Anne Hutchinson's Life - Research Paper Example

Anne Hutchinson: Ahead of Her Time Although women came to America expecting some of the same liberties and freedoms their men fought and died for both in England and in the new world of America, it was a very long time before they were able to enjoy the rights and freedoms they enjoy today. This is because Puritans who settled in Colonial America created laws and customs relating to women’s roles that were, in some cases, more stringent than those that existed in England at the time. This traditional, patriarchal society was intent on punishing women who did not conform to the prescribed ‘norms’ of the Puritan culture. A well-documented example is women who would not marry again following the death of their husband. Choosing to be a single woman was considered by the Puritans to be disregarding ‘God’s will.’ These women were looked upon suspiciously and this choice heightened the chance that they would be accused of being a witch. Many of the rights and freedoms enjoyed by women today were brought about by women recognized for their courage and their ability to stand up for their gender such as Mary Wollstonecraft, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Queen Victoria. However, there were many women involved in these early migrations to the new continent who held many of the same concepts regarding women’s true proper place in society. One of these women was Anne Hutchinson, a woman truly ahead of her time. Biography Hutchinson began her life in England and traveled through Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Netherlands, now the Bronx in New York before being killed there by Indians in one of the many disputes between natives and settlers that occurred during that time. She was baptized as Anne Marbury in Alford, Lincolnshire, England on July 20, 1591 with her parents Francis and Bridget (Dryden) Marbury proudly taking part (Anderson, 1999: 479). Her father was a minister, but had conflicting views with the strict doctrine of the church and his questioning of authority was perhaps one of the strongest influences in Anne’s later decisions. The prevalent views on education for women at that time focused on ensuring the girl would be able to properly care for her home and family, but Anne’s parents saw to it that she had access to all of the books in her father’s library and took care to ensure she was well educated in a number of areas. She was also permitted to reach a more mature age for marriage, not marrying William (Will) Hutchinson until she was 21. The couple was married on August 9, 1612 at St. Mary Woolnoth in London (Anderson, 1999: 479). Throughout this period, Anne and her family had been following the teachings of John Cotton, whose views were strongly similar to those of Anne’s father, both of them having particular difficulty with the structure of the church’s hierarchical structure (Ziff, 1962: 179). Cotton was forced to leave England by the persecution of the Church of England authorities under the leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury and left England in 1633 for the Massachusetts Bay Colony with a group of followers. Anne and her family followed him a year later with another large group of colonists who felt strongly about Cotton’s concepts (Humpherey, 1919: 18). Up to this point in her life, there were no outward signs of Anne’s nonconformance other than her unusually strong education; in all other respects she did as was expected. The Puritan Woman However, Anne Hutchinson was already a woman ahead of her time in her strong opinions regarding the nature of womanhood regardless of the teachings of John Cotton or anyone else. According to Fraser (2000), most of the New England colonies adhered to a strongly similar structure that was perhaps even more confining than the structures they had left behind in England, particularly for women, particularly in Massachusetts and Connecticut. Publicly, Puritan women were prevented from owning property; they could not negotiate their own contracts or even keep any of their own wages. “Before the middle of the nineteenth century, the property rights of American married women followed the dictates of common law, under which everything a woman owned became her husband’s property upon her marriage” (“Married Women’s Property Acts”, 2006). These restrictions on what a woman could do or own were partly due to the fact that most women were not considered intelligent enough to consider all the consequences involved in managing business or political situations, itself a consequence of common denial of education for the female gender. The observed religious traditions that guided the patriarchal family order also allowed wives only a small authoritative role within the family unit. For instance, mothers were trusted and expected to pass along the teachings of the Puritans and Christianity to the children. Husbands could, and often did, entrust their wives to handle various legal and financial matters of the household or family farm but the extent of power the wife possessed always remained at her husband’s discretion. Wives that happily accepted their role and conformed to Puritan societal standards were openly referred to and addressed as ‘goodwife.’ However, the authoritative figure in the family and throughout all facets of Puritan society was clearly the man. The only role that wives were permitted to hold in the male dominated public psyche was caring for children and completing household chores, at all times subordinate to their husbands. Though it was customary for Puritan men to show a general respect for women and they were thought of as handy helpmates in the household, the majority of men were deeply suspicious of women. Thought of as the physical, intellectual and emotionally weaker gender, they were thus more likely to give in to the temptations of the Devil. Women were the images of Eve, lustful for sexual gratification, power and money. This common view of Puritan men “made women susceptible to charges of witchcraft, particularly those who stood to inherit large estates that would have endowed them with uncommon economic influence” (Karlsen, 1987: 52). Women were, by and large, expected to accept this subservient position regardless of her natural inclinations. She was required to accept the concept that she was, as a woman, a curse to society and accept the punishment she was due. However, Anne Hutchinson refused to accept this position. Presumably at no point in her life did Anne Hutchinson accept these definitions of herself or the attitude she was expected to adopt. According to Robert Ellsberg (1997), there is a good chance that the reasons Hutchinson was eventually brought to trial and banishment from the colony was the result of her unwillingness to accept this social position. She had a strong tendency to speak her mind regardless of the social context, which was not well received by the entirely male-dominated hierarchy of the Puritan church in Massachusetts who had had little or no experience with outspoken women to that point. In her criticisms regarding her society and her place within it, Hutchinson frequently denounced the practices, policies and codes of the church and state government which had been sufficient in the past to earn previous detractors exile from the colony within living memory. Roger Williams, for example, spoke out about many of these same issues and had been banished from the colony in 1634, the year after Hutchinson’s arrival, as a result of his outspoken beliefs regarding the separation of church and state and the need for religious toleration (Miller, 1953). There were two elements that seemed most likely to have been the cause of Hutchinson’s later troubles: first, her outspoken rejection of the view that women were a curse and her contention that she was instead a blessing and second, that she had begun to gather a large following among those individuals who also had difficulty with the strict rigors of colony government. Hutchinson’s Impact in her Society Hutchinson was a strong advocate for women’s rights as human beings. Her belief that she was as valid as her male counterparts was supported by her own interpretations of the Bible, which she began discussing with her neighbors and friends. She felt her Bible studies were enhanced by ‘divine inspiration’ and freely allowed others to know of her beliefs. Although her philosophy was largely based on Puritan doctrine, she felt strongly that the strict social order and connections between the church and the governing bodies was too close. Her greatest criticisms were reserved for the way in which women were treated within their society, gaining her powerful enemies within the Puritan and Church of England faiths, particularly among the clergy as well as with the governing body of the Massachusetts Bay Colony (Ellsberg, 1997). Because her ideas were not accepted within the church, Hutchinson began hosting informal Bible studies discussions in her home that challenged traditional concepts and explored potential meanings. Although these meetings were initially comprised of mostly women, Hutchinson’s message was inclusive of men as well and she soon began drawing a large audience. “Driven by her intense faith, Hutchinson had begun having meetings in her home, for both women and men, to discuss the Bible and its teachings. She believed that God could speak directly to anyone and did not communicate only through ministers. The popularity of her message was perceived as dangerous by the government and the clergy” (Stille, 10). The discussions reportedly concerned subjects such as the plight of the Native American people as they were treated by the colonists, religious tolerance and the importance of questioning and the ‘official’ interpretation of the story of Adam and Eve, in which women first gained their status as the source of all sin in the world (Ellsberg, 1997). This necessarily also caused her to question the authority of the clergy as it was potentially founded on false interpretations as her meetings became more and more like informal church sessions. In her sermons, Hutchinson constantly applied her own personal interpretations of the Bible to the social issues of her time as they were brought up or suggested themselves to her through divine inspiration. Her intelligent thought and outspoken manner quickly attracted numerous people to hear her message, including Sir Henry Vane, the future governor of the colony by 1636 (Ellsberg, 1997). As more and more people heard about Hutchinson’s meetings, they began arriving at her home, flooding the rooms and spilling outdoors. Because of this crowd, which reportedly reached to as many as 80 people trying to squeeze into the small space of a Puritan home, Hutchinson found she had to move her meetings to the local church instead. Although she had already drawn a great deal of concerned attention on the part of the clergy because of her message, this move to the church was a physical challenge to the structures as they existed and Hutchinson began earning unflattering appraisal from the official church leaders. While the ministers preached on those passages of the Bible that indicated women’s voices should be silent, Hutchinson responded with other passages such as that Titus 2, “Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted too much wine, but to teach what is good” (New International Version, Titus 2:3). As the pressure increased, Hutchinson began supporting the ideas of the covenant of grace that was the foundation of the Protestant Reformation and taught by John Calvin instead of the covenant of works which was emphasized by the Puritan faith (Humpherey, 1919). This seems like a relatively minor shift, but it was actually quite profound. The covenant of grace suggests that faith alone is necessary for salvation of God and suggests that the individual has direct access to God rather than requiring the intervention of the clergy. This directly conflicted with the views of people such as John Cotton and John Winthrop who believed in a covenant of works in which the individual had to perform specific tasks and actions of atonement in order to achieve the grace of God. Coming to Trial Throughout Hutchinson’s life in Massachusetts, she gathered a great number of people who shared her viewpoints, at least to a greater degree than they shared the viewpoints of the official church. According to Ellsberg (1997), the recognized clergy had begun referring to her as a jezebel and an abominable woman by summer 1636. While she had had some protection from full legal intervention thanks to her friend, Sir Henry Vane, being the governor of the colony until this point, Vane was replaced by John Winthrop in this year who was staunchly opposed to her ideas. Essentially, Winthrop “considered her a threat to his city set on a hill” and insisted the meetings she held were a “thing not tolerable nor comely in the sight of God, nor fitting for [her] sex” (Gomes, 2002). Although she continued to insist to the governor that she received her information from a divine source, in a vision in which the Lord sat “upon a Throne of Justice, and all the world appearing before him, and though I must come to New England, yet I must not fear nor be dismayed” (Crawford, 1970), Winthrop continued to insist her behavior and message were heretical and her vision the result of delusion. The trial of Anne Hutchinson was opened in 1638 in the General Court of Massachusetts. The trial was presided over by Winthrop himself and included government officials and members of the Puritan clergy. Hutchinson was given the charge of ‘traducing the ministers’. Traduce is a term that is defined as “to cause humiliation or disgrace to by making malicious and false statements” (“Traduce”, 2003). Although the woman was already 46 years old and was relatively far along in her 15th pregnancy, Hutchinson was required to stand for days at a time in front of these male accusers as they continuously attempted to get her to admit secret ‘malicious and false statements’ she had never uttered directly against them. By encouraging dissent among the population against the strict confinements of the church and government, the men also began accusing Hutchinson of breaking the Bible’s fifth commandment, “honor thy father and thy mother,” as she encouraged people to think less of the ‘fathers’ of the commonwealth. At the same time, women who spent time attending Hutchinson’s meetings were said to be neglecting their duties to their husbands, children and homes rather than honoring the tenets they’d been given by their parents (Ellsberg, 1997). A Case of Defense Although Anne demonstrated a great deal of skill and intelligence in defending her own actions in court, there was never any chance she was going to escape without punishment. She had violated the most sacred belief of the Puritan faith, that women were the cause and the source of all sin and therefore must be punished and accept this punishment into eternity in her boldness in being able and willing to speak for herself. Conceding that she would never convince her accusers that she was following God’s will, she finally told them, “you have no power over my body, neither can you do me any harme, for I am in the hands of the eternall Jehovah my Saviour, I am at his appointment, the bounds of my habitation are cast in heaven, no further doe I esteeme of any mortal man than creatures in his hand, I feare none but the great Jehovah, which hath foretold me of these things, and I doe verily believe that he will deliver me out of your hands, therefore take heed how you proceed against me; for I know that for this you goe about to doe to me, God will ruine you and your posterity and this whole state” (Adams, 1894: 175). No one took her prediction seriously while her anger and defiance served to incite the anger of her accusers. One minister told her, “You have stepped out of your place, you had rather been a husband than a wife, a preacher than a hearer, and a magistrate rather than a subject” (Adams, 1894: 175) and Hutchinson was predictably condemned. It was August 1637 when Hutchinson was officially banished from the colony as “a woman not fit for our society” (Crawford, 1970: 146). However, she wasn’t able to leave immediately because this was just the civil trial. She had yet to face her religious accusers. Religious Judgment Hutchinson’s religious trial was held at the First Church in Boston in March of 1638, accusing the woman of blasphemy and of lewd and lascivious conduct because she had both men and women at her home during her meetings. Hutchinson herself was held in house arrest while she awaited this trial and as her accusers deliberated the case. During this period, Hutchinson lost her unborn child in a miscarriage, presumably as a result of the great stress she’d been subjected to, as did a close friend and follower, Mary Dyer. A number of her critics celebrated the losses, claiming they were evidence of the judgment of God upon the woman who would question the Puritan church (Rothbard, 1975). They were also unrelenting in harassing Hutchinson’s followers who remained in Boston as a further means of reducing her support and punishing her for her boldness. As compared to the civil trial, the religious trial was relatively quick, with Hutchinson’s accusers reaching their decision by April. Unsurprisingly, the verdict was guilty and the vote among Hutchinson’s accusers was to excommunicate her from the church. Their decision might have been hastened by Hutchinson’s standing banishment and her own abject refusal of any attempts at reconciliation. According to Rothbard (1975), the church had sent a number of delegates to her home to try to convert Hutchinson back to the Puritan cause, but she threw them out of her home called their church “a whore and a strumpet.” As soon as the trial was over, Hutchinson was expected to leave her home forever and depended upon her husband and several of her followers to ensure she had a place to go. Colony Founding More than just standing out as a woman ahead of her time in her crusade for women’s recognition and religious freedom, Hutchinson also demonstrated civic ability as she is frequently credited with having founded new colonies in what would become the United States. As this discussion demonstrates, her accomplishment was brought about to a great deal by necessity as she was first banished from her own colony and her church, meaning she could go to no other Puritan colonies for succor, and as a result of the efforts of her husband and followers concerned with providing her with the new home she would require. The colony was actually established by 19 men, including Anne’s husband, who met on March 7, 1638 at the home of William Coddington, a wealthy Boston merchant, where they elected their host the new judge and made plans for where they would move. According to Rothbard (1975), the group had considered Jersey and Long Island as potential locations, but one of the men, Roger Williams, owned land in Rhode Island and already had a settlement there. He argued that the land was good and full of resources and there was plenty of room for a new town. Coddington was able to purchase the entire island of Aquidneck from the Indians and the Hutchinsonians were able to relocate to what they now called Pocasset (Rothbard, 1975). The town they founded continues to exist today, but it is now known as Portsmouth. As the new settlement was being constructed and before Anne had had a chance to join them, Judge Coddington began to assert his interpretations of proper governance. Rather than considering the type of separation of church and state that had been a part of Hutchinson’s earlier training. The way he envisioned himself seemed somewhat akin to the position of a feudal lord, dictating to his subjects in every aspect of life, including religion and government (Rothbard, 1975). When Anne was able to join the colony, she spearheaded an effort to amend the settlement’s constitution in order to provide the inhabitants with the ability to veto actions of the governor as well as established a second branch of government. This second branch of government was comprised of a council of three ‘elders’ who would share the powers of the governor and serve as a means of reducing his ability to dictate policy or theism. With this amendment freshly signed, Hutchinson then led the people in demanding that the settlement hold a new election, both to establish the council elders and to ratify the position of the governor. Coddington had no choice but to submit and lost the election to William Hutchinson. Unable to face his neighbors after his loss of power, Coddington and several of his more loyal followers left the new colony and established Newport on the other end of the island. The change in governance in Pocasset was celebrated with an entirely new name – Portsmouth (Rothbart, 1975). The new government established also included provisions protecting the right to a trial by jury and a clear separation between church and state. The battle over Portsmouth wasn’t over yet, though. Early in 1639, Coddington returned to Portsmouth with an army, demanding that he be returned to power. Although the colony put up a decent defense, they eventually fell to Coddington’s forces. Peace was re-established on March 12, 1640 when Newport and Portsmouth signed an agreement to unite with Coddington as governor and William Hutchinson as one of the governor’s advisors. Despite their union, each town would retain its own laws which would be created by the citizens (Rothbart, 1975). While this arrangement seemed to work for a little while, Anne soon began having her doubts again. Her meditations on the scriptures as well as her conscience developed further by watching the new system at work convinced her that the proper state of man could only be found in individualist anarchism (Rothbart, 1975). This was a system of belief in which it is held that the individual, rather than the state, the church or any other entity, was best suited for determining the proper course of action for him or herself. Within this belief system, she came to the conclusion that to hold a position of power and authority over others, such as the position her husband occupied, was therefore against the rule of God. It was due to this belief that she encouraged her husband to give up his position as magistrate, which he did. Final Days After William Hutchinson gave up his position as magistrate, the couple lived relatively quietly for a short time in Portsmouth. They continued to be involved with the community, Anne continued to discuss her ideas regarding the Bible and the messages it contained and they raised their children. In 1643, William Hutchinson died and Anne had no heart to remain in Portsmouth. Together with several of her children, she decided to move to a place called Pelham Bay. It was a part of the Dutch territory then known as New Netherland. Like Portsmouth, it is an area that can still be found today under a new name. Many would be surprised to learn that this was the remote beginning of the Bronx neighborhood of New York. Anne’s move was highly ill-advised. At this period in time, the Indians of the region were involved in a number of skirmishes with the Dutch that became collectively referred to as Kieft’s War (LaPlante, 2004). Anne’s family arrived just in time for a surprise attack on the town. Entering Pelham Bay on the pretext of friendship in mimicry of the white man’s tactics, the Indians suddenly turned to the attack, killing indiscriminately. In spite of the fact that she had spent much of her adult life speaking out against the way in which the Indians had been treated by the colonists, preached for greater religious tolerance that would have included the nature-based traditions of the Indians and been friendly to this particular tribe, Hutchinson and almost all of her family were killed during the attack. Only one daughter, Susanna, survived the attack. The youngest of the family, she was taken captive instead and spent many years living with the Indians until her family back in the Bay Colony arranged to ransom her back. According to LaPlante (2004), the girl made it clear that she did not want to leave her Indian captors to return to the Puritan colony, but she had little option. Eight years later, in 1651, she married John Cole and the couple moved to Rhode Island to re-establish Hutchinson presence in the colony and demonstrating that she had learned a significant amount of strength from her mother. Conclusion Throughout her life, Anne Hutchinson proved herself a woman ahead of her time in a number of ways. At a time when women were legislatively weak and powerless, she proved herself to have a power and strength difficult to match even today. She braved a trip across the ocean during the time of sailing ships in order to discover a world in which she would not be so constricted by the governmental enforcement of religious ideology only to discover a world in which many of these ideas were perhaps even more rigid and controlled. Rather than resigning herself to her fate, Hutchinson proceeded to talk, making her opinions known and exploring her ideas with others. She refused to allow these ideas to remain limited by the strict structures of the colony or the social expectations of a woman and refused to be defined by the narrow views of the church elders. Thus, she became a champion of women’s equal rights as well as a spokesperson for greater freedoms within the colonies. As a part of her discussions, the views of her religion were necessarily taken into account as religion played an important role in every aspect of a Puritan’s life. Refusing the interpretations of the church elders, all of whom were men with a special kind of attitude toward the ‘proper’ role of women, Hutchinson preferred to interpret the Bible and its lessons for herself. Because her interpretations made a great deal of sense to other colonists who shared many of her concerns, Hutchinson began acquiring a number of followers which led to her persecution and eventual banishment from her society. Despite her medical condition, age and supposed weaknesses incurred by her gender, she was able to withstand the treatment she received and defend herself with intelligence and dignity. Upon banishment, she then became the only woman to have ever founded a new colony, today recognized as the co-founder of Rhode Island together with Roger Williams. The government she helped to establish in Rhode Island contained many of the elements we cherish today in our government – a separation of church and state, the right to a trial by jury, the need to have citizens be involved in the political structure and the concept of a multi-branched government in which checks and balances are built in. Works Cited Adams, Charles Francis (Ed.). Antinomianism in the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, 1636-1638. The Prince Society, 1894. Anderson, Robert. The Great Migration. Boston: New England History Genealogical Society, 1999. Crawford, Deborah. Four Women in a Violent Time. New York: Crown Publishers, 1970. Ellsberg, Robert. All Saints: Daily Reflections on Saints, Prophets and Witnesses for Our Time. New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1997. Fraser, James W. Between Church and State. Palgrave Macmillan, 2000. Gomes, Peter. “Anne Hutchinson.” Harvard Magazine. November 2002. Humpherey, Grace. Women in American History. Bobbs-Merrill, 1919. Karlsen, Carol F. The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1998. LaPlante, Eve. American Jezebel: The Uncommon Life of Anne Hutchinson, The Woman Who Defied the Puritans. San Francisco: Harper Publishers, 2004. “Married Women’s Property Acts.” Reader’s Companion to American History. (February 2007). Houghton Mifflin Company. April 29, 2009 Miller, Perry. Roger Williams: A Contribution to the American Tradition. Indianapolis & New York: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1953. New International Version of The Holy Bible. International Bible Society, 1973. Stille, Darlene R. Anne Hutchinson. New York: Compass Point Books, 2006. “Traduce.” American Heritage Dictionary. Fourth Ed. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2003. Ziff, Larzer. The Career of John Cotton: Puritanism and the American Experience. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1962 Read More