Enemy of State

Chapter 1: Enemy of the State

“Anne Hutchinson is present,” a male voice
announced from somewhere in the crowded meetinghouse, momentarily quieting the
din that filled its cavernous hall. The meetinghouse of Cambridge,
Massachusetts, a square structure of timber and clay with a thatched roof,
served as the community’s city hall, church, and courthouse—the latter its role
this chilly Tuesday in November 1637. Hearing the news that the defendant had
arrived, scores of bearded heads in black felt hats turned to find the one
woman in the crowd.

There was nothing auspicious about Anne
Hutchinson’s appearance as she stood in the doorway alongside several male
relatives and supporters, awaiting the start of the trial. She was forty-six
years old, of average height and bearing, with an unremarkable face. Her
petticoat fell almost to the ground, revealing only the tips of her leather
boots. Against the cold she wore a wool mantua, or cloak. A white coif covered
her hair, as was the custom of the day. Besides that and her white linen smock
and neckerchief, she wore all black. She was a stranger to no one present,
having ministered as midwife and nurse to many of their wives and children. All
knew her to be an active member of the church of Boston, the wife of the
wealthy textile merchant, William Hutchinson, the mother of twelve living
children, and the grandmother of one, a five-day-old boy who just that Sunday
had been baptized. There was, in short, no outward sign to show she was an
enemy of the state.

Enemy she was, though, indeed the greatest threat
Massachusetts had ever known. More than a few men in the room, including
several of the ministers, considered her a witch. Others believed the Devil had
taken over her soul. The governor, John Winthrop, who was waiting in an
antechamber of the meetinghouse to begin the trial over which he would preside,
suspected her of using her devilish powers to subjugate men by establishing
“the community of women” to foster “their abominable wickedness.”

Anne Hutchinson’s greatest crime, and the source
of her power, was the series of public meetings she held at her house to
discuss Scripture and theology. At first, in 1635, the evening meetings had
been just for women, who then were generally encouraged to gather in small
groups to gossip and offer mutual support. Soon scores of women, enchanted by
her intelligence and magnetism, flocked to hear her analysis of the week’s
Scripture reading, which many of them preferred to the ministers’ latest
interpretation. “Being a woman very helpful in times of childbirth and other
occasions of bodily infirmities, [Hutchinson] easily inserted herself into the
affections of many,” an official observed. Her “pretense was to repeat [the
ministers’] sermons,” the governor added, “but when that was done, she
would comment upon the doctrines, interpret passages at her pleasure, and
expound dark places of Scripture, and make it serve her turn,” going beyond
“wholesome truths” to “set forth her own stuff.” One minister, Thomas Weld,
reported that her “custom was for her scholars to propound questions and she
(gravely sitting in the chair) did make answers thereunto.” This was especially
grievous in a time when the single chair in every house was for the use of the
man alone.

Men had begun to accompany their wives to
Hutchinson’s meetings in 1636, and as her audiences swelled she offered a
second session of religious instruction each week, just as the colonial
ministers liked to give a Thursday lecture as well as their Sunday sermon. The
Reverend Weld lamented that members of her audience, “being tainted, conveyed
the infection to others,” including “some of the magistrates, some gentlemen,
some scholars and men of learning, some Burgesses of our General Court, some of
our captains and soldiers, some chief men in towns, and some eminent for
religion, parts, and wit.” Anne Hutchinson had “stepped out of [her] place,” in
the succinct phrase of the Reverend Hugh Peter, of Salem—she “had rather been a
husband than a wife; and a preacher than a hearer; and a magistrate than a
subject.”

It was painfully clear to Governor Winthrop, who
had an excellent view of her comings and goings from his house directly across
the road from hers in Boston, that Anne Hutchinson possessed the strongest
constituency of any leader in the colony. She was, he confided in his journal,
“a woman of a haughty and fierce carriage, a nimble wit and an active spirit,
and a very voluble tongue.” Her name was absent (on account of her sex) from
every offensive political act and document, he observed, but she was behind them
all. “More bold than a man,” she was Virgil’s dux foemina facti, “the woman
leading all the action”—the breeder and nourisher of all the county’s
distempers, the sower of political and religious discord. Before Mistress
Hutchinson had arrived in America, in the fall of 1634, all was sweetness and
light, he recalled. Now that she was here, all was chaos.

After reading the selections from Lessons 2 and
3, choose one of the following topics to find out more about, and write a
clearly developed and well-formed research paper on your chosen topic. Follow
the writing process and be sure to cite two or more sources using MLA format.
Your paper should be written following basic MLA rules.

Topics (Choose one and using your sources cited
in MLA format, answer the questions below)

Using your source(s), explore the question: How
did a diversity of views transform American society? Provide research in
addition to your own analysis of some of the texts from lesson 2 such as
“American Jezebel,” “Repeal the Stamp Act!” and
“Declaration of Independence.” What ideas from the text reveal
answers to the question? Use both outside sources and textual evidence from the
selections in the course to develop your essay.
Past literary movements continue to be
influential. Consider romanticism, realism, and modernism. How influential were
ideas from those periods? Is that
influence clearly seen in the texts you have read? Explain with textual
evidence from both outside sources as well as from any of the stories from
lesson 3.
Research and discuss this idea of money, status,
and marriage during any periods you read about in lesson 3. Explain ideas from
any of those periods, using both outside sources and ideas from the texts from
lesson 3 such as Pride & Prejudice, After the Ball, and The Glass
Menagerie. What were some of the social classes of this time? What problems
were caused because of classism? Do we experience classism still today? How is
that reflected in our society compared to how it was during any of those periods?
Consider the types of jobs available to people, depending on social classes
during that time. How do jobs nowadays reflect one’s social status?
Research and discuss the role of women
historically and present. What were some of the abuses of women? Consider the
role women play in today’s society, are they still subject to similar abuse?
Use ideas from the stories you have read in this course as well as from outside
sources for support in analyzing women historically and present.
Click HERE for a sample literary research paper
that uses MLA style.

General paper guidelines:

Your paper is to be a full 400–500 words 4–5
paragraph essay, with supporting in-text citations and a reference list. You
are to use citations from both literature and research.

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Plagiarism

Your project will be screened for plagiarism. If
you’d like help in this area, please email your teacher, visit our online
library (the Learning Resource Center), or feel free to book a one-on-one
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Click HERE to access the JMHS Plagiarism Policy.

Before you submit, check the following:

1. Have I read the rubric?
2. Does my paper fully address the prompt, and do
I have a clear thesis statement in my introduction?
3. Are my paper and sources in MLA format? The
paper should be Times New Roman, 12 pt. font, double-spaced. Click here for an
example paper in MLA. Click here to see a sample Works Cited page. Need further
assistance on how to cite? View this short video: How to Format Your Paper and
Create Works Cite Page

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