Rebels, Radicals, and Rejects

The fifth and final event in our online 202 series on The Common Good: Whose Common, Whose Good? What happens when you don't agree with those who defined the "common"?
The Puritans knit their community together in ways that were both deeply spiritual and immensely practical. They prayed together, worked together, cared for each other in sickness and childbirth. What happened to people who defied that community spirit - the rebels and radicals who found other ways? In this challenging panel discussion, award-winning author Eve LaPlante, historian Peter Mancall, and Marc Kohler of the Roger Williams Foundation explore the limits of the Puritan common good.
We'll look at three New England rebels:
· Roger Williams, theologian, trader, and author of a remarkable work against religious intolerance, narrowly escaped arrest by the Massachusetts authorities. He fled to establish Providence Plantation, later the colony of Rhode Island, with a vision of freedom of religion and conscience - a principle, at least on paper, lacking in Massachusetts.
· Anne Hutchinson, midwife, healer, and teacher, came from Boston Lincolnshire, to Boston, Massachusetts - where she expounded on theology in a manner that threatened Puritan authorities, opposed the slaughter of Native Americans in the Pequot War, and attracted a large following eager for social reform. The Massachusetts court tried and convicted her as a heretic and banished her. In exile, she founded a community guaranteeing freedom of religion and speech that later merged with Williams’ settlement to form a new colony.
· Thomas Morton, Anglican, fur trader, and early settler, was reputed to stage raucous and libidinous festivities with Native peoples and widely seen by Boston authorities as a dangerous, even satanic presence. In the first week of the Puritan landing in the Boston area, they voted to arrest Morton and send him to England. But Morton had close relations with Native Americans, appreciated their culture, and fought for his rights. Who was the outlier, Morton - or the Puritans who persecuted him?
Meet the panel
Marc Kohler is a storyteller who for 25 years ran the non-profit Puppet Workshop. In 2017 he began to read about Roger Williams and, convinced that Williams’ remarkable story should be more widely known, established the Roger Williams Educational Foundation. He speaks and writes about Williams’ commitment to freedom of religion and friendship with the Narragansett people, and of his legacy today.
Eve LaPlante is the author of five nonfiction books including American Jezebel, a biography of Anne Hutchinson, and Salem Witch Judge, winner of the 2008 Massachusetts Book Award for Nonfiction for her intimate and powerful portrayal of Samuel Sewall, the judge who became an abolitionist and feminist. LaPlante’s latest biography, Marmee & Louisa, paints a vivid portrait of Louisa May Alcott’s relationship with her mother, Abigail. Described as “superbly crafted,” it was named a top ten book of the year by NPR. Eve is an adviser to the Partnership of Historic Bostons.
Peter C. Mancall, Mellon professor of the humanities and a professor of history and anthropology at the University of Southern California, is the author of seven books, including his most recent, The Trials of Thomas Morton: An Anglican Lawyer, His Puritan Foes, and the Battle for a New England. He is currently finishing volume one of the Oxford History of the United States.
historicbostons.org/