Hutchinson, Anne Marbury

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1591

Alford, Lincolnshire, England

c. 1643

Pelham Bay Park, New York

Religious leader

"If God give me a gift of Prophecy, I may use it."

Anne Marbury Hutchinson.

Anne Marbury Hutchinson was a religious rebel whose ideas threatened the rule of the Puritan government in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. (The Puritans were a religious group who believed in strict moral and spiritual codes.) Born in England, she received a strong religious education as a young woman and was later influenced by the Puritan preachings of John Cotton (see entry). She was particularly inspired by Cotton's concept of the Covenant of Grace (see below). After emigrating (moving from one country to another) to Boston in 1634, Hutchinson began to preach her own extreme version of the Covenant of Grace during private meetings with other Puritans. Eventually her following grew, creating a division in the colony that had social as well as religious repercussions. By the time Hutchinson went to trial for heresy (violation of accepted religious beliefs or doctrines) in 1638 she had already made a major impact on colonial American history.

Influenced by her father

Anne Hutchinson was born in Alford, Lincolnshire, England, in 1591. She was baptized into the Anglican faith (the official religion of England, also known as the Church of England). Her father, Anglican clergyman Francis Marbury, was imprisoned twice for rejecting church dogma (established opinion). After his second imprisonment, Marbury moved to Alford and married Bridget Dryden. Of their thirteen children, Hutchinson was the eldest daughter. Raised in a religious household, she received an education far superior to that provided to most young women of the time. She participated in religious discussions and she became familiar with church doctrine and scripture (passages from the Bible). Hutchinson was also heavily influenced by her father's rebellious spirit and his contempt for authority.

In 1605 the family moved to London, England. In 1612 Anne married William Hutchinson, an affluent businessman. Throughout their marriage, William was a devoted husband who always supported his wife's religious beliefs. After their marriage, the Hutchinsons moved to Alford, where they lived for the next twenty-two years. While living in Alford, Anne attended services at Cotton's church, St. Botolph's in Boston, Lincolnshire. Between 1613 and 1630 Hutchinson gave birth to twelve children. Three of those children died and, beginning in 1631, she had three more. Her last child was born in 1636, after the family had moved to the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Lincolnshire, center of religious reform

While living in Alford, Lincolnshire, England, Anne Hutchinson was consumed by the thriving religious environment. At the time Lincolnshire was a center for Puritans and other reforming Anglicans who challenged the dogma of traditional churches. Thus laymen who felt they had received grace gathered together informally to discuss sermons, debate passages of scripture, and pray without the presence of ordained ministers. Women played a particularly active role in these assemblies. Hutchinson took this opportunity to hone her natural intellect and leadership skills.

Inspired by Covenant of Grace

At the time Hutchinson began attending St. Botolph's Church, Cotton was attempting to modify Puritan doctrine. One of the central doctrines of Puritanism was the belief that salvation could be earned only through good works, such as self-sacrifice, charity, and moral behavior. This was known to many as the Covenant of Works. Hutchinson was inspired by Cotton's emphasis upon the Covenant of Grace rather than the Covenant of Works. According to the Covenant of Grace, a Christian believer could gain salvation (be saved from sins) through direct communication with God. This doctrine became popular because it freed people from performing good works in order to earn salvation. Cotton insisted, however, that his followers continue doing good works. Although Hutchinson believed in the Covenant of Grace, she took the idea much further than Cotton intended.

Hutchinson believed that individuals who had achieved grace were the actual embodiment of the spirit of God. Therefore, according to Hutchinson, the Covenant of Grace made the Covenant of Works unnecessary. If individuals had this special connection with God, then good works were not required to gain salvation. The problem with Hutchinson's theory was that it verged upon Antimonian heresy (the belief that faith alone is enough to gain salvation), which stated that Christians were free from the moral obligations of the Old Testament (a part of the Bible). Puritan leaders feared that if the Covenant of Works became obsolete, then the power of religious officials would become obsolete as well, since they decided who was saved or not. Hutchinson's adherence to the Covenant of Grace can be attributed to the death of two of her daughters in 1630 and the later death of her father. She claimed to have received divine revelation from God stating that she was saved from sin during these experiences.

Holds controversial meetings

Because of his nonconformist views, Cotton was forced out of his ministry in England in 1633. He then fled to the Massachusetts Bay Colony and took a position at the Puritan church in Boston. After Cotton was gone, Hutchinson announced to her family that God had instructed her to follow him. A year later the Hutchinsons left England on board the Griffin. In September 1634 they arrived in Boston, where William Hutchinson entered into the textile trade. His eventual success propelled the Hutchinson family into a prominent position in the community. Anne Hutchinson's kind manner and skills as a midwife (a person who assists women during childbirth) made her popular with affluent Boston women. During this time she became aware of their overwhelming belief in the Covenant of Works.

Determined to promote the Covenant of Grace, Hutchinson held private meetings for both men and women in her home. These gatherings usually began with a calm discussion of Cotton's sermons. Then, because of Hutchinson's acute intellect, she would be asked to explain some of the more confusing tenets (principles or doctrines) of Puritanism. Finally, her religious fervor would take over, and she often became careless in presenting her own ideas and labeling them as Cotton's. The meetings became quite popular among wealthy Bostonians. Before long, Hutchinson had many followers who believed in her version, rather than Cotton's, of the Covenant of Grace.

Hutchinson conducted her meetings without interruption until 1635, when the prominent Puritan clergyman John Wilson returned to Boston from England. Hutchinson did not agree with Wilson's sermons, so she informed her followers that he was simply preaching another version of the Covenant of Works. Then she announced that most Massachusetts clergymen were promoting this doctrine. The only exceptions, she said, were Cotton and her brother-in-law, John Wheelwright, both of whom preached the Covenant of Grace. Soon Hutchinson had created a division between her followers and traditional Puritans. The rift rapidly spread through the entire colony, becoming a serious threat to the survival of the settlement in 1637, when her male followers refused to fight in the Pequot War. (The Pequot War broke out when the Puritans, in retaliation for the murder of two English traders by Native Americans, nearly exterminated the Pequot tribe.) Alarmed at her growing power, Puritan officials immediately charged Hutchinson with heresy.

Tried for heresy

Although Hutchinson was the principal agitator in the Puritan conflict, she was not the first to be punished. In March 1637 Wheelwright was brought before the General Court and charged with sedition (resistance against lawful authority). It was not until September 1637 that a church synod (advisory council) finally condemned Hutchinson for her religious beliefs. By this time, she had lost much of her support. For instance, after John Winthrop (see entry) was elected governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, several of Hutchinson's followers were removed from public office. Furthermore, Cotton was unwilling to sacrifice his religious beliefs and his power in the colony and sided with the church instead of Hutchinson. Wheelwright, her only remaining ally, was banished from (required to leave) the colony in November 1637.

After Wheelwright was banished, Hutchinson was brought before the General Court and accused of "traducing [exposing to shame or blame by means of falsehood and misrepresentation] the ministers and their ministry." The judge read the charges: "You are called hither as one of those who have had a great share in the causes of our public disturbances, partly by those erroneous opinions which you have broached and divulged amongst us, and maintaining them, partly by countenancing and encouraging such as have sowed seditions amongst us, partly by casting reproach upon the faithful." She was further accused of undermining the "Ministers of this Country . . . and so weakening their hands in the work of the Lord, and raising prejudice against them, in the hearts of their people, and partly by maintaining weekly and public meetings in your house, to the offence of all the Country, and the detriment of many families, and still upholding the same, since such meetings were clearly condemned in the late general Assembly." Hutchinson was also charged with violating laws that forbade her, as a woman, to teach men or people older than herself and prohibited her from speaking in public. She countered each of these accusations, stating that she did not have to answer to the court, only to God.

Banned from colony

At one point during the trial, Hutchinson was nearly cleared of all charges. Then she announced that she had received a direct revelation from God. This was clearly a heretical claim because Puritan leaders believed that God spoke to humans only through the Bible. The frightened judges immediately ruled that Hutchinson was to be banished from the colony. She would be allowed to remain through the winter, but she was to be placed in the custody of deputy Joseph Weld of Roxbury. Despite Weld's attempts to persuade her to renounce her rebellious views, Hutchinson continued to speak out against the church.

Hutchinson's heresy trial

In 1637 and 1638 Anne Hutchinson was tried for heresy by the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, which accused her of "traducing the [Puritan] ministers and their ministry." Ultimately found guilty, she was excommunicated from the Congregationalist (Puritan) Church and banished from the colony. Following is an excerpt from the trial, in which Hutchinson defended herself against charges of violating laws that prohibited her from holding public meetings:

Court: " . . . what say you to your weekly public meetings? can you show a warrant for them?"

Hutchinson: "I will show you how I took it up, there were such meetings in use before I came, and because I went to none of them, this was the special reason of my taking up this course, we began it but with five or six, and though it grew to more in future time, yet being tolerated at the first, I knew not why it might not continue."

Court: "There were private meetings indeed, and are still in many places, of some few neighbours, but not so public and frequent as yours, and are of use for increase of love, and mutual edification, but yours are of another nature, if they had been such as yours they had been evil, and therefore no good warrant to justify yours; but answer by what authority, or rule, you uphold them."

Hutchinson: " . . . where the elder women are to teach the younger."

Court: "So we allow you to do . . . privately, and upon occasion, but that gives no warrant of such set meetings for that purpose; and besides, you take upon you to teach many that are elder than yourself, neither do you teach them that which the Apostle commands [namely] to keep at home."

Hutchinson: "Will you please to give me a rule against it, and I will yield?"

Court: "You must have a rule for it, or else you cannot do it in faith, yet you have a plain rule against it; I permit not a woman to teach."

Hutchinson: "That is meant of teaching men."

Court: "If a man in distress of conscience or other temptation, &c. should come and ask your counsel in private, might you not teach him?"

Hutchinson: "Yes."

Court: "Then it is clear, that it is not meant of teaching men, but of teaching in public."

Hutchinson: "It is said, I will pour my Spirit upon your Daughters, and they shall prophesier &c. If God give me a gift of Prophecy, I may use it."

Reprinted in: Kupperman, Karen Ordahl, ed. Major Problems in American Colonial History. Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath and Company, 1993, pp. 159–62.

When Hutchinson was brought to trial again in March 1638, she failed to convince the judges that she had genuinely repented (expressed regret for her behavior). She was therefore formally excommunicated (excluded her from the rights of the church) from the Congregational (Puritan) Church. Hutchinson left Massachusetts with her family and moved to a settlement on the island of Aquidneck in Narragansett Bay. She was followed by more than eighty families of supporters who had also been excommunicated for believing in Hutchinson's views. Among them was Quaker dissenter (a religious nonconformist) Mary Dyer (see entry), who was executed for heresy in Boston two decades later. After William Hutchinson died in 1642, Anne Hutchinson moved with her six youngest children to the Dutch colony of New Netherland (now New York). They settled in Pelham Bay Park (now the Bronx section of New York City, near the Hutchinson River, which was named for Anne Hutchinson). The following year Hutchinson and five of her children were attacked and killed by Native Americans.

Movement has lasting impact

Hutchinson was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for reasons other than purely religious. Her accusers were also concerned about the impact of her teachings on the social structure of the colony. By adhering to the Covenant of Grace, Hutchinson taught that individuals could act as they chose because they had already received the grace of God. But the Massachusetts colony was founded on the Covenant of Works, and Puritan leaders were always striving to become more pious (virtuous). By attracting believers to the Covenant of Grace, Hutchinson thus undermined the very foundation of the colony. Many leaders feared her teachings would lessen their power over citizens. Her accusers labeled her an anarchist (one who rebels against any authority) and some even thought she was a witch (one who is thought to have supernatural powers). Many historians contend that she was not an advocate of religious freedom because she did not tolerate other views. The movement inspired by Hutchinson, however, left an indelible mark on colonial American history.

For further research

Crawford, Deborah. Four Women in a Violent Time: Anne Hutchinson (1591–1643), Mary Dyer (1591?–1660), Lady Deborah Moody (1660–1659), Penelope Stout (1622–1732). New York: Crown Publishers, 1970.

Faber, Doris. Anne Hutchinson. Champaign, IL: Garrard Publishing Co., 1970.

Kupperman, Karen Ordahl, ed. Major Problems in American Colonial History. Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath and Company, 1993, pp. 159–62.

Williams, Selma R. Divine Rebel: The Life of Anne Marbury Hutchinson. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1981.