In 1860, Providence residents dug for their founder's grave and found no skeleton, only a massive apple tree root grown into the exact shape of a human body, curving at the spine, splitting at the hips, bending at the knees. The tree had eaten Roger Williams. But his ideas became the root system for American liberty.

This episode explores the life of a brilliant, uncompromising rebel: a language prodigy who founded Rhode Island, pioneered the separation of church and state, and lived a life full of jarring contradictions, including his complicated participation in slavery.

• Why he refused the prestigious Boston pulpit and got banished for calling colonial land charters illegitimate
• His 55-mile winter trek through a blizzard and the Wampanoag and Narragansett who kept him alive
• The 1637 Providence Civil Compact, the ...