Anne Hutchinson as an Influential Leader in Movement for Feminism and Religious Toleration

Anne Hutchinson

In the seventeenth century, Massachusetts was heavily religious with church and state closely intertwined. The Puritans came to New England in 1630 to escape England and the pressures of those preventing them from pursuing their beliefs. They built Massachusetts not on ideas of religious freedom, but on the premise that they could finally decide what aspects of their faith were acceptable, and which were not. Massachusetts law stated that any person who worshipped a god besides the Lord God, was a practitioner of witchcraft, or who committed blasphemy would be prescribed the death penalty. The mindsets of the puritans of Massachusetts allowed for no religious tolerance or minor differences amongst religious views. This school of thought was challenged by people such as Rodger Williams, who believed that all citizens should be allowed the freedom to practice the religion of their choosing without concern for retaliation from those of different belief systems. Another challenger to the Puritan’s system, Anne Hutchinson, the daughter of a clergy man, generated lots of attention in her efforts towards building religious tolerance. Due to her gender, and large following, Hutchinson was viewed a threat to the Puritan church and its establishment.

In 1634, Anne Hutchinson arrived in Boston, Massachusetts with her husband, to follow their minister John Cotton, who had just been expelled from his pulpit in England. Anne, as most puritans, believed that salvation was not earned, and you could never do anything to receive it. She believed instead, that salvation was a direct gift from God, handed down to those chosen. As Cotton began holding sermons, Anne started to host weekly meetings in her home for those who wanted to further the discussion of the sermons. As her views began to drift from that of the colony’s ministers, her own following increased as well. Originally, the governor of Massachusetts, John Winthrop stated that Anne’s meetings were “ordinary talk…about the things of the Kingdom of God,” and that she as an individual conducted herself “in the way of righteousness and kindness.”

However, she began to challenge the ministers of Massachusetts on the cause that salvation is not something that could be earned through moral correctness or attendance to the church, and believed that nearly all the ministers of Massachusetts were guilty of false preaching for separating the “saints” from the damned on things other than ones inner state of grace. Hutchinson and her followers became known as “free grace advocates”, as they followed John Cotton who stressed “the inevitability of God's will”, or his “free grace.” While Anne and the free grace advocates continued to challenge the orthodox views the ministers of the colony held, John Wilson, the minister of The First Church of Boston, responded negatively. In his journal, Governor John Winthrop wrote, “One Mrs. Hutchinson, a member of the church at Boston, a woman of a ready wit and a bold spirit, brought over with her two dangerous errors: 1. That the person of the Holy Ghost dwells in a justified person. 2. That no sanctification can help to evidence to us our justification.”

Starting with a meeting of the ministers in October 1636, and ending with Anne Hutchinson’s trial, the Antinomian Controversy lasted 17 months. As the controversy between the free grace advocates and the ministers views deepened, Anne Hutchinson and her followers were charged with Antinomianism . By March of 1637, the tides began to turn with the conviction of John Wheelwright and the trials of some free grace advocates.

The Antinomian Controversy ended with Anne Hutchinson’s trial. The trial began as John Winthrop spoke, ‘But you have spoken divers things as we have been informed very prejudicial to the honor of the churches and ministers thereof, and you have maintained a meeting and an assembly in your house that hath been condemned by the general assembly as a thing not tolerable nor comely in the sight of God nor fitting for your sex…’ Ultimately, the church focused largely on showing that all of the negative beliefs Anne held outweighed the good that she had done, and that she was a danger to the community. Resulting in a sentence bestowed on her by Reverend John Wilson, who she had once ridiculed. He spoke:

Forasmuch as you, Mrs. Hutchinson, have highly transgressed and offended ... and troubled the Church with your Errors and have drawen away many a poor soule, and have upheld your Revelations; and forasmuch as you have made a Lye ... Therefor in the name of our Lord Je[sus] Ch[rist] ... I doe cast you out and ... deliver you up to Sathan ... and account you from this time forth to be a Hethen and a Publican ... I command you in the name of Ch[rist] Je[sus] and of this Church as a Leper to withdraw your selfe out of the Congregation.

Anne was then excommunicated from the church and banished from the colony. Her followers were removed from their churches, and banished from the colony as well. She later moved to New Netherland, where her family (all but one daughter) was killed in a Siwanoy Indian raid.

Due to the close link between church and state, Anne’s threat to the Puritan Church was viewed not only as a challenge to them, but to the government as well. Because she was a woman, Anne’s case was particularly bad. She was breaking both religious and social guidelines, by taking a man’s role as a teacher, minister, magistrate and husband. Because her social crimes exceeded her unorthodox views, it was easy to pin a charge on her. Historian Michael Winship writes, "Hutchinson's well-publicized trials and the attendant accusations against her made her the most famous, or infamous, English woman in colonial American history." Due to her large following, and her challenges towards the church officials, Anne Hutchinson is viewed as a highly influential leader in the global movement for feminism and religious toleration.