| Abstract |
"Anne Hutchinson remains an iconic figure in early American history and women's history. American historians recognize Hutchinson as an influential religious leader ousted from Massachusetts Bay because of her outspoken criticism of the colony's clergy, and she remains one of the few women taught to school children and remembered from history lessons. She has been called a proto-feminist, a political dissident, a colonial reformer, and suffragette. Historians have proved slightly more sophisticated. From Perry Miller to Bryce Traister, more than eighty years of scholarship on New England theology and colonization have positioned Hutchinson and the controversy as a critical moment during the first decade of Massachusetts' settlement, although the importance of Hutchinson herself (rather than her male supporters) and the actual nature of her challenges have been matters of intense debate. John Winthrop, the first governor of Massachusetts, established the parameters that have limited historians' perceptions and interpretations. In his defensive response to theologians and clerics in civil war England, A Short Story of the Rise, reign, and ruine of the Antinomians, Familists, & Libertines, Winthrop delineated the ideological afflictions and as well as the ability of the independent churches of Massachusetts Bay to maintain order and orthodoxy. In its very title, Winthrop framed the battle in terms of heretical sects, influencing not only English correspondents but future historians, who have labeled this the 'Antinomian Controversy.' From a purely technical standpoint, Massachusetts was afflicted neither by familists, who found the center of true religion to be love, nor by antinomians, who argued that faith abrogated the need to follow the law. Still, historians have produced an enormous collection of articles and books emphasizing the theological and political battles among men"-- Provided by publisher. |
