London-born Roger Williams (c.1603-1683) was an American Puritan 
leader and founder of Rhode Island.  Banished from Massachusetts in 
1636 for his separatist ideas, he set out with a few followers and 
went to Rhode Island.  There he befriended the Narragansett Indians 
and bought land from them to settle on, naming the town Providence.  
Williams firmly believed in treating the Indians justly and 
humanely; he encouraged his fellow colonists to pay the Indians 
fairly for their land.  In 1643, he published a dictionary of the 
Algonquian language, an endeavor which helped further friendly 
relations between the settlers and the Narragansetts.  Providence 
became a safe haven for many people, among them Quakers, Baptists, 
and Jews, who fled the religious persecution of the New England 
settlements.