The Pilgrims, Puritans, and Roger Williams, Vindicated: and His Sentence of Banishment, Ought to Be Revoked.

xii, 312 pp. 8vo. Original navy blue cloth, gilt titles, top edge gilt. Index follows text. A history of the struggle for religious liberty in the New England colonies, focusing on Roger Williams, his banishment from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and subsequent founding of the Providence Plantations. Merriman shows the ways in which Williams was treated wrongly, and explains how his legacy as an advocate for religious freedom lives on. Roger Williams was a religious activist who campaigned for religious freedom, and founded the first Baptist church in America. He believed strongly in the separation of church and state, and also founded the Providence Plantation, which provided a safe haven for victims of religious persecution. He is often credited as America's first abolitionist as well, in that he was the first colonist to organize an attempt to prohibit the practice of slavery. His strong beliefs often put him at odds with other believers: he was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony after speaking against the methods of government numerous times, and he and John Cotton engaged in a lengthy debate in print over various religious issues.