Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations

The Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations was an English colony on the eastern coast of America, founded in 1636 by Puritan minister Roger Williams, at a settlement he originally called Providence Plantations, after his exile from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Joined by three other settlements soon founded on Narragansett Bay, the colony became a haven for religious dissenters and was known for its commitment to religious freedom and self-governance.

The four Narragansett Bay settlements created an official confederacy through a charter under the Patent of 1643–1644, granted by the English Parliament. It received a more comprehensive Royal Charter in 1663 from King Charles II, which established its government and guaranteed its religious liberties. Rhode Island continued as a self-governing colony until 1776, when it declared independence from Great Britain during the American Revolution, becoming the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.

The land was first owned by the Narragansett Indians, which led to the name of the town of Narragansett, Rhode Island. European settlement began around 1622 with a trading post at Sowams, now the town of Warren, Rhode Island.

The first four European settlements were at Providence, Portsmouth, Newport and Warwick.

Roger Williams was a Puritan theologian and linguist. Strongly believing in the separation of church and state, Williams was a separating Puritan who considered the Church of England irredeemably corrupt – leading to religious persecution against him from the non-separatist leadership of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, which exiled him. Williams moved to a nearby location within the English possessions in the Americas, on the shores of Narragansett Bay, founding the settlement of Providence Plantations in 1636. He sought refuge among the Narragansetts and negotiated with sachems Canonicus and Miantonomoh for land, agreeing to trade goods in exchange. He named the settlement Providence Plantations to express his gratitude for divine guidance.

Following his convictions, Williams and his fellow settlers agreed on an egalitarian constitution providing for majority rule "in civil things" with liberty of conscience on spiritual matters. He named three islands in the Narragansett Bay after Christian virtues: Patience, Prudence, and Hope Islands.

In 1637, another group of Massachusetts dissenters settled on Aquidneck Island, which was called Rhode Island at the time. They established a settlement called Pocasset at the northern end of the island. The group included William Coddington, John Clarke, and Anne and William Hutchinson, among others. That settlement, however, quickly split into two separate settlements. Samuel Gorton and others remained to establish the settlement of Portsmouth in 1638, while Coddington and Clarke established nearby Newport in 1639. Both settlements were situated on Rhode Island.

The second settlement on the mainland was Samuel Gorton's Shawomet Purchase from the Narragansetts in 1642. As soon as he settled there, however, the Massachusetts Bay authorities laid claim to his territory and acted to enforce their claim. Gorton traveled to London to enlist the help of Robert Rich, 2nd Earl of Warwick, head of the Commission for Foreign Plantations. He returned in 1648 with a letter from Rich ordering Massachusetts to cease molesting him and his people. In gratitude, he changed the name of Shawomet Plantation to Warwick.