=48. Domestic Difficulties.=—Internal troubles beset them also, for they were as determined as their persecutors to have religious uniformity of their own kind. They drove out the noble pastor of Salem, Roger Williams, because he was opposed to giving political power to church members only. They disliked, moreover, his advocacy of liberal principles of toleration, as well as his theories limiting the king’s power to grant lands in America. Williams escaped in the winter of 1636, thanks partly to the kindness of Indians, to whom he was always a friend; in the spring of the same year he founded Providence Plantation on Narragansett Bay. Then Massachusetts was thrown into a ferment by a Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, who preached certain theological doctrines distasteful to the mass of the Puritans, although agreeable to some of their leading ministers. In 1637 she was banished; whereupon some of her adherents betook themselves to the island of Aquidneck, afterward called Rhode Island, where she subsequently joined them. The affair seems ridiculous now, but it disturbed the colony and marked the beginning of a tyrannical policy of repression that had evil results (§ 55). =49. Foundation of Rhode Island.=—This intolerance led, however, to the more rapid settlement of New England, and was thus in part a power for good. The Hutchinsonians founded a town which they called Portsmouth, and thither, as well as to Providence, many discontented people flocked from Massachusetts, both settlements receiving bad names in consequence. In 1639 Newport was founded by Portsmouth people who dissented from Mrs. Hutchinson; but the next year the two towns united to form the colony of Rhode Island. In 1644 all the towns in the region joined to form the colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, under a charter obtained by Roger Williams from the Parliamentarians. A separate charter was later obtained by a faction for Newport and Portsmouth; but finally, in 1654, the single colony was restored under Williams. It was a home of toleration, and as such reflects credit upon Roger Williams, its founder; but it was for a long time a home also of fanatics of all sorts. =50. The Connecticut Settlements.=—Meanwhile settlements had been made by Massachusetts men[35] on the Connecticut River (1635), which angered the powerful Pequot Indians and drove them to war. The Narragansetts were kept from the war-path by the entreaties of Roger Williams, but the Pequots were strong enough to harass the Connecticut towns of Hartford, Windsor, Saybrook, and Weathersfield. The Connecticut settlers appealed for aid to Massachusetts and Plymouth. A small army was raised which, under Captains John Mason and John Underhill, stormed the Indian village and almost exterminated the tribe (1637).