Out of Her Place: Anne Hutchinson and the Dislocation of Power in New World Politics

The trials Hutchinson faced for relaying prophetic visions and holding public meetings in her home regarding church teachings, both acts of performing a role of religious sage that elevated her to a position of community leader, illustrate how colonial women, try as they may, were not liberated from the early modern social demands of silence and chastity any more than they were liberated from the symbolic weight and corresponding restrictions of the female body.