September 13

God, War and Providence: The Epic Struggle of Roger Williams and the Narragansett Indians Against the Puritans of New England (2018)
By James A Warren

This book opens with an account of the Great Swamp Massacre, the killing of hundreds of Narragansett Indians (mostly women and children) by the United Colonies.  The author then lays the groundwork for the events that led to the massacre, beginning with the original two colonies, the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay Colony and the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony, immigrating to New England in the early 1620s, for the purpose of practicing their religion freely.  In 1625, Roger Williams, a brilliant scholar, arrives in Boston to be a part of the Puritan movement.  He believes in freedom of conscience and disagrees with the concept of a "state religion" in which all residents, including the Indians on whose land they have encroached, must adhere to the Puritan faith.  Williams is banished from Massachusetts Bay and traipses south through snow and cold to a riverside location (to be named Providence), where he has traded with the local Indians, learned their language, and now seeks to purchase some land.  Others who seek religious freedom are attracted to Williams' new colony, and Williams eventually obtains a charter from the King granting him the land (which he has already purchased from the Indians), with a guarantee of religious tolerance, and which becomes Rhode Island.

Eventually, groups of settlers migrate west to found 2 additional colonies in [modern] Connecticut.  Spurning the unorthodox Rhode Islanders, the four other colonies band together to form the "United Colonies".  While Williams works with the Indians, other colonists no longer need their help to survive in a new land, and they continue to press westward, trampling on the Indians' rights at every turn.  The Indians (mostly Wampanoag, Pequot, Nipmuc, etc) are feeling closed in and short of funds, and they declare war on the United Colonies.  It is a Puritan army that burns the Narragansett settlement, even though it is within Williams' RI Colony.  From there, the killing (on both sides) continued, and the Indians (who had lost huge percentages of their numbers through a "European disease") were never again a significant military threat to the colonists.

I had read parts of this story before (especially in John Barry's Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul and Nathaniel Philbrick's Mayflower) but it was very helpful to have the facts of the United Colonies' involvement explained.  It is ironic that they came to the New World seeking religious freedom, then denied it to others within their jurisdiction.