Tolerance in America:

Anne Hutchinson

by Sister Usha and Brother Osiris

Divinely Female

Americans claim that their country was founded on the principle of religious freedom, tolerance for people of all faiths. A closer reading of American history, however, shows that many courageous people fought long, difficult struggles trying to establish freedom in the US. That struggle continues today, as minority religions continually feel the need to fight legal battles to exert the rights guaranteed them by the Constitution.

As an illustration of the struggle for religious freedom in America, let us share briefly the life of Anne Hutchinson. She was born in England in 1591. This was a violent time in European history, when members of various Christian sects fought wars against each other at the cost of many thousands of lives. Several of the English colonies in North America were founded by minority religious sects fleeing persecution.

One of these colonies was Massachusetts. One would logically assume that people fleeing religious persecution would refrain from practicing it themselves, but this was not true. The colonists there created a system in which the church and the government were indistinguishable. Everyone was required by law to follow an extremely narrow and strict moral code dictated by the clergy.

Anne Hutchinson left England and settled in Boston, capital of Massachusetts. It was the custom for people to participate in weekly discussion groups at which people would talk about the sermons given by member of the clergy. Anne was the leader of such a group, one which became extremely popular among the women of Boston. So far, this was not unusual, except that Anne frequently disagreed with the clergy on many subjects, and did not refrain from saying so at these meetings. She believed in the rights of individual people to judge religious issues for themselves, without the necessity of clergy to interpret beliefs dictatorially.

The inevitable result of this was that Anne was labeled a "heretic" and forced to flee Massachusetts. Only a year or two earlier, a minister named Roger Williams had left the colony for similar reasons, founding a town called Providence, 60 km from Boston. Williams proclaimed total religious freedom in his new colony. He invited Anne to move to Providence. Instead, she and some friends founded a separate town, Portsmouth, on an island called "Rhode Island," south of Providence. The two towns eventually became established as a new colony separate from Massachusetts, now the "State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations."

One should not underestimate the amount of courage shown by Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson. There were many other dangers in that time, in addition to religious persecution. Cutting an area of forest to create a new town was not easy, and there were no guarantees of success. Many who tried starved or froze in the winter, or died of disease. Native American tribes were often hostile; Anne was eventually killed by Native Americans, and Roger Williams escaped a similar fate only because he had developed close personal friendships with Native American leaders. Twice, they made sure that they notified Roger and allowed him to escape before they burned his town. Anne and Roger are both people who deserve to be honored and remembered forever, by people of all countries.

Furthermore, we agree with Anne Hutchinson's belief that every individual has the ability and indeed the responsibility to make her/his own decisions about faith. Noone has a monopoly on wisdom. Anyone who believes s/he has all the answers has not been asking the right questions. Yes, clergy can teach much to non-clergy, but the reverse is true as well. Everyone has something to teach, and everyone has much to learn.

Let us be thankful that the opinions expressed by Anne Hutchinson so many years ago are more commonly accepted today than they were in her own time. But one must never be complacent and assume that such rights have always existed and shall always exist. They shall exist only as long as people struggle to ensure that they do.