Anne Hutchinson: Rebel/Theologian?

Go to this site for a brief discussion of Anne Hutchinson’s role in colonial Massachusetts Bay: http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h577.html .

Her greatest crime was in suggesting that actions did not really matter –as much as did faith, but that part often gets overlooked. Her argument threatened the authority of the ministers/leaders of Massachusetts Bay, particularly as some influential people seemed attracted to her discussion sessions that she led in her home, which was in itself shocking. What did some of the religious leaders of Massachusetts have to say about her?

I look at her as a dangerous instrument of the devil, raised up by Satan amongst us to raise up divisions and contentions and take away hearts and affections, one from another.–Reverend John Wilson (assigned minister to the Boston militia that conducted the Pequot war)

Governor John Winthrop called Anne Hutchinson an American Jezebel who was given the chance to repent but instead kept a back doore to have returned to her vomit again.

Deputy Governor Thomas Dudley stated: I am fully persuaded that Mrs Hutchinson is deluded by the devil would inspire her hearers to take up arms against their prince and to cut the throats of one another.

Reverend John Cotton said, Your opinions fret like an Gangrene and spread like a Leproise, and infect far and near, and will eate out the very Bowells of Religion, and hath soe infected the churches that God knows when they will be cured.

(Quotes found at http://www.annehutchinson.net/nindex.shtml)