In an age when clergymen enforced civil laws and magistrates enforced religious laws, Roger Williams believed that the state had no right to interfere with a person’s relationship with God. He could not find a community that guaranteed freedom of religion, so he founded his own community—Providence—and in doing so, embarked on a monumental experiment.
Could Williams and a small group of like-minded people create a new kind of government that recognized liberty of conscience? Could city-bred people learn to plant and harvest crops, chop wood, and handle a canoe?
You’ll be able to find out the answers to those questions and more when Roger Williams himself (as interpreted by National Park Service Ranger John McNiff) visits the Peace Dale Museum of Art and Culture on Thursday, November 1.