Roger Williams (c. 3 March 1603 NS (21 February OS) - c. January/February 1683) was an English-born theologian, colonial founder, and political theorist whose life and writings produced several concepts central to later Anglo-American governance, including the separation of church and state, liberty of conscience, and the invalidity of royal land grants over Native American territory. He founded the colony of Providence Plantations in 1636 after being banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and that settlement became the basis of the present-day state of Rhode Island. He argued for religious toleration and separation of church and state in terms that later influenced - or at minimum anticipated - the religion clauses of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Williams was born in London, educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge, and ordained as a clergyman in the Church of England. He emigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1631, where he quickly drew controversy by questioning the legitimacy of the colonial charter and insisting that civil magistrates had no authority over matters of personal conscience or religious belief. After a period at Salem and Plymouth, he was tried by the General Court of Massachusetts Bay in 1635 and ordered expelled. He fled in winter 1636 and, with land he negotiated directly from the Narragansett sachems Canonicus and Miantonomi, established Providence as a settlement open to persons of any or no religious persuasion.

Williams obtained a Parliamentary charter for Providence Plantations in 1644 and a royal charter for the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations in 1663. He served multiple terms as president of the colony. He maintained extensive relations with neighboring Native peoples, learned several Algonquian languages, and published A Key into the Language of America (1643), an early systematic study of Narragansett language and culture. His theological treatise The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution (1644) argued that coerced religious conformity was contrary to the teachings of Christ and harmful to civil peace.

Williams drew a distinction between the “garden” of the church and the “wilderness” of the world, arguing that mixing the two corrupted both. From this he derived a position that civil government should neither enforce religious orthodoxy nor rely on religious bodies for its authority. He also contended that the English Crown had no legitimate title to North American lands it had not purchased from their Native inhabitants - a position that brought him into direct conflict with the Massachusetts leadership.

His views on toleration were broadly inclusive for the era: he argued for liberty of conscience not only for dissenting Protestants but for Catholics, Jews, Muslims, and pagans. He did not, however, endorse the view that all religions were equally true - he remained a committed Christian and an active theological polemicist throughout his life.

Historians and legal scholars disagree on how directly Williams's ideas influenced later American political thought. Some argue his writings were a direct intellectual ancestor of Jeffersonian separationism and the religion clauses of the First Amendment. Others contend that the Framers were more immediately influenced by Enlightenment rationalism and Lockean liberalism than by Williams's Calvinist theological arguments, and that the resemblance is partially coincidental. See Roger Williams - History for a fuller account of his life and times.

The degree to which Williams's treatment of Native peoples represents a principled proto-egalitarianism versus a pragmatic diplomatic strategy is also a subject of scholarly discussion. See Roger Williams - Native Relations Viewpoint for perspectives on this question.

• Forerunner of Church-State Separation - Williams's arguments for separating civil and ecclesiastical authority anticipate constitutional separationism, and his Providence experiment demonstrates the practical viability of pluralist governance.
• Theological, Not Liberal - Williams's toleration was rooted in Calvinist ecclesiology and concern for church purity, not in Enlightenment liberalism or natural rights theory; projecting modern secular values onto him distorts his thought.
• Principled or Pragmatic? Williams and Native Peoples - Perspectives differ on whether Williams's direct land purchases and language learning represent genuine respect for Native sovereignty or a more self-interested pragmatism.

• Roger Williams - History
• Religious Liberty
• Separation of Church and State
• Massachusetts Bay Colony
• Rhode Island - History
• United States of America - History
• First Amendment
• Native American Land Rights

1. Barry, John M. Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul. Viking, 2012.
2. Gaustad, Edwin S. Liberty of Conscience: Roger Williams in America. Judson Press, 1999.
3. Williams, Roger. The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience. London, 1644. Reprinted in The Complete Writings of Roger Williams. Russell & Russell, 1963.
4. Williams, Roger. A Key into the Language of America. London, 1643.
5. Morgan, Edmund S. Roger Williams: The Church and the State. Harcourt, Brace & World, 1967.
6. Witte, John, Jr., and Frank S. Alexander, eds. The Teachings of Modern Christianity on Law, Politics, and Human Nature. Columbia University Press, 2006. (For context on Williams's theological jurisprudence.)
7. LaFantasie, Glenn W., ed. The Correspondence of Roger Williams. Brown University Press/University Press of New England, 1988.