Book Review of Gaustads Liberty of Conscience Roger Williams in America
ROGER WILLIAMS
Champion of Liberty
by Ian Williams Goddard - eighth-corking-grandson of Roger Williams
At the unveiling of the statue of Roger Williams at the United states Capitol in 1872, Rhode Island Senator William Sprague observed that Roger Williams "successfully vindicated the right of individual sentence in matters of conscience, and effected a moral and political revolution in all governments of the civilized globe." [1] In his crusade for freedom of conscience Williams founded the colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations in 1636 as a stronghold of religious liberty after the land was deeded to him by the Narragansett Indians.
A refuge from rampant religious persecution, Rhode Isle became habitation to the beginning Jewish synagogue in America and a sanctuary for Quakers who were being killed and persecuted in Massachusetts and other colonies. Rhode Isle was an open door to all people; a safe harbor in a vast ocean of tyranny and oppression; a condom harbor with a brilliant beacon shining along the light of liberty, a vivid beacon that was Roger Williams.
Before founding Rhode Island, Roger Williams was exiled by law from Salem in the Massachusetts Bay Colony after being repeatedly hauled before the Salem Courtroom of witch-trial fame for spreading "various, new, and unsafe opinions" that questioned the Church building. The police force exiling Williams was not repealed until 1936 when the Massachusetts Firm passed Bill 488, catastrophe 300 years of exile.
Perhaps nearly heretical amidst Roger'south many "dangerous opinions" was challenging the King of England'due south claim to the American colonies with the counter-claim that the rightful owners of the state were the native Americans, not the King of England.
In Defense of Native Americans
Roger Williams tried to persuade his fellow European settlers to respect the land claims of Native Americans and live and trade with them as neighbors, not kill them like vermin. Roger'south offset book was entitled A Key to The Linguistic communication of America, which featured a language-translation guide education Europeans how to communicate with the Natives — a primary precondition for peaceful association. Unfortunately the bulk of Europeans preferred extermination over translation.
Roger's contemporaries argued that Native Americans did not believe in holding, and therefore the claims of European settlers violated no preexisting property claims. Roger argued that Native Americans did brand property claims and that those claims must be respected. Edwin Gaustad, a professor of history at the University of California, describes the case Williams made for Native land-rights:
The English language...justified their grabbing of Indian land by claiming that these unproblematic folk did not really believe in property rights. On the contrary, Williams observed, "the Natives are very exact and punctual in the bounds of their Lands, belonging to this or that Prince or People," fifty-fifty bargaining among themselves for a minor slice of footing. [2]
Roger Williams, a Christian government minister past training, argued most vigorously confronting the forced conversion of the Natives to Christianity. Williams believed that forced conversion violated Christian principles and was one of the most "monstrous and most inhumane" acts forced upon the Native peoples of North and South America. Roger called forced conversion "Antichristian conversion" that was like compelling "an unwilling spouse...to enter into a forced bed." Ignoring Roger'southward appeal to the sanctity of property and private conscience, European settlers rushed forrard to rape non only the Indian's lands but their minds too.
While most European settlers rejected his vision of peace and harmony between European settlers and Natives, Roger Williams helped to establish an American tradition of religious freedom and individual freedom that has endured to some extent to this very solar day, encoded in that near sacred certificate: The Bill of Rights. I could not be more than proud of my eighth-groovy-grandad, Roger Williams of Rhode Isle, an enemy of tyranny and Champion of Liberty!
In endmost I offer a quote from Cyclone Covey's book, The Gentle Radical: Roger Williams:
"The near fascinating figure of America's forma- tive seventeenth century," Roger Williams has now gained general acceptance as a symbol of a critical turning point in American thought and institutions. He was the start American to advocate and activate complete liberty of conscience, dissociation of church building and land, and genuine political democracy. From his beginning few weeks in America he openly raised the banner of "rigid Separatism." In one year in Salem he converted the town into a stronghold of radical Separatism and threw the entire Bay Colony into an uproar. Banished for his views, after beingness declared guilty of "a frontal set on on the foundations of the Bay system," he escaped only as he was to be deported to England.
He settled in Providence with 13 other householders and in 1 year formed the first 18-carat democracy, as well as the commencement church- divorced and conscience-free community in modern history. Williams felt that government is the natural way provided by God to cope with the corrupt nature of human being. Merely since authorities could not be trusted to know which religion is truthful, he considered the best hope for true organized religion the protection of the freedom of all organized religion, along with nonreligion, from the state. [3]
[1] Murdock, Myrtle Cheney. National Bronze Hall in the Nation'south Capitol. Washington DC: Monumental Printing Inc. 1955, p 71.
[2] Gaustad, Edwin S. Freedom of Conscience, Roger Williams in America. Grand Rapids, Michigan: W. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1991, p 29.
[iii] Covey, Whirlwind. The Gentle Radical: Roger Williams. New York: The MaCmillian Co., 1966, cover leafage.
© 1997 Ian Williams Goddard -- free to re-create nonprofit with attribute
Life fellow member of The Roger Williams Family Association
External Links to Roger Williams Articles
American Retention: Roger Williams
Review of Edwin Gaustad's
Liberty Of Conscience: Roger Williams In America
National Parks: Roger Williams: An American Statesman
The Forgotten Founder
Detailed Biography
An Outline of American Literature
Roger Williams (1603?-1683)
Church History 13: Roger Williams
U.S. History: Roger Williams
The Exile of Roger Williams
An Archaeology of Roger Williams (PDF file)
PBS Biography of Roger Williams
Hero of the Twenty-four hour period: Roger Williams
Images of Roger Williams
Landing of Roger Williams
Natives Human activity RI to Williams
Etching (1936) by
Arthur W. Heintzelman
Exile of Roger Williams
GODDARD'South JOURNAL
GODDARD'Southward Dwelling house
Source: http://www.iangoddard.com/roger.htm
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