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Conceived in Liberty Companion · Volume I, chapter 21 · January 1636

Roger Williams flees Massachusetts Bay · The woods south of Salem, Massachusetts Bay, on the way toward Narragansett Bay

The sources establish January 1636, not the exact day of departure.

Gone three days before

May a government punish a belief because it considers that belief dangerous?

A lone man in a heavy dark cloak and wide hat leans into a snowstorm, trudging knee-deep through bare winter woods with a staff, a line of his footprints trailing behind him.
Modern AI-assisted reconstruction. The woods south of Salem, January 1636. Banished by Massachusetts for denying that magistrates may punish belief, Roger Williams trudges alone through deep snow. He is three days ahead of the men sent to seize him, and they will find his house empty. Rothbard says the great flight south from the Bay began with him and ended in Providence, a haven of religious liberty. Chapter 21 of Conceived in Liberty.

Before this scene

In Massachusetts Bay, religious disagreement could become a matter for civil authorities. Roger Williams challenged their right to punish religious beliefs and questioned the king’s right to grant land belonging to Native people. The General Court, the colony’s governing assembly and court, ordered him banished in October 1635. He could remain through winter only if he stopped spreading his opinions. When he continued preaching, officials ordered him sent to England. His flight belongs to January 1636; its exact day is unrecorded. [1] [2]

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The story, from several sources

This account blends Rothbard’s chapter with the other sources listed below and has not yet been separated into Rothbard’s own account and the fuller story. Read Rothbard’s chapter 21 for his account.

In October 1635 the Massachusetts General Court banished Roger Williams for denying that magistrates may punish breaches of the first table of the law, and for attacking the king’s right to grant land the Indians owned. Because winter was coming he was allowed to stay until spring if he kept quiet. He did not. In January the governor and assistants learned that he was preaching in his own house at Salem to more than twenty followers who meant to plant a settlement on Narragansett Bay, and they ordered him seized and shipped to England. Captain Underhill took a pinnace to Salem and found that Williams had gone three days before, “but whither they could not learn.” Rothbard has him fleeing alone into the wilderness and trudging south through the snow (CiL, p. 175), in a winter so hard, John Barry writes, that Narragansett Bay froze. Williams recalled long afterward that for fourteen weeks he did not know what bread or bed meant. He wintered among the Narragansett, was joined in the spring by four friends, and after being pushed out of Seekonk he founded Providence, where the land was bought from the natives and no one was punished for belief. Rothbard calls his life there “free and safe” (p. 176). The southward flight from Massachusetts had begun, and it began with one man walking.

Why it matters

Interpretation: Williams’s flight turns a dispute over belief into a dispute over the limits of government. Leaving a jurisdiction may offer refuge while imposing serious costs on the dissenter. [1] [2]

Examine and discuss

  1. Identify a belief Williams held that challenged civil authority.
  2. Why was his continued preaching consequential even after the banishment order?
  3. Compare the authority of this court with the Virginia assembly: what can each institution demand of individuals?

Where the record differs from Rothbard

Errata notes. Rothbard’s text and his account above are left as he wrote them. Every erratum.

Conceived in Liberty, pp. 173–176
Rothbard says The General Court sent a ship to Salem to seize Roger Williams.
The evidence The ship lay at Nantasket; a pinnace was sent to Salem to bring him to it and found him gone three days earlier.
Source Winthrop’s journal

About the reconstruction

This is an AI-assisted adaptive companion inspired by Murray N. Rothbard’s Conceived in Liberty. It draws on sources beyond the book and is not Rothbard’s original text or a condensation of it. Each scene identifies whether its narration combines sources or separates an account of the book from additional context.

The sources establish the event and accounts of it. The painting’s poses, expressions, lighting, and arrangement are artistic choices rather than a surviving visual record.

Details to notice

  1. A solitary figure walks through deep snow. Rothbard describes Williams fleeing alone through snow; this image does not establish his exact route.
  2. The cloak, walking stick, and pack emphasize the effort of travel. Their particular appearance and the figure’s expression are artistic choices, not a portrait taken during the flight.
  3. Low sunlight crosses the snowy trees. The winter setting has source support; the hour and arrangement of light are unrecorded.

Suggest a correction to this companion scene. Notes about the original book are recorded separately.

Full sources and reuse information

Sources

  1. Murray N. Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2011 single-volume ed.), vol. I, ch. 21, pp. 172-179. CC BY 3.0. Rothbard
  2. John Winthrop, Winthrop’s Journal, ‘History of New England,’ 1630-1649, ed. James Kendall Hosmer, vol. I (New York: Scribner’s, 1908), p. 168 (entry for January 1636, ’11 mo.’). Primary source
  3. ‘A Long Winter Walk: The Banishment of Roger Williams’, Massachusetts Historical Society, The Beehive (January 2014, accessed 2026-09-29), quoting John M. Barry, Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul (2012). Secondary source

Download the painting, full size (JPEG)

Painting and companion additions: CC BY 4.0, credit freecapitalists.org. How to credit.

Adapted from Murray N. Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty (Mises Institute, 2011), CC BY 3.0. External sources retain their own terms.

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