More rabbit hole bits. (I’m organizing and cleaning out some articles and notes I’ve gathered.)
The colony of Rhode Island was founded between 1636 and 1642 by five separate and COMBATIVE groups, all of whom had been expelled by or left the Massachusetts Bay colony for “disputative reasons.”
Independent, combative, banished.
They did go on to become fierce advocates of the separation of church and state, free from any influence of the Church of England or the king; protectors of religious freedom, attracting Jews and Quakers in its early days; determined to have self-governance; and were formally against witchcraft trials, debtors’ prisons, (most) capital punishment and the enslavement of both Black and white people … all by 1652.
It may be a little state and not one high on many people’s list of states with much influence, but, wow, what a start!
