Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations

An English colony in New England, formed from settlements founded in the 17th century and later admitted to the United States as Rhode Island.

Roger Williams: An English theologian who founded Providence and advocated separation of church and state. His banishment from Massachusetts Bay led him to establish Providence in 1636.
Royal Charter of 1663: A charter issued by Charles II that established Rhode Island’s government and defined its colonial boundaries. It provided a durable legal framework and unusually broad religious liberty.
Religious freedom in Rhode Island: A colonial policy that allowed a wider range of religious beliefs than most New England governments permitted. The colony’s charter protected liberty of conscience from established religious coercion.
Massachusetts Bay Colony: An English colony in New England founded in 1630 and governed by Puritan leaders. Its religious restrictions helped drive dissenters who founded Rhode Island settlements.
Anne Hutchinson: A religious dissenter whose 1637 banishment from Massachusetts Bay helped prompt the settlement of Aquidneck Island. Her expulsion brought a group of settlers to Portsmouth and Newport.
Rhode Island Charter of 1644: A parliamentary patent that recognized the union of Providence Plantations and the settlements on Aquidneck Island. It gave the separate communities an initial basis for governing together.
Rhode Island in the American Revolution: Rhode Island’s political and military experience during the American Revolution. The colony’s resistance to British rule culminated in independence and statehood.
Connecticut Colony: An English colony in New England that developed from settlements along the Connecticut River. Its more centralized settlement history contrasts with Rhode Island’s dispersed origins.
Providence Plantations: A settlement founded by Roger Williams in 1636 on land acquired from the Narragansett people. This settlement became one of the colony’s two principal founding communities.
Rhode Island General Assembly: The colony’s elected legislative body, which developed from the representative government authorized by its charters. It made local representation central to the colony’s political structure.

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