Roger Williams

While best known as a champion of religious freedom and the founder of Rhode Island, Professor Gaustad also shows that the thoughts and actions of Roger Williams demonstrated that equitable relations between European Americans and Native Americans could have been nurtured and sustained. By the early 1630s Williams rejected English claims to Native American lands. This led him to also challenge the legal foundation of the English colonial charters in North America. Ultimately, Williams was banished from Massachusetts Bay colony as much for insisting that Native peoples were the true owners of all they possessed as for his insistence on the unalienable liberty of conscience. In 1636 he escaped deportation to England by fleeing Massachusetts. Williams would not have survived this wintertime ordeal without the aid of the Wampanoags. He acquired land from their chief sachem, Massasoit. When Plymouth colony claimed that he still resided within their territory, Williams moved again. The Narragansett sachem Canonicus befriended him almost as an adopted son. Soon afterward Williams established a trading post. From this remote vantage point he began an intensive study of Native (Algonquin) languages, customs and sacred ways. In 1643 he published his cultural findings in a book entitled, A Key into the Language of America. Many of his findings and admonitions disturbed the English settlers. He rejected their claims of cultural superiority, and asserted that in many exchanges the Indians acted with more Christian virtue than the colonists. Williams also rebuked attempts to evangelize or convert Indians as religious persecution. In recognizing their common humanity, he championed "soul liberty" for Natives and Europeans alike. In contrast to Plymouth or Massachusetts Bay, which did not obtain title from the Indians before they began their plantation, he insisted that the only legal and moral method of obtaining Indian land had to come from their free consent. Williams discovered that although Native Americans had conceptions of land, resources and ownership that differed from Europeans, Indian peoples had definite ideas about the extent and derivation of their commonwealth. Unfortunately, the growing English population and insatiable desire for land led to territorial encroachments, jurisdiction disputes, and devastating warfare with Native communities. Williams decried that land had become "one of the gods of New England." To forestall the outbreak of King Philip's War (1675-76), he offered himself up as a hostage to the Wampanoags to reassure them that their sachem, Metacom (Philip), would be returned to them by the Massachusetts authorities safely. When the war broke out, Williams sided with the English in what he perceived as self-defense. The bloodiest conflict in American history ended decades of his tireless efforts to forge a peaceful "middle ground." But his legacy remains. Roger Williams became a trusted friend, honest broker and cross

This is an effective and concise biography. I especially appreciated the author's approach. He could have drawn in a lot of irrelevant material, as authors of biography tend to do, but, to his credit, did not. I enjoyed the writing -- and that, too, is a rare comment on a bio, especially one of a subject from this time. It's not easy reading quotes from the colonial period; the language was so formal. I like that Gaustad "translated" so much of Roger Williams' words. The latter sections of the book were especially interesting. Williams may have influenced Locke -- an interesting tidbit about a noteworthy life.

Roger Williams has been dead almost 400 years, yet his lessons and views are as pertinent today as they have ever been. The battles he fought regarding Church and State, the battles for freedom of conscience, mind and religion, are still being fought today, just as heatedly, by parties and groups just as determined. Basic freedoms must be defended--and earned--by each generation. There will always be a place, a much needed place, for Roger Williams in the discourse of United States history and the basic freedoms we take forgranted, yet must defend, every day. Jefferson, Adams, Washington, Franklin and others may have gotten more "ink," than Roger Williams, but he may be the most important one of them all. If there had been no Roger Williams, there may have been no Frankliln, Jefferson, Washington and Adams, certainly not as we know them. Williams earned for them the right to think,worship and speak on their own. A good book, easily and quickly read, giving the reader a keen appreciation of the difficulties, trials, tribulations--and the vision--of that day. And it speaks pointedly to the challenges of this day...If the reader wants an understanding and appreciation of Religious Freedom, how we got it, what it means, and why it is essential to the country, then and now, this is the book to read. A Word of Warning: Religious Conversatives of this day may find religious freedom, true religious freedom, dangerous and threatening!!!

I met Professor Gaustad in 1988 when I moved to Riverside to pursue an advanced degree in history. He struck me at the time as a dignified careful historian who nonetheless could capture and make real the religious conflicts of centuries past. Gaustad has not lost any of his gifts as this recent book demonstrates. He does a masterful job of presenting the key elements of Roger Williams' life and development. From his conflicts with Cotton Mather and his eventual expulsion from Massachusetts Bay Colony, to his friendship with Native Americans and the founding of Rhode Island, Gaustad presents what we know of William's life in an easy to read narrative. He also includes selections of Williams' works so that modern readers can get a flavor of the writing of this influential founder. What makes this book so fascinating, however, is that Williams was a real visionary. He alone among the early colonial leaders advocated a complete separation from civil (government) society and religion. A firm believer in the Bible, Williams was skeptical of all attempts to form a genuine "New Testament" church. Only the return of Christ himeself, Williams believed, would truly restore the church of the apostles. Until then Christians could only use the powers of love and persuasion to convince others of their views. Williams adamantly opposed having the state interfere with any religious beliefs, even those which are non-Christian. This was quite a leap for an 17th century thinker. But if Williams was widely rejected in colonial New England for his views, his distinction between civil society and what he called "soul liberty" eventually became dominant in the United States and later, much of the Western World. Gaustad attributes not only the First Ammendment, but also such modern documents as the Vatican II Declaration of Religious Liberty and the 1978 Indian Religious Freedom Act to Williams' continued influence. All of which points to one of the great ironies of history. America is, as people on the religious right have claimed, a Christian nation. But it is also a nation founded upon a particular view of Christianity, one which expressly prohibited ties between Church and State. And Christianity of all stripes has flourished in precisely this environment. Moreso than any other Western Nation, the United States remains firmly and devoutly Christian. Undoubtedly, the "free market" in religious thought William advocated has produced this spiritual abundance in much the same way that the free market in economics has produced material abundance. Christians everywhere should take note of this.