A Man of Vision.

A warm, sweet-tempered, and rigid man, Roger Williams followed a spiritual journey that forced him to separate from first one group and then another. In the process he founded and governed the influential colony of Rhode Island, which was the first in America to advocate religious freedom and complete separation of church and state as matters of principle. He is also credited with starting the first Baptist church in America.

Puritans.

Within five years of his arrival in Massachusetts in 1631, Williams had become an enemy to the Puritans. He was the son of a poor shopkeeper, but his intelligence so impressed some influential men that they sent him to Cambridge University, where he excelled in his studies, met John Winthrop, and followed him to the colonies. Several churches were interested in calling this brilliant and highly educated man to...