RWU Professor of History Charlotte Carrington-Farmer speaks about Roger Williams and how he stood by his “new and dangerous opinions” and created a “lively experiment” in liberty. 

Please regsiter on the library's website. 

Roger Williams was famously banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1635 for his “new and dangerous opinions” on religious freedom, the separation of church and state, and Indigenous land rights. Williams settled the town of Providence with the permission of the Narragansett Sachems, creating a colony that was arguably the freest in the western world.  He had grown up in England, where the official state religion changed on the whim of a monarch and heretics were burned alive for their dissenting beliefs. Across the Atlantic, Williams created something different. Williams’ radical ideas cost him dearly. He was banished. His masterpiece on religious freedom, The Bloudy Tenent, was burned. His neighbors fought. He had to live alongside those he despised. His colony was viewed with contempt. His long-term acquaintances wished him dead. His house and town were burned down. He lived his final years in poverty. However, in the face of opposition and hardship, Williams stood by his “new and dangerous opinions” and created a “lively experiment” in liberty in Providence. Join Dr. Charlotte Carrington-Farmer (Professor of History at Roger Williams University) to explore Williams’ new and dangerous opinions which form the core of her new book, Roger Williams and His World. https://broadviewpress.com/product/roger-williams-and-his-world/#tab-description