Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers Memorial Edition by Elbert Hubbard, 1916
Anne Hutchinson was a Puritan Englishwoman who immigrated to the Massachussets Bay Colony with her family in 1634. Her father, Francis Marbury was a dissident Anglican preacher who was imprisoned for heresy before Hutchinson was born. He was eventually reinstated, but never gave up his Puritan leanings. She married William Hutchinson at the age of 21 and they had 15 children.
In Boston she served as a midwife and held weekly religious meetings for women in her home. She would often comment on the current sermons held in the local church. As time went on she became more critical of some of the local pastors. She accused them of promoting a “covenant of works,” meaning that Christians could earn salvation by good deeds. She believed, as many Protestant churches did, in the “covenant of grace,” which maintained that a person’s salvation was preordained by God, regardless of their actions in life.
Hutchinson was eventually accused of heresy and put on trial for her beliefs. Governor Winthrop accused her of having “maintained a meeting or general assembly in your house that hath been condemned by the general assembly as a thing not tolerable or comely in the sight of your God nor fitting for your sex.”
This is a telling quote, supporting the argument of many that Hutchinson’s beliefs were not the court’s true concern, but rather her growing following in the colony. Her meetings had gained popularity among men, as well as women, challenging the exclusively male church leaders. For this reason, Hutchinson is often regarded as the first American feminist. This is a debatable assertion, but it is clear that she was put on trial for straying outside of what the colony’s government considered the proper female sphere. Near the end of the trial Hutchinson gave the court the opportunity to condemn her by claiming to have directly heard the word of God.
She said “…the Lord did give me to see that those who did not teach the New Covenant had the spirit of the Antichrist.”
On March 22, 1638, Hutchinson was found guilty, excommunicated from the church and banished from Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Hutchinson and her family, along with a small group of dissidents, moved to Aquidneck Island and founded the colony of Portsmouth, just south of the recently established Providence Plantations. It would soon be incorporated into the Rhode Island Colony. Massachusetts Bay Colony made several attempts to annex the Narragansett region. After her husband’s death Hutchinson moved to the Dutch colony of New Netherland (the future New York). Not long after, New Netherland came into conflict with several neighboring Native tribes. In 1643, a Siwanoy war party swept through Pellham Bay. Hutchinson was massacred with her family, only one child surviving.
Although the leadership of Boston and Massachusetts would formally pardon Hutchinson in the late 20th century, the men who banished her publicly rejoiced in her subsequent miscarriages and murder, calling them the “just vengeance of God.”
Sources:
Anne Hutchinson - Brooklyn Museum
The Trial of Anne Hutcinson- Famous Trials