Anne Hutchinson Verses Puritanism

Anne Hutchinson verses Puritanism

Joseph Parish

This rant is about Anne Hutchinson, who was an outspoken Puritan spiritual adviser who shook the foundations of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1636. During the next couple of years Ms. Hutchinson was at religious odds with the established Puritan leadership in Colonial Boston. She became a popular theological entity who almost single-handedly destroyed the Puritans' religious community within the New England colony. Eventually this charismatic woman was tried and convicted in a court of law and banished from the colony.

When John Cotton migrated to the new world for religious reasons both Anne Hutchinson and her husband William followed him the following year. Hutchinson claimed she "could not be at rest" until she followed Cotton to the New world. Upon her arrival, Anne was an instant hit in the new community of Boston. With her skill as a midwife and her personal religious understandings, Anne quickly began hosting weekly religious sermons from her home to include discussions of the minister’s weekly sermons and “her” explanations of them. Before long the men in the community also desired to attend these gatherings. Eventually the meeting began to express Hutchinson own religious views contradicting the views expressed by the ministers in the colony. Her goal was to espouse the local ministers as preaching a “covenant of work” rather than instructing in the lords “covenant of grace.”

It was not long before her gatherings were viewed by the ministers as unorthodox to existing dogma and as soon as the ministers began to complain about her accusations the situation erupted into what was later to become the Antinomian Controversy. This difference in opinion resulted in her 1637 trial, conviction, and eventual banishment from the colony. Being banned and excommunicated from the church, Hutchinson and her supporters proceeded to establish the settlement of Portsmouth in what would eventually become the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantation. Upon her husband's death, she fled to what was later to become The Bronx in New York City.

The Puritan clergy and the colony's ministers were offended by some of the sermons preached and as the official doctrines were being challenged by Hutchinson’s supporters it was viewed that the bold stand of Hutchinson threaten the "Puritan's holy experiment." In the event that they had actually succeeded, it is believed that the group would have changed the momentum of Massachusetts history.

On November 7 of 1637 Hutchinson was brought before the court of law on charges that she "traduced [slandering] the ministers". She was deemed a troublemaker and other minor offices. The goal of the prosecutor was to prove beyond a doubt that Hutchinson had made disparaging remarks concerning the colony's ministers. It was the courts purpose to encourage Hutchinson to acknowledge the errors of her ways and to recant what she had said. However, this was not to be the case.

Hutchinson was eventually called a heretic and identified as an instrument of the devil for which she was banished by order of the Court as they stated she was “a woman not fit for our society". Following her trial, she was placed under house arrest and by court ordered she was to leave the community by the end of the following March. Hutchinson was later recalled to trial in poor health after her four-month detention. It was at this trial that Reverend John Wilson pronounced her excommunication. Hutchinson and her followers travelled for six days in the snow by foot in order to get from Boston to Providence.

Hutchinson became a key figure in the fight for religious freedom in the colonies and she stands prominent in the history of women in ministry. Anne challenged the minister’s authority which at the time was a totally unknown act. She fought towards exposing the subordination of the female gender within the culture of colonial Massachusetts.

Some historians interpret the events of Anne Hutchinson's life from a feminist perspective, for early "women's rights" activism. Hutchinson may have been persecuted in Boston for stepping beyond the gender role often considered inappropriate for a female member of the Puritan society. Her male community members were unaccustomed to outspoken women, causing major animosity. It would appear that the perceived threat which she presented to the church officials was considerable, especially since people were actually listening to her. Hutchinson was made legendary not for what she did or said, but more so for what others have noted about her. She crusaded for religious liberty and became a feminist leader terrifying the patriarchs simply because she was an assertive, highly visible woman.

In conclusion, Anne Hutchinson was an outspoken Puritan woman who managed to shake the foundations of the Massachusetts Bay Colony religious complex. She remained at odds with the established Puritan leaders in Boston. She became a popular theological woman who almost destroyed the Puritans' religious community. Although she was tried and convicted within the framework of the law, she remains one of colonial America’s outspoken female leaders.

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