Overview

 timothymcveigh03: Anne Hutchinson (1519-1643) was born to parents Bridget Dryden and Francis Marbury.  Anne's father Francis had a strong hatred for the church and spent a whole year in prison for his wild ideas of overthrowing the clergy.  His crazy antics did not stop there and later had more arrests throughout his life for continuing to make his opinions about religion heard.  Anne inherited her father's ideas of religion and his outspoken demeanor.  She was not afraid to question the ideas of faith put forward by the church.  Anne's religious beliefs fell into the category of being a Puritan.  A Puritan is somebone who wanted to "purify the national church of all catholic influence."

     Anne never really committed any sins in her life.  Her only problem was that she was living in a time period where women were inferior to men and their only goals in life were to get married and raise children.  It is often said to be ironic that Anne was so devoted to a faith where god's imaged was man, and these men only treated women no better than slaves.

     When Anne lived in Massachusetts Bay Colony, she started a club for women to discuss ideas from the bible.  This provided Anne an opportunity to voice her personal opinions to others.  These gatherings started to call attention to men and women throughout the community and many people began wanting to here what she had to say.  Others were unhappy and Anne was sentenced to court.  She was finallyaccused with Antinomianism and the later convicted of Hersey. 

     Anne was forced to leave Massachusetts.  Anne, her family, and the followers she still had relocated to Portsmouth, Rhode Island.  After her husband's passing, she again moved to the Bronx in New Netherland in present day New York.  She lived near the Split Rock, which is a rock that had been split in half during the Ice Age.  On the twentieth of August in 1643, Anne and her family were killed by Native Americans.  This was during Kieft's War period and the Hutchinson family lived in an isolated area which made them easy targets.  One of Anne's daughters did live through the attack.  According to legend, she hid behind Split Rock to escape  the attack and was later found by the native who then raised her.  Today, if you drive on the Hutchinson River Parkway, you will pass the terrible spot of where Anne and her family were so brutally murdered.  There is also a statue in front of the State House of Boston that commemorates her civil liberties and religious toleration. 

franklinpierce03: Anne Hutchinson was born in Alford, England on July 17, 1591 to Reverend Francis Marbury and his wife, Bridget. She grew up with an inquisitive mind and was given an excellent education by her father. She loved to learn about theology more than anything else, and she wished to be a preacher, but that was not an option for women of that time. Anne married William Hutchinson on August 9, 1612.

nelsonmandela03: Anne's father, who was a deacon, believed that most of the ministers that were in the Church of England hadn't accessed their positions through the proper training, but for their political reasons. Since Anne was home-schooled, she began reading through her father's library, which held many books about religion. She developed many questions about faith, and she needed answers. At age 21, Anne married William Hutchinson.

franklinpierce03: Reverend John Cotton was a Puritan preacher in Boston, which was about 24 miles away from Anne's home in Alford. One thing Anne and John Cotton shared was their strong disagreement with the Church of England on the subject of the Covenant of Works. This idea stated that the only way for people to go to heaven was by following rules and doing good deeds. John Cotton formed a belief known as the Covenant of Grace, which stated that no man could ever do enough good deeds to earn God's love and the only way to be saved from sin and go to heaven was through complete faith in God. The Church of England began to arrest people who preached the Covenant of Grace, which made believers in this covenant look to the New World. John Cotton and his wife left for the Puritan-ruled Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1633, leaving Anne without a teacher. Tired of the oppression in England, Anne and her family, which by this time included eleven children, left for New England the following year.

nelsonmandela03: Anne and her family all followed the sermons of John Cotton. John's beliefs were accepted under the Puritan religion. In 1634, when John Cotton was relocated to New England. Anne, Will, and their 15 children all followed him. In the Massachusetts Bay Colony in which they all lived, there wasn't really any sort of "religious freedom" that Anne had hoped for. For being an educated woman from England, Anne Hutchinson had formed her own personal doctrine that was based on her interpretations of John Cotton's teachings. One of her beliefs was that all one needed to get into heaven, was faith. Anne had to confess her "guilty of wrong thinking" in order to be accepted into Cotton's flock.

     The Puritans had a different belief than the Massachusetts Bay Colony did. The Massachusetts Bay Colony, including John Winthrop dreamt of a utopia, where you had the freedom to worship, but not the freedom to speak, while the Puritans believed that they would tolerate the neighboring colonies, and their freedom to worship.

franklinpierce03:     The Hutchinsons arrived in Boston on September 18, 1634. William was a successful textile merchant, and Anne found work as a midwife and a nurse. At her new church, Anne found that the Puritans were just as strict and oppressive as the Church of England. Anne and William became respected members of the town, so when Anne started to hold weekly religious discussion meetings in her home, people came and listened attentively to her opinions. John Winthrop, the governor, saw Anne Hutchinson as a threat to his ideal Puritan community, especially after she gathered a huge support group in favor of electing John Wheelwright to be another minister at the church of Boston in 1637. Winthrop successfully blocked this attempt because he knew Wheelwrights preached the Covenant of Grace instead of the Puritan-sanctioned Covenant of Works, but he lost a great deal of support because of the issue. He credited his loss to Anne's outspoken ways at her weekly meetings.

     On August 30, 1637, all the ministers from the Massachusetts Bay Colony met with a group of ministers from Connecticut. Together, the ministers created a list of 82 beliefs that were to be considered heresy. Most of Anne's beliefs were included on the list. However, Anne Hutchinson and her followers chose to ignore this list, and continued to meet weekly in her home. John Winthrop called Anne before the General Court in November of 1637, but he failed to name any specific charges. When Anne asked to hear her charges, Winthrop said she was charged with sedition, heresy, and breaking the fifth commandment. "Honor thy mother and father" meant to Winthrop that any authority figure deserved respect. Throughout the trial, Anne Hutchinson showed her immense intelligence and incredible skills of self-defense. Reverend John Cotton spoke in Anne's defense, and for a while it looked as though she might win the trial. However, she began to speak against the colony and talk of a direct interaction with God. The Puritans did not believe that God spoke to anyone personally, so this was clear heresy. She was found guilty and banished from the colony.

     Because Anne was pregnant and because the winter was incredibly harsh, Governor Winthrop did not force her to leave immediately and instead placed her under house arrest. On March 15, 1638, Anne was called before the Boston church, where she learned that even more charges had been brought against her. By this point, even her friend John Cotton had turned on her. The entire church held a vote on whether or not Anne Hutchinson should be publicly scolded. The vote was unanimous that John Cotton should admonish Anne, her son, and her son-in-law. On March 22, the church of Boston excommunicated Anne Hutchinson and banished her from the colony.

      Immediately following this church trial, the Hutchinson family set out for Providence, Rhode Island. After delivering a stillborn baby, Anne grew very sick. After many months, though, she regained her health and came to enjoy her new life in Rhode Island, where she was free to worship as she chose. In the sprig of 1642, William Hutchinson died, at which point Anne and her six youngest children moved to New Netherland. It was there that in 1643, Anne and all but one of her children were murdered by Siwanoy Indians. (Clark 7-73) (Nichols 1-101)

Yitzhakrabin03: The Puritan's main belief is that the Bible is the true law, Puritans live every aspect of their life from the teachings of the bible. The result of this, is that women do not have an equal role of women. During the time of Anne Hutchinson, the governments enforced religion like a law. This resulted in an almost perfect society, even small sins like telling a lie were against the law. Anne Hutchinson was a powerful woman in her day, she had ideas that were unheard of to the townspeople that had only heard the teachings of the church. Her ideas divided the colony. Anne strongly supported her brother-in-law, William Wheelwright,to become a minister, and she got her followers to support him to. Later, they stopped Wheelwright, and they banished him because he did not preach puritan approved teachings. Hutchinson was way before her time, she preached liberal and independent ideas that applied to everyone. Her ideas now play a major role in today's more modern religion. William Hutchinson always played a political role wherever he and his family went. In Boston he was a deputy, a selectman (responsible for minor local issues), and an appraiser for the court. When the family moved to Rhode Island, he was a treasurer, a judge, then the governor. William always provided some protection for Anne against the government of the colonies. When Anne was put on trial, she was accused of 82 "erroneous opinions". When she was prosecuted , she used the prosecutors own word against him to defend herself.  

leeharveyoswald03:  Anne Marbury was baptized on July 20, 1591, in Alford, Lincolnshire.  Anne's father, Francis, was a Cambridge educated clergyman who was arrested and sent to prison three times for his outspoken views of the church.  Anne's mother, Bridget Dryden, was Francis's second wife.  "Her father, John Dryden, was a friend of the humanist Erasmus and an ancestor of the poet John Dryden." (Lewis)  In 1612, Anne married the merchant William Hutchinson and began raising their family.  The Hutchinsons became attahed to the teachings of John Cotton to the point where they made a long trek several times a year to attend his services.  When Cotton moved to the Massachusetts Bay colony in 1633, Anne was deeply troubled and subsequently the whole Hutchinson brood followed Cotton's example the next year. (Reuben)  Upon the Griffin, Anne spoke to several ministers about her direct revelations with God, forshadowing her activities in the colony. (Lewis)  Serving as a midwife and married to a successful merchant, Anne became a leading figure in the colony with her intelligence and personality.  She began holding weekly meetings in her home, initially for women, about the previous sermon.  But soon these discussions changed topics to her own belief in the coventant of grace, attracting not only men and women, but also the colony's governor, Henry Vane.  Anne's meetings became highly contoversial in the eyes of the church, and her followers were dubbed Antimonians, or people who are against the law. (Maier) "What started as a religious point of difference grew into a schism that threatened the political stability of the colony." (Reuben) With the election of a new governor, John Winthrop, Anne and her brother-in-law John Wheelright, were put to trial.  Anne defended remarkably, but the utterance of her divine revelation wih the Lord and a courtroom stacked against her prevented the charges from being dropped.  Anne was banished from the colony and excomunicated from the church. Even her beloved John Cotton was against her now.  In the words of John Winthrop, "Proud Jezebel has at last been cast down." (Reuben)  Anne moved to Rhode Island with her family and helped found the Portsmouth.  With the death of her husband William in 1642, the Hutchinsons again relocated, this time to New Amsterdam, New York. (Maier) In 1643, Anne and all but one of her family were killed by natives.  Anne Hutchinson was an inspiring religious dissenter, and should be remembered as the first female of her kind.

Analysis

timothymcveigh03: The textbook version on Anne Hutchinson's life uses James Loewen's theme of melodrama.  The book states that Anne was banished from Massachusetts and walked to Rhode Island by foot while pregnant.  In the research i have done on the internet,  it states that she was not forced to leave Massachusetts immediately because she was pregnant.  The textbook over-exaggereates how rough Anne's trip to Rhode Island was and makes it seem like she had completely unfair treatment in the court trial.  The book also uses textbook biases.  They completely left out her background about her outspoken father and how she migrated to the New World looking for religious toleration.  They also left out that she had gatherings expressing her opinions about the bible.  The only thing the book really said was that she had been put on trail, but never fully explained why.  The book probably left out the reasons for being put on trial and her early life because they wanted to make it seem like she was being personally victimized by the government and make us feel more sympathetic for her.  Sidenote: In the textbook it said she had fourteen kids, but on all the websites i have seen it said that she had fifteen. 

franklinpierce03: Our textbook does heorify Anne Hutchinson by portraying her as a wrongfully punished victim of a religiously oppressive society. When describing the Antinomian Controversy, the textbook says that Anne took her assertions to logical extremes within the Puritan doctrine, which is not the way the Puritans saw the situation. The book also neglects to mention any charges against Anne Hutchinson other than her speaking out about antinomianism. She also knowingly committed heresy by continuing to hold weekly religious discussions in her home, even after such meetings were placed on a list of 82 errors considered heresy (Clark 43). Anne was also brought up on charges of sedition, or speaking out against the government, which the book also fails to mention (Nichols 58). The book even goes so far as to use the word "heroine" to describe Anne Hutchinson, and they fail to mention any of her legitimate flaws or disturbances against the community. The book also vilifies John Winthrop, making him appear a cruel and unfeeling man by using his role in Hutchinson's trial and his quote about her death as support. However harsh Winthrop may have been, he saw his actions as protective measures to keep his colony unified and relatively peaceful. His popularity as a governor is clearly illustrated by his continual re-election, and most biographies portray him as a generally good man.

 
franklinpierce03: In regards to melodrama, the textbook does a fairly good job of providing an accurate portrayal of the people and events of Anne Huchinson's trial. Their depiction of Anne's exceptional intelligence is not by any means an overstatement. Saying that she "bamboozled her clerical inquisitors" is remarkably true. Throughout her trial, Anne used Bible scriptures and her knowledge of theology and legal proceedings to support her case. In her biography, Beth Clark even goes so far as to say that Anne was clearly smarter than the men trying her case. However, the book does, as previously mentioned, over-exaggerate John Winthrop's cruelty. In fact, Winthrop offered Anne more than one compromise throughout her trial (Clark 46-53).

nelsonmandela03: In the textbook, Anne Hutchinson has been judged as a heroine in the eyes of our history. She is portrayed that way because of her unorthodox views that she had back in her time. She challenged the authority of the church, which was frowned upon. The textbook shows melodrama because the way that they describe Anne Hutchinson's death was overdramatic. Also, how they described her within the textbook, gives us the idea that she could easily trick people within the church. And the Puritans banishing her was a bit overdramatic. 

     Also, the biases within the textbook are that they chose to write down only the important parts of Anne's punishment. They didn't give a full description of what else happened to her. Textbooks tend to only give our the main ideas of what goes on within a persons' life, or anything along that line. Other books, textbooks, websites, or magazines describe in further detail about Anne's life and what she had been through. But rather than spending lots of time describing about one topic they just give students a main idea about the event, person, or what happened.

     Loewen's theme of heroification was defined in the textbook about Anne because she was portrayed as a hero. She was intelligent, strong-willed, talkative, and a mother of 14 children. She was very brave to stay with her beliefs and saying that they were a direct revelation from God. Taking along her family with her when she was excommunicated shows that she wasn't going to let anyone stand in-between her beliefs and the other religions. I assume she became an inspiration to other women to stand up for what they believe, and not just go with the flow of everyone else. 

     As for social archetype, the Bay Colony Puritans weren't allowed to make their own laws. The church was separate from the government, and that's how they wanted it to be. Until Anne wanted to stand out and speak what she thought was the right way of the Puritan religion, everything had to be a certain way. Even other Puritan leaders, such as Roger Williams, a popular Salem minister, he wanted a break from the Church of England. He thought they were corrupted, so he wanted a way to separate from them. Since the authorities in the Bay Colony found out about his opinions that were "wrong," that wanted him banished. With saying that, the Church of England only wanted one religion and it had to be the ultimate religion.

yitzhakrabin03: The major textbook bias I found was the absence of William Hutchinson, the textbook never mentions his name. It seems to use heroification and the textbook bias at the same time. The textbook portrays Anne Hutchinson as a single mom with many children that goes around fighting religious battles. She got pregnant all by herself and she walked to Rhode Island while pregnant. The textbook also makes it seem like Anne was right, and the community was bad for putting a woman through all of this, which i'm not disagreeing with, it was very wrong, but at the time she was seriously breaking the law. She was sticking her neck out, she was telling people that parts of their faith was wrong, she could of just avoided the whole situation by just going to a safer place to preach, of she could of just not have been so straight forward. The melodrama is almost hard to read after reading things on the internet, the textbook tries to make it sound like a movie, with action packed words and exiting phrases.

leeharveyoswald03: The American Pageant is, pardon the pun, a textbook case of many of the themes Loewen discusses in his book.  The sentence immediatly following the mere mention of her name uses a multitude of positive adjectives to over-exagerate her character.  Before the reader even knows of the events surrounding her, Anne is cast in a bright light.  This blatant herofication continues with the melodramatic account of the trial and subsequent exile.  Using phrases like "bamboozled her clerical inquisitors" leaves hardly any room to question her intelligence or that of her accusers.  And while the statement saying she and her family traveled on foot to Rhode Island may very well be true, it certainly did not happen til at least the spring, after the birth of her child and the lifting of her house arrest.  The omission of the other charges laid against her also fails to help the reader understand the whole setting.  For example, the fact that Anne was a woman hosting these meetings and thinking for herself undoubtedly went against the grain and played a part the cause for her trial.  The lack of explanation about the social factors makes Anne's prosecuters seem all the more unreasonable when in actuality, she went against the social archetype of the time.  Of course the book does not want you think about that though.  Just like it neglects to mention how the natives were often forced to accept the Europeans' religions or unfortunatly no longer live in this world.  At least Anne was able to simply move to another colony.  The Anglo centric view of many textbooks is completely biased and fails to showcase how the colonists had much more freedom and oportunity than their former occupants of the Americas.

Critical Thinking

timothymcveigh03:  After reading about Loewen's interpretations of histroy, I now believe that I should make the past more relevant in my life.  Loewen states that history is one of the least favorite subjects of high school students, mainly because it is irrelevant to them.  However, you cant just ignorethe past.  Without what happend three and four hundred years ago, we would not be the same today.  After seeing what Loewen had to say, i believe that I will start to use the past to my advantage and actually learn what happened.  Students shouldn't just memorize facts from their textbook the night before a test because, that isn't really helping them and it actually affects their lives.  Everyone should understand that the past is important and affects us on a daily basis.  Teens are often bored by useless details, but history as a whole can be interesting.  People may forget dates and times of events, but the past is powerful and should never be completely forgotten.

yitzhakrabin03: When I first heard about Lowen's book, I rolled my eyes, thinking it would be one of the conspiracy type book. but after reading it, it opened my eyes, I never thought that something that i had relied on all my life could be so different from the truth. I now want to completely disregard my textbook leanings, and go back and reteach myself everything. After I applied Lowen's themes, I was shocked at how contorted the words are. Now i think that I am going to have took look up a piece of information up in many different places, to make sure it is valid, so that i am not mislead. It seems so easy to be lied to, even on this project I almost used a wrong piece of information. I have always been a man of history, but now i want to learn the real truth about past. 

leeharveyoswald03: James W. Loewen is undoubtedly one of the best nonfiction authors I have ever had the pleasure to read.  His style of writing is as gripping and enticing as the lies he exposes.  While reading I could not help but feel angry and foolish for many of the facts I believed to be true, not only about our country but the world as well.  Being forced to re-examine my outlook on the various historical and social aspects he touched on was not pleasant; it was downright painful and often offensive.  However, that is what many of us need- a startling slap in the face.  We cannot live in a bubble where everything our country does is perfect, and all the world is good and happy.  If we, the next generation, are to help run our world, it is necessary to learn to think about and discover things on our own.  There is a wealth of knowledge just waiting to be put to use, and it sits, collecting dust on an obscure shelf in the back of a library; waiting for a lone soul to pass and utilize its contents.  Thanks to Loewen I can no longer take history at face value.  It must be researched, analyzed, compared, and proven.  This is the gift he has given his audience; the drive to uncover a lost time and bring it into the light.  I know that I, and hopefully some of my classmates, will take this challenge and make this year's history class a little more... interesting.

franklinpierce03: Although I believe that James Loewen presents some excellent points in his book, I do not agree with many of his ideas. We are high schoolers, not professional historians, and as such none of us have the time to do extensive research to check the information presented to us in our textbook. While of course it is very important for us to be aware that textbooks, like other nonfiction books, are full of biases and contain themes such as heroification and melodrama, we are reading the textbook to gain an overview of hundreds of years of history. There is no way that a single textbook can present all the facts on just one person or event. If that were the case, there is no possible way that we could learn the material in one year of high school. That being said, I am very grateful to Loewen for changing my mode of thinking about textbooks. I am now able to better analyze the information being presented to me instead of just blindly accepting it. However, as I said, I will not be fact checking every bit of information the book gives me.

Visuals

franklinpierce03:                                                          franklinpierce03:

 (National Park Service)                              (National Park Sevice)    

 nelsonmandela03: (The Library of Congress American Memory)   timothymcveigh03: Anne Hutchinson's birthplace in Lincolnshire, England. timothymcveigh03: This is the Anne Hutchinson statue that is sitting outside of the State House of Boston. 

 leeharveyoswald03:"Anne Hutchinson defied the Puritan leaders of Massachusetts".

leeharveyoswald03: New England Colonies

yitzhakrabin03: William Hutchinson     yitzhakrabin03: Anne Hutchinson Studying 

Works Cited

timothymcveigh03: 1. 2005.Photograph.n.p. Web. 24 Aug 2012. <http://www.lincsuk.com/about.htm  >                      

2."Biography." Anne Hutchinson, 2002. http://www.annehutchinson.com/anne_hutchinson_biography_004.htm

3. Nevius, James "The Death of Anne Hutchinson." Inside the Apple.  2011. <http://blog.insidetheapple.net/2011/08/death-of-anne-hutchinson.html.>                                                                                                                                                      

4. A Tour of Anne Hutchinson's Life. 2012.Photograph. Tou's Common Place. Web. 24 Aug 2012. <http://somethingaboutamcon.blogspot.com>

franklinpierce03:

Clark, Beth. Anne Hutchinson:Religious Leader. 1st ed. Avondale: Chelsea House Publishers, 2000. 7-73. Print.

Nichols, Joan Kane. A Matter of Conscience: The Trial of Anne Hutchinson. 1st ed. New York: Dialogue Systems, Inc. , 1993. 1-101. Print.  

"A Clash of Cultures: Anne Hutchinson's Brief Life Near St. Paul's Church." National Park Service. National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior, 11 Jul 2012. Web. 21 Jul 2012. http://www.nps.gov/sapa/planyourvisit/a-clash-of-cultures.htm. 

"People & Ideas: John Winthrop." PBS. WGBH Educational Foundation, 11 Oct 2010. Web. 21 Jul 2012. http://www.pbs.org/godinamerica/people/john-winthrop.html.

. "Anne Hutchinson." Anne Hutchinson. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Aug 2012. http://www.annehutchinson.com/Default.htm. 

leeharveyoswald03:  

"Anne Hutchinson defied the Purtian leaders of Massachusetts". N.d. Painting. Equal Visibility Everywhere, Washington, DC. Web. 25 Aug, 2012. <http://equalvisibilityeverywhere.org/bog/womens-history-month-profiles-anne-hutchinson/>.

New England Colonies. N.d. Map. Wiki Spaces. Web. 25 Aug, 2012. <http://horizonschool4.wikispaces.com/New+England+Colonies.>

Maier, Pauline. "Hutchinson, Anne Marbury." The World Book Encyclopedia. 9. Chicago: World Book Inc., 1994. Print.

Reuben, Paul P. "Chapter 1: Anne Hutchinson." PAL: Perspectives in American Literature- A Research and Reference Guide. Web. 25 Aug, 2012  <http://csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap1/hutchinson.html>

Lewis, Jone. "Anne Hutchinson: Massachusetts Religious Dissident." About.com Women's History. New York Times Company, n.d. Web. 25 Aug 2012. <http://womenshistory.about.com/od/earlyamerica/a/anne_hutchinson.htm>

yitzhakrabin03: Kizer, Kay. "Puratins." Nd.edu. Notre Dame, n.d. Web. 25 Aug. 2012. <http://www.nd.edu/~rbarger/www7/puritans.html>.

"WayBack . Stand Up For Your Rights . Features/Religious Freedom | PBS KIDS GO!"WayBack . Stand Up For Your Rights . Features/Religious Freedom | PBS KIDS GO! PBS, n.d. Web. 25 Aug. 2012. <http://pbskids.org/wayback/civilrights/features_hutchison.html>.

Behling, Sam. "William Hutchinson." William Hutchinson. Rootsweb, n.d. Web. 25 Aug. 2012. <http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~sam/hutchinson/william.html>.

Warn, Emily. "Emily Warn » The Two Anneâs." Emily Warn » The Two Anneâs. Emily Warn, n.d. Web. 25 Aug. 2012. <http://emilywarn.com/the-two-annes/>.