The first known European explorer to explore the Rhode Island region was Giovanni da Verrazzano. He sailed into Narragansett Bay in 1524 and found five groups of Algonquian-speaking Native Americans. The Narragansett, the Wampanoag, the Nipmunc, the Niantic and the Pequot. Over the next hundred years, Dutch fur traders arrived in the Rhode Island area, bringing disease and epidemics to the Indians who suffered heavy losses. In 1635, William Blackstone, an Anglican clergyman, left Boston to seek solitude and settled in Valley Falls, then part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. A year later, Puritan minister Roger Williams, a religious rebel, became the first European to establish an independent permanent colony in the Rhode Island area. The establishment of religious freedom in the colony of Rhode Island had a considerable impact on colonial America. Say no to plagiarism. Get a custom essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayWilliams had lived in the Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth Colonies, but found himself in conflict with Puritan authorities when he spoke of religious freedom and defied civil law. and religious restrictions in the colonies. In January 1636, he was forced to flee Massachusetts to avoid deportation to England. He found refuge among the Wampanoag whose chief Massasoit was his friend. Massasoit granted Williams and his friends land east of the Seekonk River. However, this piece of land was controlled by the Plymouth Colony and they took them across the river to where the Narragansetts lived. The Narragansetts then granted them a large tract of land where they established Providence, the first permanent white settlement in Rhode Island in 1636. Unlike most Europeans, the Native Americans respected Williams and he in return respected them as humans and not as savages. Williams believed that the settlers were compensating the Native Americans for the land they took. The Native Americans not only accepted Williams' colonization, they encouraged it. In 1638, another group of settlers led by John Clarke, William Coddington, and Anne Hutchinson arrived from Massachusetts. Like Williams, they too had been banished due to political and religious conflicts with the Puritan establishment. Williams helped the group obtain land from the Narragansett on the north end of Aquidneck Island, where they founded the town of Pocasset later renamed Portsmouth. Coddington later moved to the south of the island and founded the town of Newport. Later that year, the two communities united and formed a federation and renamed Aquidneck Rhode Island. A fourth independent colony led by Samuel Gorton. After quarreling with authorities in Boston and Plymouth, he came to Rhode Island and purchased land south of Providence. This town was later renamed Warwick. Massachusetts and Plymouth continued to threaten the Rhode Island colonies, as they provided refuge for religious rebels. from other colonies. To avoid interference in the affairs of the colonies, Williams obtained a charter in 1644 which provided a legal basis for the colonies' existence. In 1663, under the new regime of Charles II in power, Rhode Island's independence was reaffirmed. The charter granted the colonists a great deal of self-government, the governor would be elected and not appointed by the king. The charter also guaranteed full freedom in religious matters. Throughout the colonial period, religious sects such as the Jews and Quakers who