The first European explorer known to have explored the Rhode Island area was Giovanni da Verrazzano. He sailed into Narragansett Bay in 1524 and found five groups of Algonquin-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 region, causing disease and plague to the Indians who suffered great 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 settlement in the Rhode Island region. The establishment of religious freedom in the colony of Rhode Island had a great impact on colonial America. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essayWilliams had lived in the Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth colonies, but came into conflict with Puritan authorities when he spoke out about religious freedom and challenged 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 Wampanoags whose chief Massasoit was his friend. Massasoit granted Williams and his friends a piece of land east of the Seekonk River. However this piece of land was controlled by the Plymouth Colony and they made them move across the river where the Narragansetts lived. The Narragansetts then granted them a large piece of land where they established Providence, the Rhode Islands' first permanent white settlement 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 compensated the Native Americans for the land they had taken. The Native Americans not only accepted Williams' agreement but 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 for political and religious disputes with the Puritan establishment. Williams helped the group obtain land from the Narragansetts at the northern tip 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. That same year the two communities united and formed a federation and renamed Aquidneck Rhode Island. A fourth independent settlement led by Samuel Gorton. After quarreling with the authorities of Boston and Plymouth, he came to Rhode Island and purchased a piece of land south of Providence, this town later being renamed Warwick. Massachusetts and Plymouth continued to threaten the Rhode Island settlements, as they served as havens for religious rebels. from other colonies. To prevent interference in the settlements' affairs, Williams obtained a charter in 1644 that provided a legal basis for the settlements' existence. In 1663, under the new regime with Charles II in power, Rhode Island saw its independence reaffirmed. The charter allowed the colonists extensive 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 Jews and Quakers who had been persecuted in other colonies enjoyed complete freedom of worship in Rhode Island. to King Philip's War. The revolt was led by the Wampanoag chief known as King