Anne Hutchinson

"Anne Hutchinson on Trial" by Edwin Austin Abbey

Anne Marbury Hutchinson (July 17, 1591 – August 20, 1643) was a leading religious dissenter and outspoken critic of the Puritan New England colony of Massachusetts Bay. The daughter of a preacher who had been jailed several times in England for "subversive" teaching, Hutchinson gathered a group of followers, first critically analyzing recent sermons and later challenging the religious authority of the colony's Puritan leadership. Claiming that salvation was exclusively the work of inner grace, Hutchinson disparaged the role of ritual worship or moral rectitude as a necessary to salvation. She was charged with the heresy of antinomianism and eventually banished from the colony with a group of her supporters. They first settled the island of Aquidneck, which is now part of Rhode Island.

One year following her husband's death in 1642, Hutchinson and her six youngest children settled in what is now the Pelham Bay section of the Bronx, in New York City. Like many settlers in the area, her family was caught in the middle of bloody reprisals which characterized the conflict between the Dutch and Indian tribes over the territory. She and five of those children were killed there in an attack by members of a Native Algonquian tribe in August 1643. One daughter, Susanna, survived and was held by the tribe for four years. She eventually was ransomed free and testified to the attack. Her oldest five children, who were not present, also survived to carry on the Hutchinson lineage.

Anne Hutchinson is often seen as an early American feminist who challenged a religious, male-dominated hierarchy based on an inner prompting.

Early years and emigration to America

Anne Hutchinson was born Anne Marbury on July 17, 1591, in Alford, Lincolnshire, England. She was the eldest daughter of Francis Marbury (1555-1611), a clergyman educated at Cambridge and Puritan reformer, and Bridget Dryden (1563-1645). In 1605, she moved with her family from Alford to London.

Anne's father observed a lack of competency among many of the ministers within the Church of England and concluded that they had not attained their positions through proper training, but for political reasons. Openly deploring this, he was eventually arrested for subversive activity, and spent a year in jail. This did not deter him, as he continued to speak out and continued to be arrested.

Anne, likely as a consequence, developed an interest in religion and theology at a very young age. It seemed she inherited her father's ideals and assertiveness, and wasn't afraid of questioning the principles of faith and the authority of the Church, as she would demonstrate in her later years.

At the age of 21, Anne married William Hutchinson, a prosperous cloth merchant, and the couple returned to Alford. The Hutchinson family considered themselves to be part of the Puritan movement, and in particular, they followed the teachings of the Reverend John Cotton, their religious mentor.

Puritans in England grew increasingly restive following the so-called Elizabethan Settlement, which sought to accommodate differences between Anglican and other Protestant, specifically Puritan faiths. Puritans objected to many of the rituals and Roman Catholic associations of the Church of England, and like other non-Anglican sects, were being forced to pay taxes to the Crown in England. Following the 1620 voyage of English Separatists known as the Pilgrims to establish a colony in Plymouth, Massachusetts, Puritans began a mass migration to New England, beginning in 1630, to create a polity based on Puritan beliefs. John Cotton was relocated to the Puritan colonies of Massachusetts Bay in 1634; the Hutchinsons soon followed with their fifteen children, setting sail on the Griffin. They lost a total of four children in early childhood, one of whom was born in America.

Controversy and trial

A trusted midwife, a housewife, and mother, Hutchinson started a weekly women's group that met in her home and discussed the previous Sunday's sermons. In time Hutchinson began to share her divergent theological opinions, stressing personal intuition over ritual beliefs and practices. Charismatic, articulate, and learned in theology, Hutchinson claimed that holiness came from inner experience of the Holy Spirit. Hutchinson drew friends and neighbors and at some point began more controversial critiques on teachings from the pulpit of the established religious hierarchy, specifically the Reverend John Wilson. As word of her teachings spread, she gained new followers, among them men like Sir Henry Vane, who would become the governor of the colony in 1636. Contemporary reports suggest that upwards of eighty people attended her home Bible study sessions. Officially sanctioned sermons may or may not have had more regular attendance. Peters, Vane and John Cotton may have attempted, according to some historical accounts, to have Reverend Wilson replaced with Anne's brother-in-law, John Wheelwright.

In 1637, Vane lost the governorship to John Winthrop, who did not share Vane's opinion of Hutchinson. Winthrop instead considered her a threat, and who should be "tried as a heretic." Winthrop stated also that her meetings were "a thing not tolerable nor comely in the sight of God, nor fitting for [her] sex." Hutchinson publicly justified her comments on pulpit teachings, against contemporary religious mores, as being authorized by "an inner spiritual truth." Governor Winthrop and the established religious hierarchy considered her comments to be heretical, being unfounded criticism of the clergy from an unauthorized source.

In November 1637, Hutchinson and Wheelwright were put on trial for before the Massachusetts Bay General Court, presided over by Winthrop, on charges of heresy and "traducing the ministers." Winthrop described her described her as "an American Jezebel, who had gone a-whoring from God" and claimed the meetings were "a thing not tolerable nor comely in the sight of God, nor fitting for your sex,"

During her trial, which she walked to while being five months pregnant, Hutchinson answered the accusations with learning and composure, but chose to assert her personal closeness with God. She claimed that God gave her direct personal revelations, a statement unusual enough at the time to make even John Cotton, her longtime supporter, question her soundness.

Hutchinson remained combative and unrepentant. "Therefore, take heed," she warned her interrogators. "For I know that for this that you goe about to doe unto me. God will ruin you and your posterity, and this whole State." Winthrop claimed that "the revelation she brings forth is delusion," and the court accordingly voted to banish her from the colony "as being a woman not fit for our society."

Hutchinson was help under house arrest until a church trial in March 1638. Her former mentor, attack her meetings as a "promiscuous and filthie coming together of men and women without Distinction of Relation of Marriage." In March 1638, the community voted to excommunicate her from the Massachusetts Bay Colony church for dissenting the Puritan orthodoxy. During the trial they accused Hutchinson of blasphemy and of lewd conduct.

Final days

Hutchinson along with a number of her banished supporters gathered on March 7, 1638, and agreed to the following Compact for their new colony:

We whose names are underwritten do here solemnly in the presence of Jehovah incorporate ourselves into a Bodie Politick and as he shall help, will submit our person, lives and estates unto our Lord Jesus Christ, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords and all those perfect and most absolute laws of his given us in his holy word of truth, to be guided and judged thereby.

The Hutchinsons and about sixty of their followers purchased the island of Aquidneck (Peaceable Island), founding the town of Pocasset in March 1638. This was re-named Portsmouth (Rhode Island) the following year and a new civil government was formed.

After her husband's death in 1642, Anne took her children, except for five of the eldest, to the Dutch colony of New York. A few months later, fifteen Dutchmen were killed in a battle between Mahicans and the Mohawks. In August 1643 the Hutchinson house was raided as an act of reprisal, and Anne and her five youngest children were slaughtered. Only one young daughter who was present, Susanna, who was taken captive, survived and was ransomed back after four years. Her elder children, Edward, Richard, Samuel, Faith, and Bridget, were not present during the slaying, most of whom left numerous descendants.

Hutchinson's religious beliefs

As I understand it, laws, commands, rules and edicts are for those who have not the light which makes plain the pathway. He who has God's grace in his heart cannot go astray.

Hutchinson believed that the Puritan colony had begun to practice a "Covenant of Works" rather than of grace. She held to the theory of predestination, but preached that it implied good works were futile, and restricting one's behavior was arrogant. She also argued that many of the clergy were not among the elect, and entitled to no spiritual authority. She challenged assumptions about the proper role of women in Puritan society, and eventually began to attack the clergy openly. Hutchinson also dismissed the idea of Original Sin, saying that one couldn't look into the eyes of a child and see sin therein.

Seemingly challenging the requirements of formal piety and adherence to moral laws, Hutchinson was charged with the heresy of antinomianism, a belief that those who are saved by grace are not under the authority of moral law. In Hutchinson's case, her rejection of rituals and right conduct as signatures of the elect had political ramifications in the Puritan religious hierarchy.

Ditmore's reexamination of Hutchinson's 1637 "Immediate Revelation" confession, particularly its biblical allusions, provides a deeper understanding of her position and the reactions of the Massachusetts General Court. Rather than a literal revelation in the form of unmediated divine communication, the confession suggests that Hutchinson experienced her revelations through a form of Biblical divination. The Biblical references in her confession, which contain a prophecy of catastrophe and redemption, confirm the court's belief that she had transgressed the authority of the colony's ministers. These references also reveal an irreconcilable conflict over theological issues of revelation, miracles, and scripture.

Modern interpretation of events

File:Statue of Anne Hutchinson.jpg

Anne Hutchinson

Upheld equally as a symbol of religious freedom, liberal thinking and feminism, Anne Hutchinson is something of a contentious figure for modern audiences. A current cause celebre, she has been in turn lionized, mythologized and demonized by like-minded individuals. In particular, historians and other observers have interpreted and re-interpreted her life within the following frameworks:

Unauthorized influence

Historians who interpret Hutchinson's life events through the lens of the power politic, have drawn the conclusion that Hutchinson suffered more because of her growing influence rather than her radical teachings. In his article on Hutchinson in Forerunner magazine, Rogers says as much, writing that her interpretations were not "antithetical to what the puritans believed at all. What began as the quibbling over fine points of Christian doctrine ended as a confrontation over the role of authority in the colony." Hutchinson may have criticized the established religious authorities, as did others, but she did so while cultivating an energetic following.

Role of women in Puritan society

Yet Hutchinson may have been brought down sexually; other commentators have suggested that she fell victim to contemporary mores surrounding the role of women in Puritan society. Hutchinson, according to numerous reports, spoke her mind freely within the context of a male hierarchy unaccustomed to outspoken women. In addition, she welcomed men into her home, an unusual act in a Puritan society. It may also be noteworthy that Hutchinson shared the profession—midwifery—that would become a pivotal attribute of the women accused in the Salem witch trials of 1692, forty years after her death.

Political king making

One little-publicized interpretation suggests that Huchinson doomed herself by engaging in political maneuvering surrounding the leadership of her church, and therefore of the local colonial government. She found herself on the losing side of a political battle that continued long after the election was won.

Hutchinson's modern memorials

Some literary critics trace the character of Hester Prynne in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter to Hutchinson's persecution in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Hawthorne might have been symbolizing Hutchinson in the trials and punishment of Prynne. It has been noted that, in the novel, the rose bush supposedly came up from the foot of Anne Hutchinson outside of the prison.

In southern New York State, the Hutchinson River, one of the very few rivers named after a woman, and the Hutchinson River Parkway are her most prominent namesakes. Elementary schools, such as in the town of Portsmouth, Rhode Island, and in the Westchester County, New York towns of Pelham, and Eastchester are other examples.

A statue of Hutchinson stands in front of the State House in Boston, Massachusetts. It was erected in 1922. The inscription on the statue reads: "In memory of Anne Marbury Hutchinson Baptized at Alford Lincolnshire England 20-July 1595 Killed by the Indians At East Chester New York 1643 Courageous exponent of civil liberty and religious toleration."

The site of Anne's house and the scene of her murder is in what is now Pelham Bay Park, within the limits of New York City, less than a dozen miles from the City Hall. Not far from it, beside the road, is a large glacial boulder, popularly called Split Rock. In 1911, a bronze tablet to the memory of Mrs. Hutchinson was placed on Split Rock by the Society of Colonial Dames of the State of New York, who recognized that the resting place of this most noted woman of her time was well worthy of such a memorial. The tablet bears the following inscription:

ANNE HUTCHINSON - Banished From the Massachusetts Bay Colony In 1638 Because of Her Devotion to Religious Liberty

This Courageous Woman

Sought Freedom From Persecution

In New Netherland

Near This Rock in 1643 She and Her Household

Were Massacred by Indians

This Table is placed here by the

Colonial Dames of the State of New York

Anno Domini MCMXI

Virtutes Majorum Fillae Conservant

In 1987, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis pardoned Anne Hutchinson, in order to revoke the order of banishment by Governor Endicott, 350 years earlier.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Battis, Emery. Saints and Sectaries; Anne Hutchinson and the Antinomian controversy in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Chapel Hill, NC: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1962.
• Ditmore, Michael G. "A Prophetess in Her Own Country: an Exegesis of Anne Hutchinson's 'Immediate Revelation.'" William and Mary Quarterly. 2000 57(2): 349-392.
• Gura, Philip F. A Glimpse of Sion's Glory: Puritan Radicalism in New England, 1620-1660. Middleton, CT: Wesleyan U. Press, 1984. ISBN 0819550957
• Lang, Amy Schrager. Prophetic Woman: Anne Hutchinson and the Problem of Dissent in the Literature of New England. Berkeley, CA: Univ. of California Press, 1987. ISBN 0520055985
• LaPlante, Eve. American Jezebel: The Uncommon Life of Anne Hutchinson, The Woman Who Defied the Puritans. San Francisco: Harper Press, 2004. ISBN 0060562331
• Morgan, Edmund S. “The Case Against Anne Hutchinson.” New England Quarterly 10 (1937): 635-649.
• Richardson, Douglas. Plantagenet Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2004. ISBN 0806317507
• Williams, Selma R. Divine Rebel: The Life of Anne Marbury Hutchinson. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1981.
• Winship, Michael P. The Times and Trials of Anne Hutchinson: Puritans Divided. Lawrence, KS: Univ. of Kansas Press, 2005. ISBN 070061379X
• Winship, Michael P. Making Heretics: Militant Protestantism and Free Grace in Massachusetts, 1636-1641. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002. ISBN 1400814839

External links

• Anne Hutchinson Anne Hutchinson Tribute Website Retrieved January 18, 2007.
• Michael P. Winship, ‘Hutchinson , Anne (bap. 1591, d. 1643)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004. Retrieved December 22, 2006.
• Rogers, Jay, America's Christian Leaders: Anne Hutchinson The Forerunner Retrieved January 18, 2007.

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