Origins.

Roger Williams and his fellow refugees from Puritan Massachusetts formed what is generally called the first Baptist church in America in 1639. They baptized each other by immersion after each had undergone a conversion experience. They came by their belief in adult baptism and separation of church and state on their own and were not influenced by the English and Welsh Baptists that had emerged from the English Reformation.

Variations.

General Baptists, who believed in free will, emigrated from England, as did Particular Baptists from Wales, who believed in predestination. Some Puritan congregations came to believe in adult baptism and proclaimed themselves as Baptists. General (or Six Principles) Baptists were strongest in Rhode Island and formed a Rhode Island Yearly Meeting in early 1700 to serve as an advisory body to those churches. In 1701 the Particular Baptists formed the Philadelphia Baptist Association, which consisted primarily of...