Revolutionary Newport, Rhode Island by John Fitzhugh Millar, 2026

Abstract

The Reverend John Clarke (1609-1676) Baptist Minister
For generations, Rhode Islanders have been told that their
colony/state had been founded by Roger Williams in 1636,
and that Williams had first promulgated the idea of complete
freedom of religion, including freedom to have no religions at
all. Although this is not the place to discuss the matter fully, I
do want to set forth a correction: the first permanent English
settlers in Rhode Island arrived in 1634, led by Episcopal priest,
the Reverend William Blackstone. Blackstone had been booted
out of Weymouth, Massachusetts for religious reasons by the so called
Pilgrim Fathers in 1623. At that point, he purchased from
Indians the Shawmut Peninsula. Seven years later, he welcomed
John Winthrop and his hundreds of Congregationalist settlers to
his little town, which he renamed Boston at Winthrop’s request.
Using force majeure, Winthrop ordered all the Episcopalians to
depart for religious reasons in 1634 (the Boston Common had been
Blackstone’s farm). Blackstone and his followers were farming
the Providence area in 1636, when Williams arrived with the
idea of making the area a Baptist colony. Blackstone told him
that Baptists were welcome to settle, as long as they agreed to
complete freedom of religion. It is important to state where the
revolutionary idea of religious freedom in Rhode Island came
from, before John Clarke carried the idea to its next step.