WOMEN IN HISTORY - ANNE HUTCHINSON

A Puritan woman who defied the male-dominated Massachusetts Bay Colony and after banishment helped settle Rhode Island and New York

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DATE OF BIRTH

1591

PLACE OF BIRTH

Alford, Lincolnshire, England

DATE OF DEATH

1643

PLACE OF DEATH

East Chester, New York

FAMILY BACKGROUND

Anne was the daughter of Francis Marbury, an Anglican minister and school teacher. She lived in London as a young adult, and married there an old friend from home, William Hutchinson, after which the couple moved back to Alford where they began following the dynamic preacher named John Cotton in the nearby town of Boston, Lincolnshire. After Cotton was compelled to emigrate in 1633, the Hutchinsons followed a year later with their 11 living children, and soon became well established in the growing settlement of Boston in New England.

EDUCATION

In that her father was a teacher, Anne received a far better education than most girls received.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Anne was a Puritan woman who defied the male-dominated Massachusetts Bay Colony and after banishment helped settle Rhode Island and New York. She is a key figure in the study of the development of religious freedom in England's American colonies and the history of women in ministry. She challenged the authority of the ministers, exposing the subordination of women in the culture of colonial Massachusetts. She is honoured by Massachusetts with a State House monument calling her a "courageous exponent of civil liberty and religious toleration." She has been called the most famous, or infamous, English woman in colonial American history.