Talk:Roger Williams/Archive 1

DOB
Date of birth immediately after his name was listed as 1613, yet the referenced dates immediately below were all between 1599 and 1607. I've changed it to c. 1600. 1613 can't be correct - few people gain B.A.s from Cambridge at the age of fourteen, even in the 17th century. Deadlock 12:43, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * I am writing a research paper on this man and after reading 8 books and counting, not one has nailed down an exact date of birth. I believe this date of birth is false unless someone can prove this with a citation. I would absolutely love to see it, and use it as a reference for my paper. Until then, I've spent hours pouring over texts written by Harvard professors, and Mr. Roger Williams himself. There is no exact date conclusion on his date of birth.Joann Coke (talk) 03:52, 3 February 2014 (UTC)Joann Coke


 * This is probably of no help to you whatsoever, but just to answer your question, you may want to look at this edit (back in 2005) which seems to be the first use of the exact date in this article, and included an allusion to a source, tenuous as it may be. Fat&#38;Happy (talk) 04:04, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Two Articles on the Same Person
Roger Williams (puritan) is the same person as Roger Williams (theologian). Logophile 16:49, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * So lets dump the theologian one. 207.214.244.173 30 June 2005 04:32 (UTC) WB2 30 June 2005 04:33 (UTC) [proper credit]


 * Please note that Roger Williams (puritan) was merged into Roger Williams (theologian). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Logophile (talk • contribs) 04:05, 1 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Thank you. WB2 1 July 2005 05:35 (UTC)

Descendants
Generally, the ancestor ought to be noted in the article about the descendant, and not descendants in the article about the ancestor. The information about Jeffrey R. Holland ought to be moved, as information about Williams, to Holland's article. --Eric Forste (Talk) 02:35, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Roger Williams birthplace and parents
I found a reference that there were 2 Roger Williams at Pembroke College at around the same time. One was a Roger Williams son of Lewis Williams of St Albans and the other was Roger Williams son of William Williams of Cornwall. The originator of the source is Dr. Rueben Guild the learned Librarian of Brown University, New England (dated 1880).

Dr Guild claims that Roger The Theologian was the son of William Williams of Cornwall, UK. The date of the baptism is 21st of December 1602 at Gwinear, Cornwall. Talskiddy 15:24, 29 December 2005 (UTC)


 * The date of the baptism is 21st of December 1602 at Gwinear, Cornwall. -- Talskiddy 15:24, 29 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Not according to the Roger Williams Family Association . Logophile 03:44, 30 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Interesting, but I notice the earliest source given on this webpage is 1909. The Dr Rubin source dates from circa 1880. I'm not saying he was right and someone else is wrong I just think that it could be a possibility. Talskiddy 10:45, 30 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Williams geneology shows he is the son of James and Alice (Pemberton) Williams of London. Wayne 15:27, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Dates
The Dictionary of National Biography states that Williams is thought to have been born in 1606, "but no record of the exact date survives". It also states "The exact date of his death was not recorded, though it was between 27 January and 15 March 1683". I am interested, therefore, in what basis there is for exact birth and death dates to be listed here in 1603 and 1684 respectively. -- Necrothesp 16:16, 25 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Good question. The dates were already in the article when I first encountered it, and so I assumed that the original editor had a source for them.  No source that I have access to myself has any exact dates for either his birth or death.  Logophile 23:29, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

No Stub
I removed this article from the category "Christian clergy stubs" as the article is way too long to be considered such now. Whyaduck 01:05, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating
This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 14:04, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Welsh?
Wasn't Williams a Welsh man educated in England? --LOOKIE MILK! (talk) 01:35, 6 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Do you have a source you can quote to back this up? Headhitter (talk) 21:29, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Objectivity?
Does this article seem to be written in an objective manner? The general tone and language used through much of the description of his works seems highly positively balanced. Monkthatgotfunk (talk) 15:07, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Article contradicts the summary
The summary states "Williams started the First Baptist Church in America Providence before leaving to become a Seeker.", but the section "Relations with the Baptists" states "He has been mistakenly called a "Seeker", both in his own time by his enemies and by his admirers in the last century." and goes on to explain that he has been mistakenly called a Seeker, because it was used as a smear against him by his opponents. This contradicts the statement in the introduction section. MisterSquirrel 02:25, 12 October 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by MisterSquirrel (talk • contribs)

Date of death
The date in the info box - and later on in the article - is given as 1 April, but in the opening para it's said to be between January and February. We should be consistent. Headhitter (talk) 10:20, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree. It needs to be consistent. What is the date or range? I'll try to look up, but don't have access to a lot of the resources listed on the page. Neither date given is cited. Please, someone, put it in correctly and cite. Thank you. -- JoannaSerah (talk) 18:07, 27 January 2012 (UTC)


 * FWIW, Britannica says, "(born 1603?, London, Eng.—died Jan. 27/March 15, 1683, Providence, R.I. [U.S.])", seemingly indicating general uncertainty on the point. It may be worth a try, but it seems doubtful we'll come up with a definitive answer. Fat&#38;Happy (talk) 20:57, 27 January 2012 (UTC)


 * As we don't have a citation for his death being on 1 April, I've changed the dates in the info box to January-March, consistent with the main text. Headhitter (talk) 09:05, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

The Section concerning Native Americans.
Shouldn't that section have the title including the word Native Americans and not Indians? It is sort of confusing when the title says Indians but they really are talking about Native Americans. They are both used interchangeably \ and maybe it would be better if it was just one. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.110.5.89 (talk) 21:14, 4 February 2013 (UTC)


 * I just looked over the article, ten years later, and indeed both terms are still used. "Indian", however, is used mostly where it is the historical term - e.g. in a larger quotation. I made one change from "Indian" to "Native" where the authorial voice is present-day. I kept "Narragansett Indians" rather than changing to "Narragansett people" because I was unsure if "people" would increase or decrease confusion in this instance. Others may have different takes on that. --Ken Gallager (talk) 17:57, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Primary topic
I think this is probably the primary topic for Roger Williams. What do you think of moving this to primary and hatnoting a disambiguation page? –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 05:56, 28 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Roscelese, I have two suggestions if you wish to proceed with this. First, either point to this discussion from the talk page on the disambiguation page or (better) move it there.  Secondly, I would suggest you see what you can find from page views to indicate how often each Roger Williams is looked at.  From what I've seen of similar discussions, the guideline for primary topic is something like 10 times the page views of any other page the disambiguation page links to.  1bandsaw (talk) 00:02, 1 December 2014 (UTC)


 * I wasn't sure how well-trafficked that talk page was, but yeah, I'll add a link.
 * Stats for 201411 pageviews:
 * Roger Williams (theologian): 13659
 * Roger Williams (soldier): 302
 * Roger J. Williams: 539
 * Roger Q. Williams: 87
 * Roger Williams (pianist): 1939
 * Roger Williams (organist): 189
 * Roger Williams (British politician): 330
 * Roger Williams (U.S. politician): 1614
 * Roger Williams (professor): 86
 * Roger Williams (hepatologist): 361
 * Roger Williams (playwright): 108
 * Roger Williams (author): 66
 * Roger Ross Williams: 393
 * The theologian is obviously far and away the primary topic, with seven times the views of the second most viewed page and most of the rest falling way below that. –Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 01:02, 1 December 2014 (UTC)


 * I'm convinced, thanks! 1bandsaw (talk) 02:10, 1 December 2014 (UTC)


 * User:1bandsaw et al.: This issue is under discussion at Talk:Roger Williams.  —  AjaxSmack   03:54, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Sepratism and Salem
I deleted the following text from the "Sepratism and Salem" section because it seemed to be off topic:

"There is another important line that connects Williams with the Founding Fathers. The Declaration of Independence still saw man as God's creature. Man does not have the fundamental human rights life, liberty, and equality in himself, but has received them from his creator. Belief in "rights by creation" was still widespread in North America in the second half of the 18th century. "

I appreciate the author's inclusion of the first sentence to draw a line here to Rogers' biography, but it still seemed out-of-place to me. Maybe this could be included elsewhere? I also noted that the cited reference to Kidd, which was deleted, did not substantiate what is now the last sentence of the paragraph, so no citation error there, but does there need to be a citation for the stated link between Rogers' quoted language and the reference to Jefferson? Maybe not? Chad.newsome (talk) 14:55, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Freedom
We are told that Roger Williams was in favour of religious freedom. He was on good terms with Edward Coke, who persecuted some. The alleged freedom seems to have been for some denominations only. See Anti-Catholicism. This notes that there were anti-Catholic laws in force in all thirteen states or colonies. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.27.63.85 (talk) 13:16, 26 January 2016


 * Rhode Island's anti-Catholic law appears to have been imposed after Williams' death—some 36 years after, in fact. I've no doubt Williams was personally biased against Catholics (he was a Puritan for a reason) as well as other religious groups, but I don't believe there were such laws on the books before he died.
 * You really don't need to look far to find Williams' views on the matter: The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience. His reasoning is different from a modern secularist's—he would (speaking broadly) argue that this was because state intervention in religion was spiritually corrupting, and that it harmed the faithful rather than defended the faith—but the end result is the same: the state must tolerate all religions, including Catholicism.
 * Finally, Williams worked for, learned from and admired Edward Coke, but he was not himself Edward Coke. 100.40.6.4 (talk) 07:55, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

The Plimoth colony did NOT expel Roger Williams
Why did anonymous Dilidor erase my corrections of the implication that the Plimoth colony (the Pilgrims/Separatists who founded present day Plymouth, Massachusetts) expelled Roger Williams over religious doctrines, leaving readers to imagine Williams was more tolerant than the Separatists? He or she gives no reason.

Here's how I see the jumble of out-of-context statements in the current/reverted/Dilidor version leading to that impression:


 * After a time, Williams decided that the Plymouth church was not sufficiently separated from the Church of England. Furthermore, his contact with the Narragansett Indians had caused him to question the validity of the colonial charters that did not include legitimate purchase of Indian land.

OK so far. But the following quote by Bradford is NOT identified by Bradford as having anything to do with Indians. It is out of context and makes no sense in view of the fact that the Separatists, under Bradford, DID compensate Indians for the land into which they expanded. Although I can see that for someone who did not KNOW the Separatists compensated the Indians for land, and who is annoyed that Bradford didn't spell out the "strange opinions" he attributed to Williams, the notion that it was about compensating Indians might prove an irresistible speculation.


 * Governor Bradford later wrote that Williams fell "into some strange opinions which caused some controversy between the church and him".[13]

At least this quote puts the period outside the quote marks, which is technically correct since the original concludes this sentence portion with a comma, the sentence being finished with "and in the end some discontent on HIS part, so that he left them somewhat abruptly." Is there a quibble over emphasizing "his" with caps? I forgot that italics are available here. Then correct that; why leave out the rest of Bradford's statement which corrects the widely held notion that Williams was driven out by everybody through religious intolerance so he had to invent religious tolerance from scratch?

The implication that Williams' convictions about compensating Indians were indeed what Bradford called strange opinions", and serious enough to expel Williams, is sealed by following, as well as preceding, Bradford's partial quote with more about Indians:


 * In December 1632, Williams wrote a lengthy tract that openly condemned the King's charters and questioned the right of Plymouth to the land without first buying it from the Indians.

I corrected this - which Dilidor reverted - to read that Williams questioned the right of the Puritan settlement (in Massachusetts Bay) to the land without paying for it. I had assumed it was an honest mistake, since Puritans are routinely confused for Separatists. But Dilidor doubled down on the mistake. The existing/reverted statement is unsourced, and highly suspect in view of the fact that the Separatists DID compensate the Indians for land into which they expanded, although there were no Indians to compensate in the land they first possessed, it being uninhabited. And in view of the additional fact that the King's charter wasn't even for the land at Plimoth! Nor did the King exercise any authority of any kind over the Plimoth settlement for over 70 years. On paper, the king had appointed a royal governor to be their dictator, but that governor never bothered to travel to Plimoth!

It is important today to understand the true basis for religious tolerance. The Puritans in Boston had little; you couldn't even own property or vote unless you were not merely a member of their church but had professed a certain kind of conversion experience. Today it is commonly imagined that Christians are basically unable to reason with each other after they disagree, so in church discussion is squelched that begins to feel, to some, "controversial". In and outside church we so often hear discussion-killers like "It's no use talking with you. You're never going to change your mind anyway." So our impatience with disagreement, whether in church or politics, leads usually to the Williams model of picking up our marbles and going off to start our own something. Division upon division.

The Separatists, by contrast, had a "Sabbath Afternoon Prophesying Service" that took its name and much of its Scriptural support from 1 Corinthians 14. It was an open forum where anyone could speak on any topic, and where disagreement was not prosecuted, but only addressed. Only in such a forum can "strange opinions" pose no threat. Even "heresy" is rendered harmless by sandwiching it between truth and clear reasoning. This sandwiched, error even serves the beneficial purpose of articulating, or clarifying, or marking off the ditch into which the careless mind might stumble.

Dilidor's reversion obscures this treasure left us by the Separatists. For quotes from the world's experts on some of these details, see my documentary/interviews at www.1620.US.DaveLeach (talk) 14:14, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

New link
Why doesn't wikipedia have a link to James Williams? Could any of you add it?

Mineblock6641 (talk) 23:54, 26 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Do you mean an article on Roger Williams' father? It would be because he isn't particularly notable. 100.40.6.4 (talk) 12:16, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

Roger Williams House/Witch House
Seeing as there is a picture of it, it should be noted that Williams did not live in the "Witch House," and that was a popular misconception. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:18D:580:8FC9:C150:AB90:E96A:7502 (talk) 16:30, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

Plenty of old documents on Caio, Carmarthenshire mention father had links to Wales.
Plenty of old documents on Caio, Carmarthenshire mention father had links to Wales. Plenty of visits by Rhode Island people to Caio? 88.97.108.45 (talk) 19:48, 27 October 2022 (UTC)