It was perhaps Anne Bradstreet's youth, and a sense that she could
hardly criticise a judgment which had required the united forces
of every church in the Colony to pronounce, that made her ignore
one of the most stormy experiences of those early days, the trial
and banishment of Anne Hutchinson. Her silence is the more
singular, because the conflict was a purely spiritual one, and
thus in her eyes deserving of record. There can be no doubt that
the effect on her own spiritual and mental life must have been
intense and abiding. No children had as yet come to absorb her
thoughts and energies, and the events which shook the Colony to
the very center could not fail to leave an ineffaceable
impression. No story of personal experience is more confounding to
the modern reader, and none holds a truer picture of the time.
Governor Dudley and Simon Bradstreet were both concerned in the
whole course of the matter, which must have been discussed at home
from day to day, and thus there is every reason for giving it full
place in these pages as one of the formative forces in Anne
Bradstreet's life; an inspiration and then a warning. There are
hints that Anne resented the limitations that hedged her in, and
had small love of the mutual criticism, which made the corner
stone of Puritan life. That she cared to write had already excited
the wonder of her neighbors and Anne stoutly asserted her right to
speak freely whatever it seemed good to say, taking her stand
afterwards given in the Prologue to the first edition of her
poems, in which she wrote:
"I am obnoxious to each carping tongue
Who says my hand a needle better fits,
A Poet's pen all scorn I should thus wrong,
For such despite they cast on Female wits;
If what I do prove well, it won't advance,
They'l say it's stol'n, or else it was by chance.
"But sure the antique Greeks were far more mild,
Else of our Sexe, why feigned they those Nine
And poesy made Callippi's own Child;
So 'mongst the rest they placed the Arts Divine,
But this weak knot they will full soon untie,
The Greeks did nought but play the fools and lye."
This has a determined ring which she hastens to neutralize by a
tribute and an appeal; the one to man's superior force, the other
to his sense of justice.
"Let Greeks be Greeks, and women what they are,
Men have precedency and still excell,
It is but vain unjustly to wage warrs;
Men can do best and women know it well,
Preheminence in all and each is yours;
Yet grant some small acknowledgement of ours."
Plain speaking was a Dudley characteristic, but the fate of Anne
Hutchinson silenced all save a few determined spirits, willing to
face the same consequences. In the beginning, however, there could
have been only welcome for a woman, whose spiritual gifts and
unusual powers had made her the friend of John Cotton, and who
fascinated men and woman alike. There was reason, for birth and
training meant every gift a woman of that day was likely to
possess. Her father, Thomas Marbury, was one of the Puritan
ministers of Lincolnshire who afterward removed to London; her
mother, a sister of Sir Erasmus Dryden. She was thus related in
the collateral line to two of the greatest of English intellects.
Free thinking and plain speaking were family characteristics, for
John Dryden the poet, her second cousin, was reproached with
having been an Anabaptist in his youth, and Johnathan Swift, a
more distant connection, feared nothing in heaven or earth. It is
no wonder, then, that even an enemy wrote of her as "the
masterpiece of women's wit," or that her husband followed her
lead with a devotion that never swerved. She had married him at
Alford in Lincolnshire, and both were members of Mr. Cotton's
congregation at Boston.
Mr. Hutchinson's standing among his Puritan contemporaries was of
the highest. He had considerable fortune, and the gentlest and
most amiable of dispositions. The name seems to have meant all
good gifts, for the same devoted and tender relation existed
between this pair as between Colonel Hutchinson and his wife. From
the quiet and happy beginning of their married life to its most
tragic ending, they clung together, accepting all loss as part of
the cross they had taken up, when they left the ease of
Lincolnshire behind, and sought in exile the freedom which
intolerance denied.
It is very probable that Anne Hutchinson may have known the Dudley
family after their return to Lincolnshire, and certainly in the
first flush of her New England experiences was likely to have had
intimate relations with them. Her opinions, so far as one can
disentangle them from the mass of testimony and discussion, seem
to have been in great degree, those held by the early Quakers, but
they had either not fully developed in her own mind before she
left England, or had not been pronounced enough to attract
attention. In any case the weariness of the long voyage seems to
have been in part responsible for much that followed. Endless
discussions of religious subtleties were their chief occupation on
board, and one of the company, the Rev. Mr. Symmes, a dogmatic and
overbearing man, found himself often worsted by the quick wit of
this woman, who silenced all objections, and who, with no
conception of the rooted enmity she was exciting, told with the
utmost freedom, past and present speculations and experiences. The
long fasts, and continuous religious exercises, worked upon her
enthusiast's temper, and excited by every circumstance of time and
place, it is small wonder that she supposed a direct revelation
had come to her, the nature of which Winthrop mentions in his
History.
"One Mrs. Hutchinson, a member of the church of Boston, a woman of
a ready wit and bold spirit, brought over with her two dangerous
errours:
"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. From these two, grew many branches; as, 1st, Our
union with the Holy Ghost, so as a Christian remains dead to every
spiritual action, and hath no gifts nor graces, other than such as
are in hypocrites, nor any other sanctification but the Holy Ghost
himself. There joined with her in these opinions a brother of
hers, one Mr. Wheelwright, a silenced minister sometime in
England."
Obnoxious as these doctrines came to be, she had been in New
England two years before they excited special attention. Her
husband served in the General Court several elections as
representative for Boston, until he was excused at the desire of
the church, and she herself found constant occupation in a round
of kindly deeds. She denied the power of works as any help toward
justification, but no woman in the Colony, gave more practical
testimony of her faith or made herself more beloved. Though she
had little children to care for, she found time to visit and nurse
the sick, having special skill in all disorders of women. Her
presence of mind, her warm sympathy and extraordinary patience
made her longed for at every sick bed, and she very soon acquired
the strongest influence. Dudley had made careful inquiries as to
her religious standing, and must have been for the time at least,
satisfied, and unusual attention was paid her by all the
colonists; the most influential among them being her chief
friends. Coddington, who had built the first brick house in
Boston, received them warmly. Her public teaching began quietly,
her ministrations by sick beds attracting many, and it is doubtful
if she herself realized in the least the extent of her influence.
Governor Vane, young and ardent, the temporary idol of the Colony,
who had taken the place Governor Winthrop would have naturally
filled, visited her and soon became one of her most enthusiastic
supporters. Just and unprejudiced as Winthrop was, this summary
setting aside by a people for whom he had sacrificed himself
steadily, filled him with indignation, though the record in his
Journal is quiet and dignified. But naturally, it made him a
sterner judge, when the time for judgment came. In the beginning,
however, her work seemed simply for good. It had been the custom
for the men of the Boston church to meet together on Thursday
afternoons, to go over the sermon of the preceding Sunday, of
which notes had been taken by every member. No women were
admitted, and believing that the same course was equally desirable
for her own sex, Anne Hutchinson appointed two days in the week
for this purpose, and at last drew about her nearly a hundred of
the principal women of the Colony. Her lovely character and
spotless life, gave immense power to her words, and her teaching
at first was purely practical. We can imagine Anne Bradstreet's
delight in the tender and searching power of this woman, who
understood intuitively every womanly need, and whose sympathy was
as unfailing as her knowledge. Even for that time her Scriptural
knowledge was almost phenomenal, and it is probable that, added to
this, there was an unacknowledged satisfaction in an assembly from
which men were excluded, though many sought admission. Mrs.
Hutchinson was obliged at last to admit the crowd who believed her
gifts almost divine, but refused to teach, calling upon the
ministers to do this, and confining herself simply to conversation.
But Boston at last seemed to have gone over wholly to her
views, while churches at other points opposed them fiercely.
Up to this time there had been no attempt to define the
character of the Holy Ghost, but now a powerful opposition to her
theory arose, and furious discussions were held in meetings and
out. The very children caught the current phrases, and jeered one
another as believers in the "Covenant of Grace," or the "Covenant
of Works," and the year 1636 came and passed with the Colony at
swords points with one another. Every difficulty was aggravated by
Vane, whose youth and inexperience made it impossible for him to
understand the temper of the people he ruled. The rise of
differences had been so gradual that no one suspected what
mischief might come till the results suddenly disclosed
themselves. That vagaries and eccentricities were to be expected,
never entered the minds of this people, who accepted their own
departure from authority and ancient ordinances as just and right,
but could never conceive that others might be justified in acting
on the same principle.
To understand even in slight degree the conflict which followed,
one must remember at every turn, that no interests save religious
interests were of even momentary importance. Every member of the
Colony had hard, laborious work to do, but it was hurried through
with the utmost speed, in order to have time for the almost daily
lectures and expoundings that made their delight. Certain more
worldly minded among them had petitioned for a shortening of these
services, but were solemnly reproved, and threatened with the
"Judgment of God on their forwardness."
With minds perpetually concentrated on subtle interpretations,
agreement was impossible. Natural life, denied and set aside at
every point, gave place to the unnatural, and every colonist was,
quite unconsciously, in a state of constant nervous tension and
irritability. The questions that to us seem of even startling
triviality, were discussed with a fervor and earnestness it is
well nigh impossible to comprehend. They were a slight advance on
the scholastic disputations of the preceding century, but they
meant disagreement and heart-burnings, and the more intolerant
determined on stamping out all variations from their own
convictions.
Any capacity for seeking to carry out Robinson's injunction in his
final sermon at Leyden seems to have died once for all, in the war
of words. "I beseech you," he had said, "remember that it is an
article of your church covenant, that you be ready to receive
whatever truth shall be made known to you from the written word of
God." There was small remnant of this spirit even among the most
liberal.
Dudley was one of the chief movers in the course resolved upon,
and mourned over Cotton, who still held to Anne Hutchinson, and
wrote and spoke of her as one who "was well beloved, and all the
faithful embraced her conference, and blessed God for her fruitful
discourses."
Mr. Welde, on the contrary, one of her fiercest opponents,
described her as "a woman of haughty and fierce carriage, of a
nimble wit and active spirit, and a very voluble tongue, more bold
than a man, though in understanding and judgment inferior to many
women."
How far the object of all this confusion realized the real state
of things cannot be determined. But by January, 1637, dissension
had reached such a height that a fast was appointed for the Pequot
war and the religious difficulties. The clergy had become her
bitterest enemies, and with some reason, for through her means
many of their congregations had turned against them. Mr. Wilson,
once the most popular minister in Boston, had been superseded by
her brother,--Mr. Wheelwright, and Boston began the heretical
career which has been her portion from that day to this.
Active measures were necessary. The General Court was still
governed by the clergy, and by March had settled upon its future
course, and summoned Wheelwright, who was censured and found
guilty of sedition. Governor Vane opposed the verdict bitterly.
The chief citizens of Boston sent in a "Remonstrance," and actual
anarchy seemed before them. The next Court was held at Newtown to
avoid the danger of violence at Boston, and a disorderly election
took place in which the Puritan Fathers came to blows, set down by
Winthrop as "a laying on of hands."
The grave and reverend Wilson, excited beyond all considerations
of Puritanical propriety, climbed a tree, and made a vigorous
speech to the throng of people, in which many malcontents were at
work urging on an opposition that proved fruitless. Vane was
defeated and Winthrop again made governor, his calm forbearance
being the chief safety of the divided and unhappy colonists, who
resented what they settled to be tyranny, and cast about for some
means of redress. None was to be had. Exile, imprisonment and even
death, awaited the most eminent citizens; Winthrop's entry into
Boston was met by gloomy silence, and for it all, Welde and Symmes
protested Anne Hutchinson to be responsible, and denounced her as
a heretic and a witch.
She in the meantime seems to have been in a state of religious
exaltation which made her blind and deaf to all danger. Her
meetings continued, and she in turn denounced her opponents and
believed that some revelation would be given to show the justice
of her claims. There was real danger at last. If the full story of
these dissensions were told in England, possession of charter,
which had already been threatened, might be lost entirely. Dudley
was worked up to the highest pitch of apprehension, believing that
if the dissension went on, there might even be a repetition of the
horrors of Munster. Divided as they were, concerted action against
enemies, whether Indian or foreign, could not be expected. There
was danger of a general league of the New England Indians, and
"when a force was ordered to take the field for the salvation of
the settlements, the Boston men refused to be mustered because
they suspected the chaplain, who had been designated by lot to
accompany the expedition, of being under a covenant of works."
Such a state of things, if known in full at home, would shut off
all emigration. That men of character and means should join them
was an essential to the continued life of the Colony. Setting
aside any question of their own personal convictions, their
leaders saw that the continuance among them of these disturbing
elements meant destruction, and Winthrop, mild and reasonable as
he sought to be, wrote: "He would give them one reason, which was
a ground for his judgment, and that was, for that he saw that
those brethren, etc., were so divided from the rest of the country
in their judgment and practice, as it could not stand with the
public peace, that they should continue amongst us. So by the
example of Lot in Abraham's family, and after Hagar and Ishmael,
he saw they must be sent away."
With August came the famous Synod of Cambridge, the first ever
held in New England, in which the Church set about defining its
own position and denouncing the Hutchinsonians. Eighty-two
heresies were decided to have arisen, all of which were condemned,
and this being settled, Cotton was admonished, and escaped exile
only by meekly explaining away his errors. Wheelwright, refusing
to yield, was sentenced to imprisonment and exile; Mrs.
Hutchinson's meetings were declared seditious and disorderly, and
prohibited, and the Synod separated, triumphant. The field was
their own.
What they had really accomplished was simply to deepen the lines
and make the walls of division still higher. In later years no one
cared to make public the proceedings of the body, and there is
still in existence a loose paper, described by the Rev. George E.
Ellis in his "Life of Anne Hutchinson"; a petition from Mr. John
Higginson, son of the Salem minister ... by which it appears that
he was employed by the magistrates and ministers to take down in
short hand, all the debates and proceedings of the Synod. He
performed the work faithfully, and having written out the
voluminous record, at "the expense of much time and pains," he
presented it to the Court in May, 1639. The long time that elapsed
may indicate the labor. The Court accepted it, and ordered that,
if approved by the ministers, after they had viewed it, it should
be printed, Mr. Higginson being entitled to the profits, which
were estimated as promising a hundred pounds. The writer waited
with patience while his brethren examined it, and freely took
their advice. Some were in favor of printing it; but others
advised to the contrary, "conceiving it might possibly be an
occasion of further disputes and differences both in this country
and other parts of the world."
Naturally they failed to agree. The unfortunate writer, having
scruples which prevented his accepting an offer of fifty pounds
for the manuscript, made probably by some Hutchinsonian, waited
the pleasure of the brethren, reminding them at intervals of his
claim, but so far as can be discovered, failing always to make it
good, and the manuscript itself disappeared, carrying with it the
only tangible testimony to the bitterness and intolerance of which
even the owners were in after years ashamed.
In the meantime, Harry Vane, despairing of peaceful life among his
enemies, had sailed for England early in August, to pass through
every phase of political and spiritual experience, and to give up
his life at last on the scaffold to which the treachery of the
second Charles condemned him. With his departure, no powerful
friend remained to Anne Hutchinson, whose ruin had been determined
upon and whose family were seeking a new and safer home. Common
prudence should have made her give up her public meetings and show
some deference to the powers she had always defied. Even this,
however, could not have saved her, and in November, 1637, the
trial began which even to-day no New Englander can recall without
shame; a trial in which civil, judicial, and ecclesiastical forces
all united to crush a woman, whose deepest fault was a too
enthusiastic belief in her own inspiration.
Winthrop conducted the prosecution, mild and calm in manner, but
resolutely bent upon punishment, and by him sat Dudley, Endicott,
Bradstreet, Nowell and Stoughton; Bradstreet and Winthrop being
the only ones who treated her with the faintest semblance of
courtesy. Welde and Symmes, Wilson and Hugh Peters, faced her
with a curious vindictiveness, and in the throng of excited
listenders, hardly a friendly face met her eyes, even her old friend,
John Cotton, having become simply a timid instrument of her
persecutors.
The building in which the trial took place was thronged. Hundreds
who had been attracted by her power, looked on: magistrates and
ministers, yeoman and military, the sad colored garments of the
gentry in their broad ruffs and high crowned hats, bringing out
the buff coats of the soldiers, and the bright bodices of the
women, who clung to the vanities of color, and defied the tacit
law that limited them to browns and drabs. Over all hung the gray
November sky, and the chill of the dolorous month was in the air,
and did its work toward intensifying the bitterness which ruled
them all.
It is doubtful if Anne Bradstreet made one of the spectators. Her
instinct would have been to remain away, for the sympathy she
could not help but feel, could not betray itself, without at once
ranking her in opposition to the judgment of both husband and
father. Anne Hutchinson's condition was one to excite the
compassion and interest of every woman, but it had no such effect
on her judges, who forced her to stand till she nearly fell from
exhaustion. Food was denied her; no counsel was allowed, or the
presence of any friend who could have helped by presence, if in no
other way.
Feeble in body, depressed and anxious in mind, one reacted on
another, and the marvel is not that she here and there contradicted
herself, or lost patience, but that any coherence or power of
argument remained.
The records of the trial show both. Winthrop opened it by making a
general charge of heresy, and Anne demanded a specific one, and
when the charge of holding unlawful meetings was brought, denied
it so energetically and effectually, that Winthrop had no more
words and turned the case over to the less considerate Dudley,
whose wrath at her presumption knew no bounds. Both he and the
ministers who swore against her, used against her statements which
she had made in private interviews with them, which she had
supposed to be confidential, but which were now reported in
detail. Naturally she reproached the witnesses with being
informers, and they justified their course hotly. Mr. Cotton's
testimony, given most reluctantly, confirmed their statements. The
chief grievance was not her meetings, so much as the fact that she
had publicly criticized the teaching and religious character of
the ministers, insisting that Mr. Cotton alone had the full
"thorough-furnishing" for such work. Deep but smothered feeling
was apparent in every word the initiated witnesses spoke, and the
magistrate, Mr. Coddington, in vain assured them, that even if she
had said all this and more, no real harm had been done. Cotton
sided with him, and spoke so powerfully that there was a slight
diversion in her favor, rendered quite null by her claim of
immediate inspiration in what she had done.
The records at this point, show none of the excitement, the
hysterical ecstasy which marked the same declaration in the case
of some among the Quakers who were afterward tried. Her calmness
increased instead of lessening. On the score of contempt of the
ministers it had become evident that she could not be convicted,
but this claim to direct revelation, was an even more serious
matter. Scripture might be twisted to the point of dismemberment,
so long as one kept to the text, and made no pretence of knowledge
beyond it; contention within these bounds was lawful and
honorable, and the daily food of these argumentative Christians
who gave themselves to the work of combining intellectual freedom
and spiritual slavery, with perpetual surprise at any indication
that the two were incompatible.
The belief in personal revelation, actually no more than a deep
impression produced by long pondering over some passage, was
really part of the Puritan faith, but the united company had no
thought of discovering points of harmony, or brushing aside mere
phrases which simply concealed the essential truth held by both.
Such belief could come only from the direct prompting of Satan,
and when she firmly and solemnly declared that whatever way their
judgment went, she should be saved from calamity, that she was and
should remain, in direct communion with God, and that they were
simply pitiless persecutors of the elect, the wrath was instant
and boundless. A unanimous vote condemned her at once, and stands
in the records of Massachusetts as follows:
"Mrs. Hutchinson, the wife of Mr. William Hutchinson, being
convicted for traducing the ministers and their ministry in the
country, she declared voluntarily her revelations, and that she
should be delivered, and the Court ruined with their posterity,
and thereupon was banished, and in the meanwhile was committed to
Mr. Joseph Welde (of Roxbury) until the Court shall dispose of
her."
Her keeper for the winter was the brother of her worst enemy. She
was to be kept there at the expense of her husband, but forbidden
to pursue any of her usual occupations. Naturally she sunk into a
deep melancholy, in no wise lessened by constant visits from the
ministers, who insisted upon discussing her opinions, and who
wrought upon her till she was half distracted. They accused her of
falsehoods, declaring that she held "gross errors, to the number
of thirty or thereabouts," and badgering the unhappy creature till
it is miraculous that any spirit remained. Then came the church
trial, more legitimate, but conducted with fully as much virulence
as the secular one, the day of the weekly lecture, Thursday, being
chosen, as that which brought together the greatest number of
people.
The elders accused her of deliberate lying, and point by point,
brought up the thirty errors. Of some she admitted her possible
mistake; others she held to strenuously, but all were simply
speculation, not one having any vital bearing on faith or life.
Public admonition was ordered, but before this her two sons had
been publicly censured for refusing to join in signing the paper
which excommunicated her, Mr. Cotton addressing them "most
pitifully and pathetically," as "giving way to natural affection
and as tearing the very bowels of their souls by hardening their
mother in sin." Until eight in the evening, an hour equivalent to
eleven o'clock with our present habits, the congregation listened
to question and answer and admonition, in which last, Mr. Cotton
"spake to the sisters of the church, and advised them to take heed
of her opinions, and to withhold all countenance and respect from
her, lest they should harden her in her sin."
Anne Bradstreet must have listened with a curious mixture of
feelings, though any evidence of them would naturally be
repressed. Once more all came together, and once more, Anne
Hutchinson, who faced them in this last encounter with a quiet
dignity, that moved the more sympathetic to pity, denied the
charges they brought, and the three years controversy which, as
Ellis writes, "had drawn nearly the whole of the believers in
Boston---magistrates, ministers, women, soldiers, and the common
multitude under the banners of a female leader, had changed the
government of the Colony, and spread its strange reports over
Protestant Europe, was thus brought to an issue, by imputing
deception about one of the most unintelligible tenets of faith to
her, who could not be circumvented in any other way."
The closest examination of her statements shows no ground for this
judgment. It was the inferences of her opponents, and no fact of
her real belief that made against her, but inference, then as now,
made the chief ground for her enemies. Excommunication followed at
once, and now, the worst having come, her spirits rose, and she
faced them with quiet dignity, but with all her old assurance,
glorying in the whole experience so that one of the indignant
ministers described her manner with deep disgust, and added: "God
giving her up, since the sentence of excommunication, to that
hardness of heart, as she is not affected with any remorse, but
glories in it, and fears not the vengeance of God which she lies
under, as if God did work contrary to his own word, and loosed
from heaven, while his church had bound upon earth."
Other ministers were as eager in denunciation, preaching against
her as "the American Jezebel," and even the saintly Hooker wrote:
"The expression of providence against this wretched woman hath
proceeded from the Lord's miraculous mercy, and his bare arm hath
been discovered therein from first to last, that all the churches
may hear and fear. I do believe such a heap of hideous errors at
once to be vented by such a self-deluding and deluded creature, no
history can record; and yet, after recantation of all, to be cast
out as unsavory salt, that she may not continue a pest to the
place, that will be forever marvellous in the eyes of all the
saints."
Even the lapse of several generations left the animus unchanged,
and Graham, usually so dispassionate and just in statement, wrote
of her almost vindictively:
"In the assemblies which were held by the followers of Mrs.
Hutchinson, there was nourished and trained a keen, contentious
spirit, and an unbridled license of tongue, of which the influence
was speedily felt in the serious disturbance, first of domestic
happiness, and then of the public peace. The matrons of Boston
were transformed into a synod of slanderous praters, whose
inquisitional deliberations and audacious decrees, instilled their
venom into the innermost recesses of society; and the spirits of a
great majority of the citizen being in that combustible state in
which a feeble spark will suffice to kindle a formidable
conflagration, the whole Colony was inflamed and distracted by the
incontinence of female spleen and presumption."
Amidst this rattle of theological guns there was danger that
others might be heard. To subdue Boston was the first necessity,
and an order for disarming the disaffected was issued. The most
eminent citizens, if suspected of favoring her, had their firearms
taken from them, and even Capt. John Underhill was forced to give
up his sword. An account of the whole controversy was written by
Mr. Welde and sent over to England for publication in order that
the Colony might not suffer from slanderous reports, and that no
"godly friends" might be prevented from coming over. For the
winter of 1637, Boston was quiet, but it was an ominous quiet, in
which destructive forces gathered, and though never visible on the
surface, worked in evil ways for more than one of the generations
that followed. Freedom had ended for any who differed from the
faith as laid down by the Cambridge Synod, and but one result
could follow. All the more liberal spirits saw that Massachusetts
could henceforth be no home for them, and made haste to other
points. Coddington led a colony to Rhode Island, made up chiefly
of the fifty-eight who had been disarmed, and in process of time
became a Quaker. This was the natural ending for many, the heart
of Anne Hutchinson's doctrine being really a belief in the "Inward
Light," a doctrine which seems to have outraged every Puritan
susceptibility for fully a hundred years, and until the reaction
began, which has made individual judgment the only creed common to
the people of New England. It was reasonable enough, however, that
Massachusetts should dread a colony of such uneasy spirits,
planted at her very doors, enfranchised and heretical to an
appalling degree and considered quite as dangerous as so many
malefactors, and an uneasy and constant watch was kept.
The Hutchinsons had sold their property in Boston and joined
Coddington at Pocasset, of which Mr. Hutchinson soon became the
chief magistrate. His wife, as before, was the master spirit. She
even addressed an admonition to the church in Boston, turning the
tables temporarily upon her enemies, though the end of her power
was at hand. In 1642, her husband died, and various circumstances
had before this made her influence feared and disliked. Freedom in
any English settlement had ceased to be possible, and as
Massachusetts grew more powerful, she resigned any hope of holding
the place won by so many sacrifices and emigrated to the Dutch
settlement, forming a small colony of sixteen persons at Pelham in
Westchester County, New York, where a little river still bears her
name.
One son had remained in Boston, and was the ancestor of the Tory
Governor of Massachusetts during the Revolution, and a daughter
also married and settled there, so that her blood is still found
in the veins of more than one New England family, some of whose
ancestors were most directly concerned in casting her out. But her
younger children and a son-in-law were still with her, with a few
of her most devoted followers, and she still anticipated peace and
a quiet future. Both came at last, but not in the looked-for
guise. No date remains of the fate of the little colony and only
the Indian custom of preserving the names of those they killed,
has made us know that Wampago himself, the owner of the land about
Pelham, was the murderer of the woman, whose troubled but not
unhappy life went out in the fire and blood of an Indian massacre.
To the Puritans in Boston, such fate seemed justice, and they
rejoiced with a grim exultation. "The Lord," said Welde, "heard
our groans to heaven, and freed us from our great and sore
affliction." No tale was too gross and shameless to find
acceptance, and popular feeling against her settled into such
fixed enmity that even her descendant, the historian Hutchinson,
dared not write anything that would seem to favor her cause. Yet,
necessary as her persecution and banishment may have been to the
safety of the Colony, the faith for which she gave her life has
been stronger than her enemies. Mistaken as she often was, a truer
Christianity dwelt with her than with them, and the toleration
denied her has shown itself as the heart of all present life or
future progress.
|
