Immigration To New England
He first immigrated to Massachusetts Bay in 1637 and then went south to Rhode Island. Clarke immediately sided with Anne Hutchinson and the Antinomians and was one of those forced into exile by Massachusetts Bay. Clarke learned from Roger Williams that Aquidneck Island (Rhode Island) was available, and he, William Coddington, and other settlers purchased it from the Narragansetts. They left Massachusetts and established Portsmouth in 1638. Clarke is one of the signers of the Portsmouth Compact.
In 1639 when William Coddington lost control of the Portsmouth settlement, he, Clarke and seven others left to found Newport, Rhode Island. Clarke headed the church in Newport which was Puritan/Separatist congregation, but he had a religious and political falling out with Coddington. The church split with Clarke taking part and eventually emerging with a Baptist church, while most of the others eventually became Quakers when that movement arrived in Rhode Island in the 1650s.
Read more about this topic: John Clarke (Baptist Minister)
Famous quotes containing the words immigration and/or england:
“America was indebted to immigration for her settlement and prosperity. That part of America which had encouraged them most had advanced most rapidly in population, agriculture and the arts.”
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)