By Paul Carrier
History buffs with an interest in early America know that Roger Williams founded Rhode Island in the 17th century, after he was expelled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for his dissident views. In the process, he befriended the Narragansett Indians, who were one of the most populous and powerful Native American tribes in New England at that time.
Less well-known is the fact that Williams and the Narragansetts fought long and hard to prevent the Puritan colonies from seizing control of the Narragansett country, including Indian lands and the English settlements founded there with the blessing of the Narragansetts: Providence, Portsmouth, Newport and Warwick.
That’s the intriguing subject of God, War, and Providence, by Rhode Island historian James A. Warren, who chronicles what the book’s subtitle describes as “the epic struggle of Roger Williams and the Narragansett Indians against the Puritans of New England.” The book covers an important, but often ignored, period between the Puritans’ successful war against the Pequot tribe in Connecticut during the 1630s and King Philip’s War, the devastating Indian uprising that engulfed New England in the 167os.
During that roughly 40-year span, Williams and the Narragansetts amicably coexisted in what Warren calls “a fascinating and unique bicultural experiment in Rhode Island, a decidedly non-Puritan colony” founded on such principles as religious freedom, separation of church and state, democratic decision-making, and respect for the region’s indigenous people.
But it wasn’t easy. The hidebound “Puritan oligarchy” in Massachusetts and Connecticut was duplicitous, manipulative and determined. The Puritans saw themselves as missionaries divinely chosen to impose Puritan orthodoxy in Rhode Island, a land of supposedly misguided English misfits and devilish natives.
The Narragansetts were justifiably suspicious of the Puritans, who promised to reward the Narragansetts for the tribe's vital support in the war against the Pequots, only to renege on those promises once the war was won. By the 1640s, the colonies of Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven had formed the United Colonies of New England, in large part to deal with the Indians of southern New England and the English renegades of Rhode Island.
Williams, who categorically rejected the Puritan belief that Puritans were God’s chosen people, worked both on his own and with his Indian neighbors to fend off what amounted to Puritan land grabs. He acted as an intermediary, mediator and interpreter between Indians and Puritans, and eventually secured an English charter to establish Rhode Island’s autonomy.
In the course of detailing the tumultuous history of the era, Warren provides an eye-opening look at the ethnic, tribal, religious and political complexities of that time and place. To describe the situation as simply English colonists versus Indians would be a gross oversimplification.
The Puritans of Massachusetts Bay and Connecticut had religious differences not only with Rhode Island but with the Plymouth Colony as well. Moreover, southern New England had quite a few Indian tribes, as well as confederations of tribes with major and minor sachems. Inter-tribal territorial disputes were common. So were personal conflicts among tribal leaders, and shifting relationships among tribes, as well as between tribes and colonists.
Despite such complexities, the good guys are readily identifiable in God, War, and Providence. The Puritans emerge as the villains of the piece, thanks to their intolerance of diversity and their obsessive determination to subjugate both the English residents of Rhode Island and their Native American neighbors.
The reader cannot help but cheer when Williams finally obtains a charter for Rhode Island from Parliament in 1644, to establish his colony’s legitimacy and protect its English and Narragansett residents from the expansionist Puritans, whose holier-than-thou attitude was blatantly hypocritical. As of 1644, Warren writes, “the colony of Rhode Island was the only place in the Western world where unfettered religious liberty and majority rule flourished.”
The Puritans were relentless, however, and the struggle continued even after Rhode Island obtained another charter, this time from King Charles II, in 1663. A group of royal commissioners sent to New England by the king eventually reined in the Puritans’ worst impulses, ushering in a brief period of relative tranquility in Rhode Island that collapsed with the onset, in 1675, of King Philip’s War.
Despite the destruction of Providence and other English settlements in Rhode Island during that war, the colony survived. The Narragansetts did as well, albeit in a badly decimated form. The war effectively eliminated the autonomy and power of the region’s Native American tribes, but as Warren aptly points out, the Puritan victory was short-lived.
By the early 18th century, Warren writes, the Puritan theocracy was on the wane. Fast forward to our era. The Narragansetts are now a federally recognized tribe, and Williams is remembered today as one of America’s earliest and greatest champions of what Warren calls “the dissenting tradition.”
Less well-known is the fact that Williams and the Narragansetts fought long and hard to prevent the Puritan colonies from seizing control of the Narragansett country, including Indian lands and the English settlements founded there with the blessing of the Narragansetts: Providence, Portsmouth, Newport and Warwick.
That’s the intriguing subject of God, War, and Providence, by Rhode Island historian James A. Warren, who chronicles what the book’s subtitle describes as “the epic struggle of Roger Williams and the Narragansett Indians against the Puritans of New England.” The book covers an important, but often ignored, period between the Puritans’ successful war against the Pequot tribe in Connecticut during the 1630s and King Philip’s War, the devastating Indian uprising that engulfed New England in the 167os.
During that roughly 40-year span, Williams and the Narragansetts amicably coexisted in what Warren calls “a fascinating and unique bicultural experiment in Rhode Island, a decidedly non-Puritan colony” founded on such principles as religious freedom, separation of church and state, democratic decision-making, and respect for the region’s indigenous people.
But it wasn’t easy. The hidebound “Puritan oligarchy” in Massachusetts and Connecticut was duplicitous, manipulative and determined. The Puritans saw themselves as missionaries divinely chosen to impose Puritan orthodoxy in Rhode Island, a land of supposedly misguided English misfits and devilish natives.
The Narragansetts were justifiably suspicious of the Puritans, who promised to reward the Narragansetts for the tribe's vital support in the war against the Pequots, only to renege on those promises once the war was won. By the 1640s, the colonies of Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven had formed the United Colonies of New England, in large part to deal with the Indians of southern New England and the English renegades of Rhode Island.
Williams, who categorically rejected the Puritan belief that Puritans were God’s chosen people, worked both on his own and with his Indian neighbors to fend off what amounted to Puritan land grabs. He acted as an intermediary, mediator and interpreter between Indians and Puritans, and eventually secured an English charter to establish Rhode Island’s autonomy.
In the course of detailing the tumultuous history of the era, Warren provides an eye-opening look at the ethnic, tribal, religious and political complexities of that time and place. To describe the situation as simply English colonists versus Indians would be a gross oversimplification.
The Puritans of Massachusetts Bay and Connecticut had religious differences not only with Rhode Island but with the Plymouth Colony as well. Moreover, southern New England had quite a few Indian tribes, as well as confederations of tribes with major and minor sachems. Inter-tribal territorial disputes were common. So were personal conflicts among tribal leaders, and shifting relationships among tribes, as well as between tribes and colonists.
Despite such complexities, the good guys are readily identifiable in God, War, and Providence. The Puritans emerge as the villains of the piece, thanks to their intolerance of diversity and their obsessive determination to subjugate both the English residents of Rhode Island and their Native American neighbors.
The reader cannot help but cheer when Williams finally obtains a charter for Rhode Island from Parliament in 1644, to establish his colony’s legitimacy and protect its English and Narragansett residents from the expansionist Puritans, whose holier-than-thou attitude was blatantly hypocritical. As of 1644, Warren writes, “the colony of Rhode Island was the only place in the Western world where unfettered religious liberty and majority rule flourished.”
The Puritans were relentless, however, and the struggle continued even after Rhode Island obtained another charter, this time from King Charles II, in 1663. A group of royal commissioners sent to New England by the king eventually reined in the Puritans’ worst impulses, ushering in a brief period of relative tranquility in Rhode Island that collapsed with the onset, in 1675, of King Philip’s War.
Despite the destruction of Providence and other English settlements in Rhode Island during that war, the colony survived. The Narragansetts did as well, albeit in a badly decimated form. The war effectively eliminated the autonomy and power of the region’s Native American tribes, but as Warren aptly points out, the Puritan victory was short-lived.
By the early 18th century, Warren writes, the Puritan theocracy was on the wane. Fast forward to our era. The Narragansetts are now a federally recognized tribe, and Williams is remembered today as one of America’s earliest and greatest champions of what Warren calls “the dissenting tradition.”
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