Roger Williams National Memorial

A visionary and independent thinker, Roger Williams was warned by the Puritan authorities in Massachusetts Bay Colony to refrain from spreading his “new and dangerous opinions.” Banished and alone, Williams wandered in the wilderness eventually settling in the land he named “Providence” in the spring of 1636. Befriended by the Narragansett tribe, he founded a community where any persons could think, worship and act in accordance with their own conscience without fear of persecution by the government. This spiritual and intellectual paradise to some was considered a hotbed of heresy to others. In 1965, Congress authorized the creation of the memorial and the 4.5-acre park opened to the public in the 1980s.