HUTCHINSON, ANNE MARBURY
(1591, Alford, England-August or September 1643, New Netherlands Colony). Education: unknown. Career: housewife and mother, best known as religious radical and central figure in the Antinomian Crisis in Massachusetts Bay.
Anne Hutchinson is one of those legendary figures who appeals so much to a later age that we can easily lose track of her significance in her own time. Because she was persecuted by the Puritans for her dissident religious views, she can be viewed as a heroine of religious toleration. And because she was a woman who inspired a religious following in an age dominated by men, she can be viewed as an early advocate of women's rights. There is truth in both of these views: religious diversity was one of the bases of religious toleration in America, and the inherent qlpacity of women to form opinions on public issaes---even in an age that discouraged such activities-is one of the bulwarks of the modem women's rights movement.
But toleration and liberation were not the goals of Anne Hutchinson's "revolt" ilJ Massachusetts. Like most religious figures of her time, she had little sympathy with views other than her own. And her assertion of self was in the name of spiritual purity, not sexual equality.
Married to a merchant in England, she bore fourteen children before immigrating to Massachusetts. In Boston, England, she had been influenced by John Cotton's* highly spiritual view of the soul and salvation, and she remained his devoted follower in the New World. In New England she gathered a group of friends in her home on Sundays af~r the church service to discuss religion, a practice generally approved by the state. But Hutchinson took the idea of spirituality a step beyond Cotton when, in 1636, she began to stress the idea of an indwelling spirit as the core of religious experience. As a logical extension of this doctrine, she claimed that many of the colony's religious leaders were under a "doctrine of works," since they allegedly placed more emphasis on good
behavior than spiritual purity.
In response, she was accused of Antinomianism, which at the time was associated with bloody religious fanaticism on the Continent. Her opponents, chief among them John Winthrop* , claimed that her doctrine threatened the religious stability of the community. She was tried before both civil and religious courts and found guilty of heretical doctrine. In particular, the authorities objected to her claim that she knew religious truth by special, personal revelation from God.
The Puritans sought to achieve a delicate balance between spirituality and order, and because Anne Hutchinson seemed to threaten that balance, she was banished to Rhode Island, where she lived for a time with other exiles from Puritan Massachusetts. She later moved to Long Island, where in 1643 she and most of her children were killed by Indians. Anne Hutchinson would later be revered as an early advocate of religious liberty and women's rights. In the 1630s her dissent contributed to a more parochial development among the Puritans-the institutionalization and regularization of piety in the doctrine of visible saints.
Bibliography
B: DAB 9, 436-37; NAW 2, 245-47; NCAB 9, 148-49; Winifred K. Rugg. Unafraid: A Life of Anne Hutchinson (Boston. 1930); Helen Augur. An American Jezebel (New York. 1930); Edith Curtis. Anne Hutchinson (Cambridge. 1930); Reginald P. Bolton, A Woman Misunderstood (New York, 1931); Emery J. Battis. Saints and Sectaries (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1962); Francis J. Bremer, ed., Anne Hutchinson, Troubler of the Puritan Zion (Huntington, N.Y., 1980); Selma R. Williams, Divine Rebel: The Life of Anne Marbury Hutchinson (New York:, 1981); "Anne Hutchinson and the Naked Christ," in David S. Lovejoy, Religious Enthusiasm in the New World (Cambridge, MA, 1985); Edmund S. Morgan, "The Case Against Anne Hutchinson." New England Quarterly. 10 (1937), 635-49; Benjamin Baker-Benfield, "Anne Hutchinson and the Puritan Attitudes Toward Women," Feminist Studies, 1 (1972). 65-96; Mary Harrower Morse. ''Two Women of Boston," New England Galaxy, 13 (1972). 69-88; Lyle Koehler, ''The Case of the American Jezebels: Anne Hutchinson and Female Agitators During the Years of Antinomian Turmoil. 1636-1640," William and Mary Quarterly, 31 (1974),55-78; Anne Fairfax Withington and Jack Schwartz, "The Political Trial of Anne Hutchinson," New England Quarterly. 51 (1978). 226-40; Stephanie Ocko, "Anne Hutchinson: 'A Verye Dangerous Woman ... • Early American Life, 10 (1979); J. F. MacIear, "Anne Hutchinson and the Moralist Heresy," New England Quarterly, 54 (1981), 74-103; Anne Jacobson Schutte, "'Such Monstrous Births': A Neglected Aspect of the Antinomian Controversy." Renaissance Quarterly, 38 (1985), 85-106.
Anne Hutchinson is one of those legendary figures who appeals so much to a later age that we can easily lose track of her significance in her own time. Because she was persecuted by the Puritans for her dissident religious views, she can be viewed as a heroine of religious toleration. And because she was a woman who inspired a religious following in an age dominated by men, she can be viewed as an early advocate of women's rights. There is truth in both of these views: religious diversity was one of the bases of religious toleration in America, and the inherent qlpacity of women to form opinions on public issaes---even in an age that discouraged such activities-is one of the bulwarks of the modem women's rights movement.
But toleration and liberation were not the goals of Anne Hutchinson's "revolt" ilJ Massachusetts. Like most religious figures of her time, she had little sympathy with views other than her own. And her assertion of self was in the name of spiritual purity, not sexual equality.
Married to a merchant in England, she bore fourteen children before immigrating to Massachusetts. In Boston, England, she had been influenced by John Cotton's* highly spiritual view of the soul and salvation, and she remained his devoted follower in the New World. In New England she gathered a group of friends in her home on Sundays af~r the church service to discuss religion, a practice generally approved by the state. But Hutchinson took the idea of spirituality a step beyond Cotton when, in 1636, she began to stress the idea of an indwelling spirit as the core of religious experience. As a logical extension of this doctrine, she claimed that many of the colony's religious leaders were under a "doctrine of works," since they allegedly placed more emphasis on good
behavior than spiritual purity.
In response, she was accused of Antinomianism, which at the time was associated with bloody religious fanaticism on the Continent. Her opponents, chief among them John Winthrop* , claimed that her doctrine threatened the religious stability of the community. She was tried before both civil and religious courts and found guilty of heretical doctrine. In particular, the authorities objected to her claim that she knew religious truth by special, personal revelation from God.
The Puritans sought to achieve a delicate balance between spirituality and order, and because Anne Hutchinson seemed to threaten that balance, she was banished to Rhode Island, where she lived for a time with other exiles from Puritan Massachusetts. She later moved to Long Island, where in 1643 she and most of her children were killed by Indians. Anne Hutchinson would later be revered as an early advocate of religious liberty and women's rights. In the 1630s her dissent contributed to a more parochial development among the Puritans-the institutionalization and regularization of piety in the doctrine of visible saints.
Bibliography
B: DAB 9, 436-37; NAW 2, 245-47; NCAB 9, 148-49; Winifred K. Rugg. Unafraid: A Life of Anne Hutchinson (Boston. 1930); Helen Augur. An American Jezebel (New York. 1930); Edith Curtis. Anne Hutchinson (Cambridge. 1930); Reginald P. Bolton, A Woman Misunderstood (New York, 1931); Emery J. Battis. Saints and Sectaries (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1962); Francis J. Bremer, ed., Anne Hutchinson, Troubler of the Puritan Zion (Huntington, N.Y., 1980); Selma R. Williams, Divine Rebel: The Life of Anne Marbury Hutchinson (New York:, 1981); "Anne Hutchinson and the Naked Christ," in David S. Lovejoy, Religious Enthusiasm in the New World (Cambridge, MA, 1985); Edmund S. Morgan, "The Case Against Anne Hutchinson." New England Quarterly. 10 (1937), 635-49; Benjamin Baker-Benfield, "Anne Hutchinson and the Puritan Attitudes Toward Women," Feminist Studies, 1 (1972). 65-96; Mary Harrower Morse. ''Two Women of Boston," New England Galaxy, 13 (1972). 69-88; Lyle Koehler, ''The Case of the American Jezebels: Anne Hutchinson and Female Agitators During the Years of Antinomian Turmoil. 1636-1640," William and Mary Quarterly, 31 (1974),55-78; Anne Fairfax Withington and Jack Schwartz, "The Political Trial of Anne Hutchinson," New England Quarterly. 51 (1978). 226-40; Stephanie Ocko, "Anne Hutchinson: 'A Verye Dangerous Woman ... • Early American Life, 10 (1979); J. F. MacIear, "Anne Hutchinson and the Moralist Heresy," New England Quarterly, 54 (1981), 74-103; Anne Jacobson Schutte, "'Such Monstrous Births': A Neglected Aspect of the Antinomian Controversy." Renaissance Quarterly, 38 (1985), 85-106.