Roger Williams, once a prominent member of the Puritans in Massachusetts, and the other
Puritan leaders acted very differently towards the Indians. He became a confirmed Separatist.
He came up with the idea of separation of church and state. He also believed the Indians had rights, as they were the original inhabitants of the land. Williams believed that the Indians had the right to their own land and the only way the English should be able to take it was thru legal purchase. Williams was banished by the colonial government for his beliefs. During his banishment, he lived with the Narragansett Indian tribe. The Indians took care of him and after that he felt the need to repay their kindness. He wanted to purchase land from them but the
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Most of the Indians believed in the Golden Rule-treating others the way they would want to be treated, much more so than the English settlers. The Puritans justified the killing of Indians by believing they were superior to them. They even believed they were superior to the ones who had converted to Christianity. They felt the Indians stood in the way of their expansion. “The colonists believed they had a God given right to settle this New World.” (colonialwarsct.org n.d.) They had the support of the king and queen. They had been authorized to take any land that was not already occupied by Christian settlers. The Puritans believed the Indians were agents of the devil, so they felt no remorse in killing them. In fact, they felt God provided the weaponry and enabled them to kill Indians with ease, and that this pleased God. The settlers believed that a small pox epidemic that wiped out many Indians was the work of God, clearing out room for them in the New World. The differences in the ways Roger Williams and the other Puritans treated the Indians