February 5, 1631
Roger Williams arrived in the Massachusetts Bay Colony from England. Williams, a Puritan, worked as a teacher before serving briefly as a colorful pastor at Plymouth and then at Salem. Within a few years of his arrival, he alarmed the Puritan oligarchy of Massachusetts by speaking out against the right of civil authorities to punish religious dissension and to confiscate Indian land. In October 1635 he was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony by the General Court. After leaving Massachusetts, Williams established a settlement, located in present-day Rhode Island. He declared the settlement open to all those seeking freedom of conscience and the removal of the church from civil matters, and many dissatisfied Puritans came. Among those who found a haven in the religious and political refuge of the Rhode Island Colony were some of the first Jews to settle in North America and the Quakers.
