What was anne hutchinson accused of

Initially, historians thought the attack was in response to whites taking Indian lands, however, some historians also speculate that it may have been provoked by Puritans. Today a river and a highway in that area bear the Hutchinson name. MLA - Michals, Debra. Natonal Women's History Museum, Date accessed. Chicago- Michals, Debra. Anne Hutchinson at the Court of Newton. Anne Marbury Hutchinson. Ditmore, Michael G. William and Mary Quarterly 57 2 : — Hall, Timothy.

Anne Hutchinson: Puritan Prophet. Slavicek, Louise. Anne Hutchinson. Anne Hutchinson ca. Edited by Debra Michals, PhD Works Cited. Breslaw, Elaine G. It was all rather severe. It was all that was left them. Women could not be ministers, could not vote on church matters, and could not even talk in church. They entered the church meetinghouse through a separate door and sat together on a separate side of the building.

Her meetings grew in popularity. She added a second weekly session to accommodate all the women who wanted to hear her wisdom. Hutchinson began to raise eyebrows in the colony when word leaked that in her study groups she had questioned the Biblical interpretations of local ministers in their sermons. In particular, Anne took issue with ministers who suggested that people need to display their faith, perform good deeds, and act as a decent Puritan should in order to show that they have been saved.

The Puritan ministers undoubtedly saw a problem with the suggestion that people could sit idly by and expect salvation—it was all too easy and might discourage rule-following and even, God forbid, skipping church services. The crisis deepened in when Hutchinson, upset with a sermon being delivered by John Wilson, a minister hand-picked by Governor Winthrop to replace a minister favored by Anne, stood up and walked out of the meetinghouse. A number of other women followed her out. For Hutchinson, things turned toward the better.

Her political supporter, Henry Vane, was elected governor, replacing John Winthrop. And she soon found a new minister who shared her theological views. John Wheelwright arrived from England in May , and began preaching in Boston the next month. Anne Hutchinson was called to a meeting in December She faced a panel of seven ministers who demanded to know her views on the Scripture and on their own preaching. Two and a half months later, ministers meeting in Cambridge for a Synod identified 82 errors held by Hutchinson that had been recorded in their meeting with her.

Winthrop succeeded in dispatching Reverend Wheelwright to Mount Wollaston, where he could cause less harm. May 17, was a turning point in the history of Massachusetts Bay. Magistrates and freemen assembled in Cambridge Common to decide who would control the colony.

Supporters of John Winthrop and his orthodox theology carried the day. Winthrop was elected Governor for a second time, replacing Henry Vane, who had been strongly backed by the Hutchinson. When Winthrop decided to put Hutchinson on trial, he determined that his prospects for conviction were better in Cambridge than in Boston. The residents of Cambridge tended to be landed gentry and more conservative than the residents of Boston, who held more mercantile interests.

The trial of Anne Hutchinson began on November 7, in a thatched-roof meetinghouse in Cambridge. Eight ministers also strode into court, all on hand to offer their testimony. The General Court, whose authority derived from the royal charter, was an all-powerful body in the colony. It mixed legislative, executive, and judicial functions. It legislated on all aspects of colonial life, from the color of clothes that could be worn to requiring attendance at Sunday services.

The only check on its power was the knowledge of its members that rulings that appeared too arbitrary or self-serving could prompt calls for a revocation of the charter. Governor Winthrop, both the chief prosecutor and the chief judge, hoped that the trial would fortify his position of power and unify the colony, which had become divided and weakened by fighting over religious issues, especially the question of salvation.

And you have maintained a meeting or general assembly in your house that hath been condemned by the general assembly as a thing not tolerable or comely in the sight of your God nor fitting for your sex. Nothing Winthrop had alleged Hutchinson had done amounted to a criminal offence. Hutchinson and Winthrop proceeded to trade Biblical passages, either as evidence for or against the right of a woman to provide instruction on the meaning of Scripture.

Winthrop looked to the ministers in court, hoping they might have something to say that would add meat to the charges against Hutchinson. None took the bait. Winthrop issued the command and six ministers testified. You say they preached a covenant of works and are not able ministers. We shall therefore give you a little more time to consider of it, and therefore desire that you attend the court again in the morning.

So after that being unsatisfied in the thing, the Lord was pleased to bring this scripture out of the Hebrews. He that denies the testament denies the testator, and in this did open unto me and give me to see that those which did not teach the new covenant had the spirit of antichrist, and upon this he did discover the ministry unto me; and ever since, I bless the Lord, he hath let me see which was the clear ministry and which the wrong.

Now if you do condemn me for speaking what in my conscience I know to be truth I must commit myself unto the Lord. Three years after arriving in Boston, she found herself the first female defendant in a Massachusetts court.

When she held prayer meetings attended by both men and women, the authorities were alarmed; but what really disturbed them was her criticism of the colony's ministers and her assertion that a person could know God's will directly.

Put on trial for heresy, she defended herself brilliantly. But her claim to have had a revelation from God sealed her fate. She was banished from the colony. Along with her family and 60 followers, she moved to Rhode Island, and later to New York, where she perished in an Indian raid. The magistrates believed it highly inappropriate for a woman to instruct men, especially in religious matters.

Anne and William Hutchinson and their 15 children were among the passengers who arrived in Boston aboard the Griffen in the fall of The couple had followed their minister, the Reverend John Cotton, to be part of a new community where they would be able to practice their faith openly. A successful merchant in England, William Hutchinson had the resources to buy a house in Boston and a acre farm.

The Hutchinsons were respected gentry by the standards of early Massachusetts, and they quickly assumed a prominent place in Boston affairs. But within three years, Anne Hutchinson would stand before a Massachusetts court, charged with heresy and sedition. In she would be excommunicated from the church and banished from the colony for holding and teaching unorthodox religious views. Anne's father was an outspoken English clergyman.

Sentenced to house arrest for being publicly critical of the established church, he turned his prodigious intellectual energies to educating his children. Anne inherited her father's intellect and strong religious beliefs.

With the benefit of his library and his careful tutelage, she received a better education than most men of her day. At the age of 21 she married and took on the traditional role of housewife and mother. She bore 15 children and learned midwifery, a skill that entitled a woman to special respect and esteem. She also maintained her interest in theology. She and her husband became devoted followers of the Puritan preacher John Cotton.

At a time when Puritans could not worship freely in England, they chose to follow the Reverend Cotton when he emigrated to Boston in At first Anne received a warm welcome. Bostonians appreciated her skill as a midwife; when she began to hold prayer meetings for women in her home, she seemed the very model of Puritan womanhood. John Cotton later remembered that "[a]t her first coming she was well respected and esteemed.

I hear she did much good in our Town, in womans meeting [and] at Childbirth-Travells. But her prayer meetings soon began to cause concern among the Puritan magistrates. An eloquent speaker, she began to draw large gatherings of women and men. The laws of Massachusetts Bay were based on biblical teachings, and the colony's leaders took seriously Paul's commandment that women be silent in public meetings.