Today in history 10-9

[remrogers]

1635
Oct 9
Rhode Island founder banished from Massachusetts

Religious dissident Roger Williams is banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony by the General Court of Massachusetts. Williams had spoken out against the right of civil authorities to punish religious dissension and to confiscate Native American land.

After leaving Massachusetts, Williams, with the assistance of the Narragansett tribe, established a settlement at the junction of two rivers near Narragansett Bay, located in present-day Rhode Island. He declared the settlement open to all those seeking freedom of conscience and the removal of the church from civil matters, and many dissatisfied Puritans came. Taking the success of the venture as a sign from God, Williams named the community "Providence."

Among those who found a haven in the religious and political refuge of the Rhode Island Colony were Anne Hutchinson—like Williams, she had been exiled from Massachusetts for religious reasons—some of the first Jews to settle in North America, and the Quakers. In Providence, Roger Williams also founded the first Baptist church in America and edited the first dictionary of Native American languages.

[Okanagan]

I had a wise old professor in college who said that Roger Williams in Rhode Island finally fulfilled the Edict of Milan made in year 313, when Emperor Constantin decreed religious freedom.  It took 1322 years between the idea and really making it happen. 

[FinsnFur]

Clyde I was going to ask how in the heck you could remember those stats? You musta been paying attention in school.
Social Studies was my worst class. I could not pay attention to save my soul

[Okanagan]

I enjoyed some parts of history and some parts of science but was bored in school an awful lot of the time.  I always felt for my friends who struggled with school.  I read stacks of books and usually already knew what we were covering in class, or got it right away.  I have a weird gift for knowing what a teacher is going to test.  From sitting in class I knew what would be on the test.  That made me a good student but I liked football, fishing and hunting etc. so never got pegged as an egghead nerd. 

When I started writing for publication the same "gift" let me know what an editor would buy from reading a copy or two of his magazine.  When you write to be published, even if the publication  has a circulation of millions, you write for only one reader:  the editor who decides whether to buy your article or not.  Too bad I didn't have the ambition to do more with it, though I'm not sure what to do with it in most of life.

Social studies is a terribly boring name.

PS I had to google check the name and date for the Edict of Milan.  Remembered it in general but rarely know exact dates etc.