Anne Hutchinson Banished From Colonial Massachusetts
Anne Hutchinson was a prominent figure in early Colonial Massachusetts, known for her theological dissent against the Puritan leadership. Arriving in New England in 1634, she quickly established herself as a thinker by hosting gatherings in her home where she discussed and interpreted sermons from the influential preacher John Cotton. Hutchinson's beliefs challenged the prevailing Puritan orthodoxy, particularly her views on personal salvation and direct divine revelation, which leaders feared undermined the community's moral foundation. In 1637, after being labeled a heretic by a synod of ministers, she faced trial for sedition and contempt. Despite her initial success in defending her views, her claims of receiving direct revelations ultimately led to her banishment from the colony in November 1637. Hutchinson, along with her followers, sought refuge in Rhode Island, where she helped establish the settlement of Pocasset. After the death of her husband, she later moved to New York, where her life ended tragically in a violent encounter with Native Americans in 1643. Hutchinson’s story highlights the challenges faced by dissenters in a society that prized conformity and religious uniformity.
Anne Hutchinson Banished From Colonial Massachusetts
Anne Hutchinson Banished From Colonial Massachusetts
The founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony were convinced of the necessity of establishing a model society (or, in John Winthrop's words, “A City upon the Hill”) that would serve as a symbol of righteousness to a decadent world. Theological ideals would not remain vague abstractions in the colony envisioned by the Puritan leadership, but would be the very basis of the social order. In 1630 the Massachusetts Bay colonists arrived in New England, determined to make their dream a reality. Within seven years two later arrivals, namely Roger Williams and Anne Marbury Hutchinson, had jeopardized the very existence of the “community of saints.”
Dissent was not tolerated in a colony convinced of its own moral rectitude and struggling to make its religious beliefs the foundation of its governmental system. In 1636 Roger Williams so disrupted Massachusetts Bay with his unorthodox teachings that the Puritan leadership banished him to Rhode Island. The following year Anne Hutchinson, the wife of merchant William Hutchinson and the mother of 14 children, posed another perceived threat.
A great admirer of John Cotton, Hutchinson and her family followed that famous Puritan preacher to New England in 1634. Born in Alford (Lincolnshire), England in 1591, Anne Hutchinson was a woman of keen intellect. Shortly after her arrival she began to hold weekly meetings in her home during which she discussed and explained Cotton's sermons of the previous Sunday. Before long these sessions also gave her an opportunity to air her own theological opinions. Her most serious deviations from Puritan orthodoxy were her insistence that “works” or outward behavior were not an indication of personal salvation and her claim that every convert came to know the will of God through direct personal revelation. The leaders of the Puritan colony felt that such tenets, taken to their logical conclusions, jeopardized their “errand into the wilderness” by justifying activities detrimental to the social order and by deemphasizing the role of the ministry. They immediately acted to eliminate the threat to their rule.
The first efforts against Hutchinson were circumspect, for her followers included several very influential people. On August 30, 1637, however, a synod of 25 ministers stated that Hutchinson's teachings were heretical. On November 12 the general court ordered her to stand trial on charges of sedition and contempt.
In the early stages of her trial it seemed that Hutchinson would be able to outwit her adversaries, but in the final days of the proceedings her insistence that she had direct personal revelations from God clinched the government's case against her. On November 17 the general court ordered her banished.
Because of the harsh New England winter, Hutchinson was allowed to remain in the colony until spring. In March 1638, however, she was excommunicated in an ecclesiastical trial after she refused to recant. Soon afterwards, she departed from Massachusetts. The Hutchinson family and many of her followers sought refuge in Roger Williams's settlement in Rhode Island and on March 7, 1638, founded Pocasset (later Portsmouth). After her husband's death in 1642 Hutchinson moved to New York, first to Long Island and later to the area of what was later New Rochelle. Sometime in either August or September 1643 she and all her family except one daughter were killed by Native Americans.