LAD TOBIN

Saint Anselm College

In November 1637, the most powerful ministers and magistrates in
Massachusetts Bay came together to examine and pass judgment on a
woman who threatened their vision of society and of themselves. Al-
though the elders had not yet settled on a charge, they were certain of the
verdict: Anne Hutchinson--wife, mother, midwife, biblical scholar--was
guilty. From the time she arrived in Massachusetts Bay in the spring of
1634, in fact even on the ship that brought her to New England, Hutch-
inson had dared to raise fundamental questions about authority and
worship. But by the fall of 1636 she was raising those questions in a
highly visible, public forum: the Sunday conventicle meeting. It seemed
to make little difference that the tradition of weekly conventicle meetings
was originally founded and encouraged by the male elders; that many of
the same arguments had been made by Governor Henry Vane and the
Reverend John Wheelwright, among others; or even that Hutchinson
was arguing for a more conservative interpretation of scripture than were
most of her critics. What mattered in 1636 was that Anne Hutchinson, a
woman, was publicly criticizing the male hegemony and offering that
criticism in a distinctly different voice.

Given the paternalism of Puritan society, it is not particularly surpris-
ing that Governor John Winthrop began Hutchinson's civil trial by ac-
cusing her of failing to honor the "fathers of the commonwealth." But it
is surprising that 350 years later many historians of the colonial period
continue to treat Hutchinson (whom they often identify by only her first
name) in much the same way. In spite of the fact that she had served as a
nurse and midwife to scores of Puritan women, raised fourteen children

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