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The One Minute Geographer: Rhode Island — Religious Freedom and Other American Ideals
While we’re in Rhode Island, a little bit of history.
Historian George Bancroft wrote that more national ideals began in Rhode Island than in any other state. Roger Williams, thirsting for political and religious freedom, founded Providence in 1636 after breaking with and fleeing from the Puritans in Massachusetts. He also founded what became the nation’s first Baptist Church in 1639.
Rhode Island became a gathering place for other freethinkers and non-traditional religious leaders. Anne Hutchinson arrived a couple of years after Roger Williams and founded the settlement that became Portsmouth before moving on to Connecticut. The Colony’s laws created the first statutes of religious freedom in 1643.
Quakers gathered in the state as early as 1657 and their first meetinghouse was built in 1699. A Jewish congregation was active in 1658 and the Touro Synagogue in Newport, built in 1763, is the oldest standing American synagogue. Rhode Island’s ivy, Brown University, was the first college in the US that accepted students without regard to their religious affiliation.
