[250 years ago this week, Rhode Island banned the slave trade. That significant moment was just one of many in this littlest state’s story, so this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of Ocean State histories, leading up to a special post on works through which you can learn more about Rhode Island!]
Two inspiring
layers, and one frustrating one, to the life and identity of the founder of
English Rhode Island.
1)
His Progressivism: I think it’s relatively well
known (at least up here in New England) that Williams’
religious beliefs (including the separation of church and state) were too
progressive for the Puritans, who expelled
him from Massachusetts as a result. But in a 21st century world
where public dissent is as easy as signing up for social media or recording a
YouTube video, it’s worth remembering just how striking it was for any
inhabitant of tiny, insular, hugely homogeneous early 17th century
Puritan Massachusetts to express and fight for such alternative, progressive
views. And Williams’ progressivism didn’t stop there, as he dedicated much of
his life to advocating
for Native American rights and a good portion of it to fighting for the abolition
of slavery in New England (a forgotten subject on which a great new
scholarly book, Wendy
Warren’s New England Bound,
focuses). Williams might well have been the most progressive 17th
century European American—and he’s definitely on the short list!
2)
His Writings: Williams’ first and best-known
book fits directly into that progressivism: A Key into the
Language of America (1643), the first study of Native American
languages in English and, to my knowledge, one of the most thoughtful and
nuanced investigations of Native American cultures and communities published by
any European throughout the centuries of contact and settlement. Demonstrating
the breadth of his interests and talents, Williams published in the following
year The Bloody Tenet of Persecution, for Cause of Conscience, Discussed in
a Conference between Truth and Peace (1644), which uses the idea
of individual conscience to argue in opposition to Massachusetts’ religious
uniformity and for the aforementioned separation of church and state. Williams
would go on to publish many more books and pamphlets, espousing and extending
his religious beliefs and ideas; but to be honest, if he had only published
these pioneering first two, he’d still be one of the most unique and
significant early American writers.
3)
His Last Public Action: In Christopher Nolan’s
film The Dark Knight, Aaron Eckhart’s Harvey Dent
argues that “you either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself
become the villain.” Villain is far too strong a term for Roger Williams’ final
public action, but it was at the very least deeply ironic: during the brutal
1675-76 conflict between the English and Native Americans that came to be
known as King
Philip’s War, the 70-something Williams was elected captain of Providence’s
militia; not only did this mean he had to
lead the fight against native communities with which he had been a
longstanding friend and ally, but in the course of that fight much of
Providence, including Williams’ own house, was burned. In a chapter in my second
book I make the case, through Mary Rowlandson’s captivity narrative and
changing perspective, that violence and division were not the only—or at least
not the necessary—endpoints of English and Native American relations in the 17th
century. But far far too often that is where they ended up, and such was the
case for even the progressive and inspiring Roger Williams.
Next Rhode
Island history tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What
do you think? Other Ocean State stories you’d highlight?
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