Edward Kinsella captures perfectly the man and the mood of Roger Williams, the founder of Providence, Rhode Island, in this portrait for Smithsonian Magazine.

Williams was a big proponent of separation of church and state. On October 6th, 1635, he was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for his beliefs. Escaping a likely prison sentence in England, he sought refuge in the wilderness, where he survived fourteen weeks in a violent New England winter. His banishment proved to be a blessing as it allowed him time to explore ideas on what kind of society he would some day create.

The image shows Williams, sitting on a log in the woods, drawing a line in the snow as he ponders his ideas on god and government (a sort of birth of the separation idea).