American Jezebel: the uncommon life of Anne Hutchinson, the woman who defied the Puritans

Abstract

Anne Hutchinson, a forty-six- year-old midwife who was pregnant with her sixteenth child, stood before forty male judges of Massachusetts General Court, charged with heresy and sedition. In a time when women could vote, hold public office, or teach outside home, charismatic Hutchinson wielded remarkable political power. Her unconventional ideas had attracted a following of prominent citizens eager for social reform. Hutchinson defended herself brilliantly, but judges, faced with a perceived threat to public order, banished her for behaving in a manner not comely for [her] sex. Until now, Hutchinson has been a polarizing figure in history and letters, attracting either disdain or exaltation. Nathaniel Hawthorne, who was haunted by sainted Hutchinson, used her as a model for Hester Prynne in Scarlet Letter. Much of praise for her, however, is muted by a wish to domesticate heroine: bronze statue of Hutchinson at Massachusetts State House depicts a prayerful mother -- eyes raised to heaven, a child at her side -- rather than a of power standing alone before humanity and God. Her detractors, starting with her neighbor John Winthrop, first governor of Massachusetts, referred to her as the instrument of Satan, new Eve, disturber of Israel, a witch, more bold than a man, and -- ancient Israeli queen who, on account of her tremendous political power, was the most evil woman in Bible. Written by one of Hutchinson's direct descendants, American Jezebel brings both balance and perspective to Hutchinson's story. It captures this heroine's life in all its complexity, presenting hernot as a religious fanatic, a cardboard feminist, or a raging crank -- as some have portrayed her -- but as a flesh-and-blood wife, mother, theologian, and political leader. Opening in a colonial courtroom, American Jezebel moves back in time to Hutchinson's childhood in Elizabethan England, exploring intimate details of her marriage and family life. The book narrates her dramatic expulsion from Massachusetts, after which her judges, still threatened by her challenges, promptly built Harvard College to enforce religious and social orthodoxies -- making her midwife to nation's first college. In exile, she settled Rhode Island (which later merged with Roger Williams's Providence Plantation), becoming only ever to co-found an colony. The seeds of struggle for women's and human rights can be found in story of this one woman's courageous life. American Jezebel illuminates origins of our modern concepts of religious freedom, equal rights, and free speech, and showcases an extraordinary whose achievements are astonishing by standards of any era.