Question

Hat was a major difference between the Massachusetts Bay Colony and Rhode Island?

Answer 1

Rhode Island founder Roger Williams believed in religious toleration.

Roger Williams (1603-1683) firmly believed in freedom of conscience. He founded the Rhode Island colony after being banished from Massachusetts in 1636 because of his views. He advocated keeping church and state separate. Rhode Island became a safe place for various religious dissenters and minorities to find a place to exist peacefully -- Baptists, Quakers, Jews and other religious minorities. Years later, when colonial America became the United States of America and the US Constitution was being written, Roger Williams idea of maintaining a “wall of separation” between church and state influenced the framers of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Freedom of Religion was not the law in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.The Puritans came to America so they could practice their religion as they pleased. However, they did not allow other settlers the same religious freedom. Settlers who did not follow the Puritan ways were not allowed to own land in the colony, and were often sent away. Anne Hutchinson--mentioned in one of the question choices--was a female preacher who was persecuted as a heretic in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.