List of early settlers of Rhode Island

This is a collection of lists of early settlers (before 1700) in what became the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations and later the state of Rhode Island. Most of the lists are of the earliest settlers or inhabitants of a particular town or area.

The following aboriginal people lived in what became the state of Rhode Island.

Wampanoag people lived throughout Plymouth Colony and around Mount Hope Bay (later Bristol, Rhode Island)

Narragansett people lived throughout the Rhode Island colony

Niantic people lived around the Pawcatuck River, in the western part of Rhode Island

Nipmuc people wandered within the colony of Rhode Island, mostly from the north

Roger Williams was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony in October 1635 but was allowed to remain at his home in Salem until the end of winter, provided that he did not preach. However, his followers visited him at his home in sizable numbers, and the authorities deemed this as preaching. He was to be apprehended and put on a ship for England in January 1636. He was, however, tipped off by magistrate John Winthrop and slipped away from Salem near the middle of January, in the dead of winter, to find shelter with the Wampanoags. He bought a parcel of land in Seekonk from Wampanoag sachem Massasoit which was then at the western edge of the Plymouth Colony (now Rehoboth, Massachusetts). In a 1677 statement, Williams mentioned the four who were with him at Seekonk. The five members of the group were:

In the spring of 1636, Williams and his company planted crops at Seekonk but were informed in a gentle letter from Governor Edward Winslow of Plymouth that they were within Plymouth's jurisdiction, and this fact would cause difficulties with the Massachusetts authorities. Without urgency, Winslow suggested that Williams and his group move across the Seekonk River into the territory of the Narragansetts, where no colony had any claim. By this time, it is likely that the family members of the original settlers had joined the group. Two other families also joined the settlement. Joshua Verin wrote a statement in 1650 mentioning "we six which came first to Providence", suggesting that he was the next to join the original five. Also, Benedict Arnold later wrote, "Memm. We came to Providence to Dwell the 20th of April, 1636"; Providence had not yet been established, so he certainly was referring to Seekonk, where the Arnolds came from Hingham to join the other settlers. It is likely, therefore, that sometime about June 1636 the following 25 people crossed the river from Seekonk, in the Plymouth Colony, to a location on the Moshassuck River in Narragansett territory which Williams soon named Providence Plantation:

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