Roger WilliamsRoger Williams was a leader in religious freedom in the starting colonies. He was born in 1603 in England and died in 1683 in Rhode Island. At the age of twenty-seven he chose to come to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He was at odds with the people of Salem and Plymouth, and almost was deported when he fled to the Southwest and lived with Native Americans for some time. He learned their language and bought some of their land which he named Providence. He fought for religious freedom and a division between church and state which he writes about in his book, The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution. It reads, "Fifthly, all civil states with their officers of justice in their respective constitutions and administrations are proved essentially civil, and therefore not judges, governors, or defenders of the spiritual or Christian state and worship."
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William Bradford
William Bradford was a leader in founding the Plymouth Colony. He was born in England in 1590 and died in Plymouth Colony in 1657. He was a English Separatist who joined the Separatist church in Scrooby as a teenager. He went to the Netherlands with the congregation and lived with the Dutch for 11 years, in which he also met his wife Dorothy May. At the end of that 11 years, the congregation he was with left on the Mayflower for the New World. When they arrived in the New World, he left on a boat to explore it on the first day. When he came back he received news that his wife had drowned. He was a part of the group of survivors that survived the first winter and he was eventually named governor, a position he held for the rest of his life, save it be for five years. He was
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Thomas hooker
Thomas Hooker was the leader and founder of the Connecticut colony in the the New England Colonies. He was a Puritan who was born in England in 1586 and died Connecticut in 1647. He was a Puritan minister who was invited to come to the New England Colonies in 1630. He came to be a minister in Newtown, soon to be called Cambridge. He was a democratic Puritan who was like Roger Williams in a way. He didn't like the way that they connected church and government and so he was given permission to settle a new colony. He took about 100 people to what is now Hartford, Connecticut. The colony he started started a few more to form into what is now Connecticut. He was also a large part in creating the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut. He died in 1647 at the age of 61 of a sickness in Hartford, Connecticut.
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Ann Hutchinson
Ann Hutchinson was a colonist from Massachusetts and was famous for what she stood for. She was born in England in 1591 and died in Rhode Island in 1643. She was married to William Hutchinson in 1612 and they had 15 kids. In 1634 the Hutchinson's left to New England believing that there would be more religious tolerance there. She was separate than the Puritans and wanted more freedom of worship than the Puritans rules allowed. She started a Women's club where the women read scriptures and were able to speak their mind. John Winthrop didn't approve of this and so he legally stopped her and put her in jail in 1637 when she was 46 and pregnant. She was banished by the court and left with her followers for the Roger Williams colony of Rhode Island. There, they started a settlement that created a division between church and state. Anne Hutchinson was killed at the age of 52 by a Native American raid.
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John Winthrop
John Winthrop was a Puritan who was the founder and one of the leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He was born in England in 1588 to a wealthy family and died in Massachusetts in 1649. John received an education from tutoring, grammar school, and Trinity college. He was a lawyer who practiced in London but he was persecuted for being a Puritan. He believed that the Church of England was too much like the Catholic Church and was punished for these beliefs. He helped to create the Cambridge Agreement when this was happening which basically meant that Puritans could leave England peacefully to Massachusetts. In 1630, he led 700 people to Massachusetts . When he arrived, he settled the city of Boston which thrived and eventually became the capital of the Colony of Massachusetts. In 1636, he had arguments with Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson because they didn't believe in the strict Puritan beliefs that he did, so he banished them to Rhode Island. During all of this, he had four wives of which three died before he passed away in Boston in 1649.
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