An Amazing Woman

I recently did a paper for my women's study class on an amazing woman named Anne Hutchinson. She's an amazing woman and I really encourage you to read about her! My paper was about four pages long so I'll split it into two parts to hopefully hold your attention!

Anne Hutchinson was born July 20th, 1591 in Alford, Lincolnshire, England. She was the daughter of Bridget Dryden and Francis Marbury, a deacon at Christ Church Cambridge. Anne's father strongly believed that the majority of ministers in the Church of England were incompetent because they had not acquired their positions through proper training, but were appointed by bishops for political reasons. He so strongly believed in clergy's lack of qualifications that he openly condemned them which led to his arrest. Because of Anne's father's strong beliefs and academic competence, she grew an interest in religion and theology at a very young age. Anne was home schooled and spent a lot of her time reading from her father's library where she developed many new questions about faith than there seemed to be answers. As she grew up, Anne began to admire her father's ideals and assertiveness and wasn't afraid to questions the principles of faith and the authority of the Church of England.

When Anne was 21, she married the merchant, Will Hutchinson, and settled down and had fifteen children in Alford, England. There, she took the role of a housewife and mother while maintaining her interest in theology and the Church. The Hutchinson family followed the sermons of a Protestant minister named John Cotton whose teaching resembled Anne's father's ideals. In 1634, John Cotton was relocated to the Puritan colony Massachusetts Bay in New England. Craving for greater freedom to practice her religious beliefs, Anne persuaded her husband to let their family follow their beloved minister. Sadly, during the crossing to New England, Anne lost three of fifteen children and another when they reached their new homeland.

Anne had high hopes for being able to pursue her religious freedom, but soon learned that the rigid union between the church and state was more stifling than liberating. There was hardly any religious freedom in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, especially for an English woman such as herself. Before Anne and her family had made the crossing to New England, she had expected that once in America, she would be able to discuss freely her faith and would have no reason to hide her personal beliefs. By telling others that God had given her the power of clairvoyance and that she had known the exact day of their arrival it was a mistake, John Cotton began to question the admittance of Anne and her family to his congregation. In order to get into good graces with the rest of Cotton's followers, Anne had to confess to “being guilty of wrong thinking” to be accepted, even though she thought otherwise. By experiencing these troubles of freely speaking about her faith, Anne began to realize that the oppressed and now become the oppressors, having forgotten the injustice and hardships they received from the Catholics and Protestants. The Puritan's interpretation of “religious freedom,” was basically that people now had the right to worship, but not the right to think.