roger williams and rhode island -- 12/11/23

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Today's selection-- from Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul by John M. Barry.  The lands of Rhode Island at the time Roger Williams established a settlement there in 1636:

“The area which eventually became Rhode Island included the lands surrounding Narragansett Bay and Aquidneck Island, a large island in the middle of the bay. All this land had a similar topography of woods, rock, and hills, although it lacked any singular great rise. Still, on the mainland one could stand atop one hill and see hill after hill beyond, soft green tree-topped ridges deep into the distance. One observer compared these hills to ocean rollers, writing, ‘The huge rollers stretch to the horizon in endless rise and slope ... and over all is laid a thick mantle of woods, unbroken save by a clearing so infrequent and small chat it accents the ocean of forest [T]he underbrush is dense, and through vase areas all but impenetrable with such cover for quail, partridge, and woodcock ... [and] the wildest of wild flowers .... Swift and pure streams pour through the valleys.’ 

“The streams were, in fact, swift enough to later bring the first textile mills to America and, with them, the Industrial Revolution. The only flat area of the region lay south of Williams's purchase, along a narrow coastal plain hugging the bay in what soon became known as ‘Narragansett country.’ There a mix of rock, marsh, and sand bordered the ocean. 

“The central geomorphic feature of the region was Narragansett Bay itself. Verrazzano, who was the first European to explore it, reported that in it ‘any fleet, however large, might ride safely, without fear of tempest or other dangers’ He called it ‘the Bay of Refuge.’ He particularly liked what became Newport for its ‘very excellent harbor.’ 

Roger Williams and the Narragansetts, a 19th-century engraving after a painting by A. H. Wray

“The natives also impressed him: ‘[W]e saw about twenty small boats full of people, who came about our ship, uttering many cries of astonishment ... [and] then came on board without fear. Among chem were two kings more beautiful in form and stature than can possibly be described .... This is the finest looking tribe, the handsomest in their costumes, that we have found in our voyage. They exceed us in size, and they are of very fair complexion; some of them incline more to a white, others to a tawny color; their faces are sharp, and their hair long and black, upon the adorning of which they bestow great pains; their eyes black and sharp, their expression mild and pleasant.’

“(By contrast, in Maine, where the fur trade had brought Indians into more contact with Europeans, Verrazzano observed that Indians would stand ‘on some rocks where the breakers were most violent, while we remained on the little boat, and they sent us what they wanted to give on rope, continually shouting at us not to approach the land; they gave us the barter quickly, and would cake in exchange only knives, hooks for fishing, and sharp metal. We found no courtesy in them, and when we had nothing more to exchange and left them, they made all the signs of scorn and shame that any brute creature would make.’)

“A century after Verrazzano, the Narragansetts still survived as a powerful people outside the borders of Massachusetts and Plymouth. If Williams had had little choice but to locate there, it was indeed fortunate that he found this refuge. And from the first he intended it to be just that, a refuge, a place where one could be free. He later explained, ‘[H]aving made covenant of peaceable neighborhood with the sachems and natives round about us, and having, in a sense of Gods merciful providence unto me in my distress, called the place PROVIDENCE, I desired it might be for a shelter for persons distressed for conscience.’”

author:	John M. Barry
title:	Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul: Church, State, and the Birth of Liberty
publisher:	Penguin Books
pages:	219-220