Anne Hutchinson versus Massachusetts

Anne Hutchinson was a church going woman at the least. She moved to Massachusetts in 1634 with her husband and thirteen children. She was expecting her fourteenth when they arrived. Her main influence to migrate to the Americas was Reverend John Cotton. He was a minister to her while they lived in England and she could hear prayers from anyone else but him.

Anne was a true believer of the Puritan faith and keeping up the traditions and worship. She believed in speech of “covenant of grace” not a “covenant of works”. Basically she wants people to worship what god says and what he has laid down for them to pray upon. She opposes many ministers who she believes that speaks of words that people have laid out over the years and of a man named John Calvin. He was a famous Pastor whose works are called Calvinism. This is what gets her into a big heap of trouble.

While in America Anne has these meetings with people around her area and she preaches what she thinks is right and who all she believes can teach the religion the right way. Well people found out and she was put on trial among her peers to be tried for “troubling the peace and commonwealth of the churches here.” She had spoken something to a group of ministers about her beliefs and they were there to testify against her. She exclaims,” what law have I broken” thinking to herself what she did was right. Some of the men said she said it and some said she didn’t say all that she was accused of but overall the jury believed she said it. Reverend Cotton almost gets her out of it but she rambles about her beliefs again and convinces everyone that she should be prosecuted.

The jury and the judges find her guilt of “troubling the peace and commonwealth…” and she is convicted and banished after she is “uncommunicative” with the outside people she knows. She stays a few months in a house in “Roxbury” then goes back to court. She then receives her final conviction which is banishment, also John Cotton now hates her for what she has done and talks down to her in the court and says she shall go to hell. She can’t ever come back to that town. She then moves to what is now “Portsmouth, New Jersey “with some of her followers. When her baby was due is was a “still baby” and people thought it was a sign of the evil she had done and called it the “devil child.” She later gets murdered with five of her kids by Indians after moving to New Netherlands.