John Clarke – America’s Forgotten Patriot
- Andrea Clarke
- 2 days ago
- 6 min read
Updated: 1 day ago
The Untold Story of the Birth of Religious Liberty in America
In an age of increasing religious intolerance, I am continually reminded of my Uncle John Clarke (1609 - 1676) —a physician, minister, and statesman who secured what is widely regarded as the world’s first legal charter guaranteeing religious freedom: the Rhode Island Royal Charter of 1663.
Clarke arrived in New England in November 1637, having sailed from England during a time when the Crown and the established Church exercised strict control over religious life. Ministers and believers who refused to conform to the King’s rule over matters of worship were often silenced, persecuted, or banished. Seeking relief from these pressures upon conscience, Clarke crossed the Atlantic hoping that the New World might offer a place where men and women could worship according to their own convictions before God.
Instead, he encountered a rigid religious authority in the Massachusetts Bay Colony that demanded strict conformity. Suspicion fell quickly upon newcomers whose beliefs did not fully align with Puritan doctrine. Clarke and others who held differing views were ordered to surrender their weapons and were banished from the colony. With little more than their belongings and their determination to live according to conscience, Clarke and his young wife Elizabeth left Massachusetts in search of a place where faith could be practiced freely.
The experience left a deep and lasting
impression upon him. Years later Clarke would reflect on the tragedy of Christians persecuting one another over belief. In his 1652 work Ill Newes from New England, he wrote:
“It is not the will of the Lord that any of the sons or daughters of men should be forced to worship Him in any other way than what they are persuaded in their own consciences to be agreeable to His will.”
In the same work Clarke expressed sorrow at the intolerance he had witnessed among professing Christians:
“I am constrained to declare that I am grieved to see and hear that men who profess the name of Christ cannot live peaceably together, though their differences be only about matters of conscience.”
Clarke’s resolve was strengthened in 1651 when he returned to Massachusetts to visit the blind elderly member of his congregation, William Witter, in Lynn. Clarke, John Crandall, and Obadiah Holmes held a small Baptist service in Witter’s home. Authorities soon interrupted the gathering and arrested the three men. They were jailed, tried, and fined for conducting unlawful worship. During the proceedings Governor John Endecott declared that such men “deserved death” and said he would not have “such trash” brought into his jurisdiction.
Holmes refused to allow others to pay his fine. As punishment he was publicly whipped in Boston. Holmes received thirty lashes with a three-corded whip, blows so violent that the flesh of his back was torn open. Contemporary accounts say the wounds were so severe that for months he could find no rest except by supporting himself upon his elbows and knees.
This brutal act of religious persecution shocked and outraged Clarke. For him, it revealed how dangerous it was for any civil authority—church or government—to claim authority over the conscience of another human being.
Recognizing the need for permanent protection, the leaders of Rhode Island elected Clarke to serve as the colony’s official agent in England. His task was to defend the colony’s interests and secure a charter guaranteeing liberty of conscience under English law.
Clarke sailed to London in 1652 and remained there for more than a decade representing Rhode Island. His mission unfolded during one of the most volatile periods in English history. England had endured civil war and the execution of King Charles I. When the monarchy was restored under Charles II, the Crown began searching for those responsible for signing King Charles I death warrant. The period became known as the Regicide Hunts, when individuals connected to the execution of the king were pursued, imprisoned, or executed.
At the same time, the Crown faced a territorial dispute in New England between Rhode Island and Connecticut. Charles II believed Connecticut was harboring two of the regicides who had fled England. In resolving colonial boundaries, Clarke’s persistence and diplomacy proved decisive.
In 1663 King Charles II granted Rhode Island a charter unlike any other in the English colonies. The document guaranteed that no person in the colony would be “molested, punished, disquieted, or called in question” for matters of religious belief.
The charter described Rhode Island as “A Lively Experiment,” demonstrating that a
flourishing civil state could stand and be best maintained with full liberty in religious concernments. In an age when most governments enforced religious conformity, the Rhode Island Charter established one of the earliest legal frameworks in the Western world protecting freedom of conscience.
Clarke’s work built upon the earlier efforts of his friend and fellow founder Roger Williams, who had secured Rhode Island’s first parliamentary patent in 1644. While Williams’ charter helped establish the colony, it did not provide the same enduring legal protections for liberty of conscience that Clarke ultimately secured from the English Crown in 1663.
While other colonies experimented with limited religious toleration, the Rhode Island Charter created what it called a “lively experiment,” establishing one of the first civil governments in the Western world where the state would not punish individuals for matters of conscience.
The impact was immediate. Newport became a refuge for people of many faiths—Baptists, Quakers fleeing persecution in Massachusetts, Anglicans, Congregationalists, and other dissenting groups. Within this climate of liberty, Jewish merchants—many of Sephardic heritage whose families had fled persecution in Spain and Portugal—began settling in Newport during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.
As the Jewish community grew, residents organized for communal life and worship. In 1758 construction began on a synagogue for Congregation Yeshuat Israel. Completed in 1763, the building now known as Touro Synagogue became the first synagogue erected in North America and remains the oldest surviving synagogue building in the United States. The synagogue stands directly across from John Clarke’s United Baptist Church in Newport—a powerful and enduring symbol of the liberty of conscience first secured there a century earlier.
The ideas embodied in the Charter of 1663 did not remain confined to Rhode Island. The colony’s model of religious liberty became one of the earliest working examples of a society where government did not control belief. More than a century later, these same principles would echo in the formation of the United States. When the American founders drafted the nation’s governing documents, the principle that government must not establish or interfere with religion appeared in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
In 1790 George Washington visited Newport and wrote a letter to the congregation of Touro Synagogue affirming that the new American government would give “to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.” His words echoed the same spirit that John Clarke had fought to secure more than a century earlier.
My connection to this history is both historical and personal. I am a descendant of Joseph Clarke, the youngest brother of John Clarke. Joseph Clarke served the colony as a merchant, colonial treasurer, assistant to the governor, and member of the General Assembly. He was also among the early proprietors who helped establish the settlement that became Westerly, Rhode Island in 1661, extending Rhode Island’s experiment in liberty westward.
This extraordinary and often overlooked legacy inspired me to explore the Clarke family history more deeply. What began as a personal search for my ancestry soon revealed a much larger story—one that connects directly to the origins of religious liberty in America.
After years of research, I am well prepared to bring John Clarke’s remarkable story to life through both a historical novel and a feature film.
The historical novel is currently in final writing and editing, with publication planned to coincide with the anniversary of the signing of the Rhode Island Royal Charter on July 8.
The companion feature film is currently in final development and moving toward full production. A proof-of-concept trailer has already been completed, and the project is preparing for theatrical distribution.
Together, the novel and the film aim to bring this extraordinary and largely untold chapter of American history to a broad modern audience.
At a time when the meaning of liberty of conscience is again being debated around the world, the story of John Clarke reminds us where that freedom began—and that every person is born with the innate, God-given right to soul liberty without fear of persecution.
I believe this story has the power to remind modern audiences where the principle of liberty of conscience truly began.
If this story resonates with you, I would welcome the opportunity to speak with you. I am currently seeking benefactors, individual patrons, and major sponsors who may wish to partner in bringing this important and timely story of the birth of religious liberty in America to a wide theatrical audience.
With sincerity,
Andrea M. Clarke
Producer, Director, Writer
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