According to Roger Williams, the English usually justify their attacks against the Indians by saying that they were only defending themselves. Even if they were colonizers and settled on lands that did not belong to them, they saw themselves superior to the native Americans whom they called the savages. With their religion and their European education, they thought they had the right to dominate this uncivilized population and therefore did not accept that the Indians attack them to recover their lands.
Roger Williams was an English pastor from the early 17th century who started his career in the United States in Boston, in the Massachusetts colony. Disappointed by the English church, he had become puritanical and wanted to defend his new ideas in America. Unfortunately, he was not be received by the American preachers who were against his philosophy, especially on the intervention of the state in religion issue. Roger Williams thought that the state should stay neutral and not deal with people's beliefs.
His conflicts with other pastors of Massachusetts forced him to move elsewhere. He decided to start a new life in the middle of an Indian community. He became their friend quickly and defended them all his life. It was him who created the state of Rhode Island and the Providence plantation where Native Americans were respected. Roger Williams was sure that America belonged to them and that the Europeans had to do everything to live in harmony with them.
Grade: 9-12
Subject: History
Chapter: Empire and Identity in the American Colonies
Keywords: puritanism, Indian culture, Indian religion, 13 colonies, Roger Williams
