returning to Salem, Williams once more entered into controversy with the Massachusetts Bay authorities. He disputed English charters that took land from American Indians. He rejected civil jurisdiction over “First Table” laws (the first four of the Ten Commandments), matters of individual conscience. Several times he was warned to be quiet or face the consequences.
Finally in October of 1635, Williams was charged with ‘new and dangerous opinions against the authority of the magistrates”. The charges were that:
Mr. Williams holds forth these 4 particulars:
• First, That we have not our Land by Patent from the King, but that the Natives are the true owners of it, and that we ought to repent of such a receiving it by Patent.
• Secondly, That it is not lawful to call a wicked person to Swear, to Pray, as being actions of God’s worship.
• Thirdly, That it is not lawful to hear any of the Ministers of the Parish Assemblies in England.
• Fourthly, That the Civil Magistrates power extends only to the Bodies and Goods, and outward state of men, &c.
The sentence of the Massachusetts Court was:
Whereas Mr. Roger Williams, one of the elders of the church of Salem, hath broached & divulged diverse new & dangerous opinions, against the authority of magistrates, as also writt lies of defamation, both of the magistrates & churches here, & that before any conviction, & yet mainetaineth the same without retraction, it is therefore ordered, that the said Mr. Williams shall depart out of this jurisdiction within six weeks now next ensuing which if he neglect to perform, it shall be lawful for the Governor & two of the magistrates to send him to some place out of this jurisdiction, not to return any more without license from the Court.
Massachusetts Bay finally sentenced the troublesome minister to deportation; he fled the colony to avoid arrest.
Roger Williams and Religious Freedom
During his fifty years in New England, Williams was a staunch advocate of religious toleration and separation of church and state. Reflecting these principles, he founded Rhode Island and he and his fellow Rhode Islanders framed a colony government devoted to protecting individual “liberty of conscience.” This “lively experiment” became Williams’s most tangible legacy, though he was best known in his own time as a radical Pietist and the author of polemical treatises defending his religious principles, condemning the orthodoxy of New England Puritanism and attacking the theological underpinnings of Quakerism.
His lifelong search for a closer personal union with God forged his beliefs and ideas. Rejecting the moderate theology of Puritanism, Williams embraced the radical tenets of separatism, turned briefly to Baptist principles, founding the first Baptist church in America, but ultimately declared that Christ’s true church could not be known among men until Christ himself returned to establish it. From his reading of the New Testament, in which Christ had commanded religious truth and error to coexist in every nation until the end of the world, Williams concluded that liberty of conscience–“soul liberty” as he called it–was necessary because no one could know for certain which form of religion was the true one God had intended.
These views, among others (like his criticism of King James I), kept him embroiled in protracted religious and political controversies throughout his life. He was banished from Massachusetts in 1636 for sedition and heresy after refusing to cease preaching what the colony deemed “diverse, new, and dangerous opinions.” Williams fled into the wilderness and founded the town of Providence, though this banishment was only the first of several disputes that consumed his energies. For Williams, the banishment became a kind of personal badge of courage. In his dealings with neighboring Puritans, he never missed an opportunity to remind them of the wrong they had committed against him. In numerous polemical writings, he engaged in a prodigious religious debate with John Cotton, the Boston minister, and referred often to his banishment as proof of the human injustice that resulted from intolerance.
Roger Williams in Rhode Island
In his own colony, Williams could not resolve the political conflicts that divided Rhode Islanders into contending factions. Attempting to protect Indian land from expropriation, he became involved in endless boundary disputes with neighbors and speculators from surrounding colonies. In the 1670s, as the Quakers were gaining political power in Rhode Island, Williams tried to discredit the teachings of George Fox; he succeeded only in raising public doubts about his sincere commitment to the idea of “soul liberty.”
Although his friendship with the Narragansett Indians helped sustain generally peaceful relations between the Indians and English settlers until the outbreak of King Phillip's War (1676), some Puritan leaders suspected his close ties with the Narragansetts had blurred his ability to see them objectively.
Roger Williams was so close to the Native Americans that he edited the first dictionary of Native American languages.
Roger Williams' Death
His death at age 80 in Providence, RI went mostly unnoticed. It was the American Revolution in 1776 that transformed Williams into a local hero–Rhode Islanders came to appreciate the legacy of religious freedom he had bequeathed to them.
Although he has often been portrayed by biographers as a harbinger of Jeffersonian Democracy, most scholars now conclude that Williams was less a democrat than a “Puritan’s Puritan” who courageously pushed his dissenting ideas to their logical ends. In 1956, Roger Williams University opened its doors in Rhode Island, named after the founder whose ideas impact the state even today.
Sources:
Roger Williams: Rejecting The Middle Way. NPS.gov. [ USA National Park Service]
Established in 1636
Native Americans lived around Narragansett Bay for thousands of years before English settlers began arriving in the early 17th century.
Rhode Island was unique among the Thirteen British Colonies for being founded by a refugee, Roger Williams, who fled religious persecution from the Massachusetts Bay Colony to establish a haven for religious liberty. He founded Providence in 1636 on land purchased from local tribes, creating the first settlement in North America with an explicitly secular government.
The Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations subsequently became a destination for religious and political dissenters and social outcasts, earning it the moniker "Rogue's Island".
History - Colonial era: 1636–1770
In 1636, Roger Williams was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for his religious views, and he settled at the top of Narragansett Bay on land sold or given to him by Narragansett sachem Canonicus. He named the site Providence, "having a sense of God's merciful providence unto me in my distress", and it became a place of religious freedom where all were welcome. In 1638 (after conferring with Williams), Anne Hutchinson, William Coddington, John Clarke, Philip Sherman, and other religious dissenters settled on Aquidneck Island (also known as Rhode Island), which was purchased from the local tribes who called it Pocasset. This settlement was called Portsmouth and was governed by the Portsmouth Compact. The island's southern part became the separate settlement of Newport after disagreements among the founders.
Samuel Gorton purchased lands at Shawomet in 1642 from the Narragansetts, precipitating a dispute with the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In 1644, Providence, Portsmouth, and Newport united for their common independence as the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, governed by an elected council and "president". Gorton received a separate charter for his settlement in 1648 which he named Warwick after his patron.
Metacomet was the Wampanoag tribe's war leader, whom the colonists called King Philip. They invaded and burned down several of the towns in the area during King Philip's War (1675–1676), including Providence which was attacked twice. A force of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Plymouth militia under General Josiah Winslow invaded and destroyed the fortified Narragansett Indian village in the Great Swamp in South Kingstown, Rhode Island on December 19, 1675. In one of the final actions of the war, an Indian associated with Benjamin Church killed King Philip in Bristol, Rhode Island.
In 1680, Newport was the third largest Anglo-American city. It remained a prosperous population center until the 1770s
The colony was amalgamated into the Dominion of New England in 1686, as King James II attempted to enforce royal authority over the autonomous colonies in British North America, but the colony regained its independence under the Royal Charter after the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Slaves were introduced in Rhode Island at this time, although there is no record of any law legalizing slave-holding. The colony later prospered under the slave trade, distilling rum to sell in Africa as part of a profitable triangular trade in slaves and sugar with the Caribbean. Rhode Island's legislative body passed an act in 1652 abolishing the holding of slaves (the first British colony to do so), but this edict was never enforced and Rhode Island continued to be heavily involved in the slave trade during the post-revolution era. In 1774, the slave population of Rhode Island was 6.3% of the total (nearly twice the ratio of other New England colonies).
Brown University was founded in 1764 as the College in the British Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. It was one of nine Colonial colleges granted charters before the American Revolution but was the first college in America to accept students regardless of religious affiliation.
Source:
Roger Williams: Founding Providence
" I was sorely tossed for one fourteen weeks in a bitter winter season, not knowing what bed or bread did mean."
The winter of 1635/6 was cold even by New England standards. That winter, Narragansett Bay froze over, an event that rarely happens. In this extreme cold, Roger Williams, a city boy from London, made his escape on foot from Salem. The nearest European settlement that he could go to was New Amsterdam, now known as New York, more than 200 miles away. The English settlements at Plymouth and Boston would not welcome him back. But there were people close by willing to help. More than likely it was a Wampanoag hunting party who found Roger, gave him shelter, and brought him safely to Massasoit’s home near present day Bristol, Rhode Island.
As chief sachem of the Wampanoag, Massasoit welcomed Roger and sheltered him through the winter. That spring Massasoit gave him a tract of land along the SeekonkRiver in what is now East Providence. A handful of Roger’s followers came down from Salem and began to plant fields and build houses. Almost as soon as they had started, Roger received at letter from Governor Winslow of Plymouth. Winslow warned Roger that he was within the bounds of Plymouth Colony and advised him to cross the SeekonkRiver. By moving beyond Plymouth’s jurisdiction, all could live as friends.
In a canoe with several others, Roger scouted the area across the Seekonk River. They spotted a group of Narragansett on a large rock, known afterwards as Slate Rock, along the western shore of the Seekonk River. As they approached the Narragansett greeted them by calling out: “What Cheer Netop!” This greeting is a combination of English and Narragansett languages. ‘What cheer’ was an informal common English greeting of the day, short for ‘what cheery news do you bring’ and today’s equivalent of “what’s up?’’ “Netop” is the Narragansett word for friend.
…having made covenant of peaceable neighborhood with all the sachems and natives round about us, and having, in a sense of God’s merciful providence unto me in my distress, called the place PROVIDENCE, I desired it might be for a shelter for persons distressed for conscience;
From Slate Rock, Roger and his companions rowed south along the Seekonk River, around the point of land now called Fox Point and continued up the Great Salt River. Where the Great Salt River split into the Moshassuck and Woonasquatucket Rivers, it opened up into a large Salt water cove. A Native trail, which stretched from the Massachusetts Bay along the coast to New York, ran around the eastern edge of this cove. The English called this trail Towne Street. Emptying into the cove on the west side of the trail was a fresh water spring. East across the trail from this spring Roger built his house, on the lower slope of a great hill.
West of the spring lies the Great Salt Cove. The Cove was a resource gathering spot. At a choke point where the Moshassuck and Woonasquatucket rivers came together, the salmon ran so thick that the English said they could walk across the river on the backs of the salmon without getting their feet wet. Along with the salmon, thousands of ducks and geese stopped there when they migrated for the winter. There were also eels, lobsters, crabs, clams, quahogs, and oysters.
This area was a resource used by Native Americans for as much as 5000 years. When the salmon were running, members of the Massachusett, Nipmuc, Wampanoag and Narragansett tribes would gather around the cove. While there they would catch salmon, participate in large games between members of the different tribes, and settle disputes before returning to their homelands.
Roger negotiated a deal for the land that was to become Providence with the Narragansett Sachems Cononicus and Miantonomo. In return for the land, Roger would allow the Sachems to come and take whatever English trade goods they wanted from him.
The Narragansett’s made this deal with Roger so they could add one more resource to the area around the Cove: English trade goods. By giving the land to Roger the Narragansett now had close access to these trade goods without having to deal with Boston or Plymouth, English that they trusted far less than Roger.
It’s Time..!!
God is in charge of all nations
If His people, called by His name, will humble themselves and pray and seek His face, and turn from their wicked ways, He will hear from heaven and forgive their sins and heal their land.
2 Chronicles 7:14
If we renounce sins and turn towards His purity He may relent from a judgment we deserve. He will not forsake His inheritance.
Godly roots were planted many generations ago in what is now the United States, watered by blood, prayers, fasting and repentance. Hundreds of “Days of Humiliation” prompted the Lord to continue to pour out His blessings to plant and send forth the Liberty Jesus Christ gave all humans.
But the nation has significantly turned from God. We do not “remember His power” Psalm 78:42. We have behaved as if we can govern out of our own strength, forgetting that “Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it.” Psalm 127:1.
In God's perfect timing, the Liberty given by Jesus Christ through His Blood, and confirmed in His Word, was planted in the 13 colonies then ruled by Great Britain. Men and women filled with His Holy Spirit discerned a unique call on their lives to bring forth that Liberty as a God-given gift for all men everywhere.
Having experienced God’s Liberty through Christ and His Holy Spirit these passionate founders could no longer stand the ongoing tyranny of a monarch. Patrick Henry, bold for Christ in public, said it best: “Give me Liberty or give me death.”
John Adams’ boldness for Christ came from his love of the Bible and his understanding of spiritual warfare. In 1777, a year after the Declaration of Independence, a gathering of the founders was held again in Philadelphia at great risk. Philadelphia was about to be invaded; Washington’s troops were losing battles; the far superior British troops seemed invincible. One local delegate asked John Adams: “Sir, how can we possibly defeat the British given their skill and their size?” Adams replied
“We will defeat them----- if we fear God and repent of our sins.”
As a witness to His impact in their lives, and as a way to open the heavens to bring about the miracles they needed, many honored Jesus publicly. “We have no King but Jesus” was a common statement.
Thirteen days of repentance are now proposed whereby today's citizens in those thirteen colonies on a given day can discover the blessings God planted in their colony, confess how far current laws and pracntices deviate from those Godly roots, and then repent, turning personally and as a State-wide community for those sins, calling on His Forgiveness and Mercy.
Prayer intercessors from other States and Nations will be invited to join on each day of repentance.
As to each colony the question is : What did God plant?
And then, how have we deviated from those Godly roots?
And will you then confess any sin personally, for your family, for your State?
Finally, all will be encouraged humbly to repent, to replace worldly, wicked ways with His path, by His Word, to His purity.
God willing, the One Who planted Liberty in each colony, and Who has a purpose for the citizens in that current State, will hear from heaven, forgive sin, and heal the land.
Prophetic Word - Chuck Pierce
Providence, Rhode Island
Recorded at New Dimension Church
Thursday evening, July 24th, 2014
The Move of God is in Rhode Island
When we were worshipping I saw a Whirlwind, It came down on Mystic County, Connecticut
This Whirlwind of Glory came down, it began to stir up the Religious factors there
It came down, around Massachusetts, and then it FLOODED in and a New Wind began to hit Rhode Island
I would say to you tonight – I Am sending a New Wind of My Glory upon My people here
I say My people, their borders will now begin to change
I say Vison will be re-aligned along the border of this state
I say from the re-alignment of Vision, My people will start coming together in major worship gatherings, and from these worship gatherings, they will begin to press forth the religious force that has always brought division here!
I say they will back it out of the state, they will cause it to leave and go to the desert!
I say that which is ruling the dream of this state, I say to it, I am addressing it tonight, and say I WILL RULE THE NIGHT IN RHODE ISLAND!
I say to you the blockage of evil that have been set up through religious structures now will start shaking, and I will give my people, who are carrying My glory, Entry Way into every religious structure of this state. And I say to you the government of the state will back the movement that I’m bringing, and from it, it will be heard across America.!
There is a break through in Rhode Island.!
Let’s thank God for what’s going to happen!
kingdomwatchmen.org----------Janet LeBoutillier
Restoring Godly Roots in our 13 Colonies
Godly roots were planted in the original 13 colonies in the USA. A project to restore them using God's solution in the Bible begins in the first colony, Virginia, on February 1.
On February 1, 2022 a day of repentance will take place in Virginia. Individuals in Virginia, and throughout the USA, and in 47 nations, will take time, in prayer, fasting and humble repentance that day, confessing our personal and national sins, and acknowledging our firm dependence upon the Living God.
God gives His solution to heal a land in 2 Chronicles 7:14: " if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. "
Twelve additional days of repentance, focusing on each colony, will then take place on the first of each month, ending with the last established colony, Georgia, on February 1, 2023.
The next day of repentance will focus on Rhode Island on June 1, 2022.
Resources to hold a repentance service in a church or small group are available on the website: www.globalrepent.com
Building on a national and International Day of Repentance held on December 1, 2021 which focused on abortion, joined by 70 Christian ministries, the project seeks to continue this momentum for national repentance. According to Christian historians, This Godly solution to heal a land has been used over 800 times in our history; it's time to use it again.
A two hour zoom call will be held on June 1 @ 12noon EST. Please email us at the email below for information. Members of Congress, and local politicians have been invited to participate. But in keeping with scripture, the main emphasis is on individual repentance, one on One, with Him that day.
Please note: As we continue our "march through the colonies," focusing on acts of repentance for each one throughout this year and into the next, we welcome your own thoughts and research for each one, identifying needs for repentance in each colony. Thank you for contacting us at the address below.
Information:
Pastor Jeff Daly
National Day of Repentance
www.globalrepent.com
pastorjeff@repentday.com
(707) 350-0659
Prayer Points
Pray that many will heed the move of the Holy Spirit to confess that:
We have not placed the Living God first in our lives
We have not fully protected the most vulnerable, including children in the womb
We have created idols, including pride in ourselves, our agendas, our families, our financial status
We have sanctioned sexual perversions, instead of seeing them in His eyes as sinful and capable of being removed by the Holy Spirit
We have failed to follow His destiny for citizens of our State to act as His city set on a hill, a light to the world.
Pray that having confessed these personal and collective sins, many will also repent so that He will hear from heaven, forgive sins and heal our land.
Pray that intercessors from many nations will join in this Day and in future Days of Repentance, repenting themselves, and then praying as the Holy Spirit directs
Cruelties and Killings that Muted / Blocked
The Godly Roots
From the viewpoint of the Native Americans the following eventually took place:
Innocent bloodshed upon the land
Stealing of land
Breaking of covenants with the tribes
Removing the ancient landmarks
Slavery
Doing it all in the Name of God !
Oppression
Political agendas to control, build and possess the wealth of the land while keeping it from others
Racism
Establishing free masonry in the government and economic systems
Sacrificing babies to the spirit of death
Establishing idols in the land and worshiping them
Allowing foreign gods, false religions into our land
Selfishness, humanism, individualism
One on One---a basic approach to repentance
Spend time alone with the Lord. He loves you. He created you. He knew you in your mother's womb and even at the beginning of His creation.
Thanks to the work of His Son, Jesus/ Yeshua, all the sins of mankind have been covered by Jesus' blood and His victory.
Now the invitation is to come into His Kingdom through repentance, changing your thinking, dying to your old ways, and believing in Jesus, the risen Christ, as the Lord of your life.
His Holy Spirit then will be in you, to give you a new life purpose and eternal life with Him.
Now that you're in His Kingdom, He calls each of us to cleanse, to purify, to get ready as His Bride for His soon return as our Bridegroom. There's no guilt; no condemnation; He loves you and wants all of us to be Overcomers of our old sin patterns, to be able to have the privilege " to sit beside Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down beside My Father on His throne." (Revelation 3:19-21).
Steps to repent, one on One:
Come in to the Kingdom through repentance---Matthew 4:17
Now that you're in the Kingdom, you have the Holy Spirit
Invite the Risen Christ to dine with you Revelation 3:20
Praise Him, honor the King of kings
Ask Him which old sin pattern He suggests you look at
Receive His Wisdom and consider confessing that sin
Confess the sin
Receive His forgiveness
Consider removing that sin pattern forever through your free will decision to repent, turning to Him instead
Repent
Replace that sin pattern with one of His Words as your new direction
Experience His Joy which will now never leave you as your new strength--and witness to others; you're bearing Holy Spirit fruit worthy of His gift of repentance!
*** A M E N ***
Below is the Recording of our Zoom Call: Wednesday, June 1st, 2022… @ 12noon -2pm EST
JOIN US FOR OUR NEXT GLOBAL DAY OF REPENTANCE