The excommunication given so many centuries before. So let me tell you a little bit about our speaker. E eve leplank has published five nonfiction books. Two of them are especially relevant to our period. One is american jezebel, which is for sale outside after the talk. And it tells the true story of eves ancestor, the colonial heretic and founding mother, Ann Hutchinson. The one who was finally brought back into it church and the second ancestor who will be mentioned this evening is the salem witch judge, samuel sul and that book won the 2008mous ps book award for nonfiction. A critic noted recently or i dont know when it was that laplank sees Ann Hutchinson and samuel sual not as the dark puretens many believe them to be but living presences, even models of rectitude into the 21st century. So please, welcome eve for her remarks. [ applause ] thank you, rose. And thank you to the partnership and thank you all for coming tonight. Before i start i wanted to think for a moment where we would be in the i think that was one of the most interesting things about writing about the 17th century was trying to go back in the places we know and envision what they would have been like back then. So take good breaths as we go. Were here to talk about monstrous births and powerful midwives, the battle over women was bodies in 17th century boston. Theres a wonderful phrase i learned while i was writing the biography i wrote of Ann Hutchinson. Its one of my favorite quotes and its spoken by a history professor who writes about womens roles in American History and the quote is the problem of Ann Hutchinson is the problem of the public woman. And what exactly is the problem of the public woman . The problem is the term itself, public woman is an oxy moron. In early amare scua public woman did not exist and im not talking about prostitutes. Im talking about a woman who has a formal public role in society as a leader of some kind. Women in 17th century new england could not teach in public, or lead as governors nor as judges nor ministers and they could not vote. They could not defendant their country as soldiers. They could not hold property in their own name and they could not sign a legal document. Why, you may ask . Women could not do all these things because theyre naturally i inferior to men and unable for deep thought. The woman who achieved anything was said to have acted aabove her sex. She was a man in petty coats. Thats a quote. And they explained that government, in all of its functions, commercial enterprise, all these pursuits in occupation assigned to men demand it efforts of a mind indue wouind indued with it powers of close and comprehensive reason. A philosopher explained that women are inhcapable of penetrating truths that there slightly harder to discover. Because of it del case of their brain fibers. Thats a quote. I guess the native irrationality and powerlessless of we78en comes down to neurology or what some people call neurosexism. Those things i just said about how women receive are all true. Its not all some bad joke. Its also not a joke that american women in the 21st century still hold relatively little public power. To digress briefly from our subject, women in america a century ago still could not vote. 50 years ago no woman had served on the Supreme Court and just a very few served in congress. Even today nearly 400 years into the american experiment, fewer than 20 of our National Legislature is female and thats a historic high. Fewer than 5 have women at the hel hadm of major corporations. Men have served 45 times as the nations chief executive while no woman ever has. The only female major Party Candidate for president was met with crowds of americans crying hang her had and lock her up. As if she were a witch. Which brings us back to the 17th century when women had no formal public power but there were certain kinds of power that women did have. Private powers, domestic powers, even some educational and religious powers within their own homes and the homes of other women. Women taught children and younger women how to read and understand the bible which is the text of the world that people lived in, in boston. Women raised children and crops. Cared for land and gardens and complex house hrlds. They grew herbs used as medicines. They healed the sick and cared for the wounded. Womens greatest realm was child birth because midwifery was an exclusively female domain. Birth is such a dramatic significant time, especially in an era where so many women and babies died after birth that this was a crucial time thin 17th century. Although powerless in public were charged with saving the lives of women and babies, including those of new englands most powerful men. For example john winthrop, the man who red the move to banish Ann Hutchinson to massachusetts had had recently welcomed her if to his home to deliver one of his children and tend to his had wife. As the scholar has written women provided a large part of the medical care in early colonial new england. A practice that tied them to all parts of their communities and gave them access to social and legal authority. But even that power held by women serving as domestic healers and medical practitioners held dangers for them. The 17th century had its own special concept of medical malpractice. If a blurirth resulted in a dea mother or informed infant, the midwife could be held responsible. Monstrous birth covered anything from a stillborn still birth, birth defect or physical abnormality in the child and it had to be someones fault, eether the parents or the attending midwives. People in early boston as in early modern europe considered a monstrous birth a sign of sin in someone near the if fnt. Infant. Therefore a midwife could be seen as an ally of the devil or a witch. You see the aseeshiation between women and witch craft and female power and theres the unique realm of power held by women as private healers bled into their public role as witches. Lets look at Ann Hutchinson, who in addition to being a religious leader was a midwife, a skill that she had learned in england from her mother. Ann hitchenson was born in 1591 during a reign of Queen Elizabeth the first. One of the rare women in history to rule an empire. She was the mother of a midwife cousin of the poet laureate and a minister who also taught his gifted daughter his skills, interpreting and teaching about scripture. Hutchinson grew up to be both midwife and a kind of female preacher, teaching other women about their faith and the babl in her home which was an acceptable activity for a high status pureten woman in england and she continued both activities, midwifery and teaching other women about scripture in boston here where she moved with her had husband and 12 of her children in 1634. The bible talks she gave in her parlor were so popular with women that they soon apracted as many as 80 people at a time ifcluding inhfluential men who n 1536 completed it founder for governor. Soon after that winthrop threatened, called her beor the Colonial Court in the charge of heresy for behaving in a manner not befitting of her sex. Thats a quote. This is also a quote. This was not tolerable for a woman to teach men. During two days of interrogation by him in the court, hutchinson defended herself brilliantly when her 40 male judges banished her from Massachusetts Bay colony. A few weeks before that trial, Ann Hutchinson had been present at a socalled monstrous birth. It had been difficult for a young woman named mary dire. So jane hawkins had sent for Ann Hutchinson hoping she could help had. Unfortunately mary and william dires baby girl a condition meaning her brain was undeveloped and she died soon after birth. Mistress hawkins and hutchinson and the reverend john caught whoon also been called on to help decided to bury the babys body secretly to protect the dires from the public shame that would naturally follow the monstrous birth. Of course people gossiped about the baby and governor winthrop ordered hawkins be questioned. He ordered that the corpse be exhumed to determine what exactly it meant. This is pretty much all it quote what im going to read you now in the journal of governor winthrop. Many things were observable in the birth and discovery of this monster. And this is not a quote. The dires were heretics, he could tell and the midwife, hawkins quote was notorious for familiarity with the devil. Are had the women present at the birth were suddenly taken with a violent vomiting and others had their children taken with convlgzs. As the child died the bed wrn it mother lay shook violent lay. It was revealed to be a 17th century version of rosemarys baby. A say tannic mix of a woman child a beast and a foul all rolled into one and without a head. It was much corrupted yet the horns in the back. It was so monstrous and misshapen as the like has scarce been heard of. The ears were like an apess the nose was hooking upward. The breast and back were full of sharp peckals. Instead of toes it had had three claws with tallens like a young foul upon the back upon the have belly two great holes and each of them stuck out a piece of flesh. But in the place thereof above the eyes four horns, two above an inch long hard and sharp. This truly was a monstrous birth but it didnt entirely make sense because as he wrote in his journal mistress dire had been such a proper, comly woman. Then he remembered how close mary dire was with Ann Hutchinson. So close dire and her husband and children were among those who accompanied Ann Hutchinson in banishment, moving with them to rhode island. Monstrous errors like hutchinsons begot monstrous births like dires. One reason she was such a threat is she did work as a pedical practitioner. He described her as a woman helpful during times of child birth and well furnish would the means for these purposes whom readily insinuated herself into the efections of many. So her medical skills gave her too much power, hence it inhad sinuation. Her friend and mentor, the minister john cotton wrote at her first coming to boston she was well esteemed of me chiefly that iurd had she did much good in our town. Wrn she was not only skillful and helpful but readily fell into good dish course with the women about their spiritual estates. Ann hutchinson been one of cottons closest spiritual allies in england where they collaborated for nearly 20 years in the old city of boston and cotton had said very high praise she had had more people resort to her for counsel about matters of conscience and clearing up mens spiritual estates than any minister. Another source of hutchinsons authority in early boston was her remarkable maternal skill, having married William Hutchinson at 21 she proceeded to bear 15 healthy if fnts. Her first born came in 1613, susan in 1614, richard in 1616. Faith in 1617. Bridget in 1619, frances in 1620, elizabeth in 1622, william in 1623, samuel in 1624, ann in 1626, mary in 1628, catherine in 1630 and im getting tired just listing these kids. There was a second william because it first had had died in 1631 and a second susan for the same reason. Hutchinson lost two daughters to the plague in lincolnshire. And here in their new home gave burths to a new boy named zurial. A year later she was 26 years old and pregnant for the 16th time. In the course of that pregnancy, Ann Hutchinson inhad dured two public trials, spent a winter apart from her family under arrest. Banished and excommunicated and she walked the 60 miles from south of boston to rhode island in the snow. There in exile appeared to be what appeared to be a monstrous birth. It was actually a lateterm miscarriage known as a molar pregnancy or a a well recognized gynecological condition now remieved soon after detection so it doesnt become cancerous. But then it was a wonderous sign of hutchinsons inherent evil. More divine proof she had been justly expelled. Reports of her abnormal birth came to boston courtesy of a young rhode island minister who saw her when she nearly died from blood loss. Her mole is the first hide tid form mole in the medical literature because she was so famous it was reported on and has been identified as the fist written about by doctors. When the reverend john cotton heard of her unnatural birth, he made use of it in public at the next lecture day choosing this medical matter, which to us seems looik an intensely private thing as his text to preach on. It was, he told his congregation a likely sign of mistress hutchinsons error in heresy. Her miscarriage became the talk of boston. Winthrop wrote to the minister in rhode island to request a fuller account of hutchinsons monstrous birth and he recorded what he heard quote mistress hutchinson being big with child and growing towards the time of her labor brought forth not one as mistress dire did but what was more strange to amazement 30 monstrous births. Some bigger, some lesser, some of one shape, some of another. None of all of them as far as i could ever learn of human shape. These things are so strange that im almost loathe to be it reporter of them. But see how the wisdom of god fitted this judgment to her sin every way. For look as she had vented misshapen opinions so she must bring forth deformed monsters and as there were about 30 opinions in number the ministers gathered, so many monsters. And as those were public and not in a corner mentioned, so this is now come to be known and famous over all these churches and a great part of the world. So you see in 17th century boston, the contents of a womans uterus were the subject of political debate. They were signs of gods intervention in the world. Exposing peoples sins. Womens bodies were subjects for men to preach about and pick apart for their religious and social meaning. Were there other uses of womens bodies in the puratins mind . Yes, reeproduction. Once that earthly function was fulfilled, however, women became irrelevant. In contrast to men whose bodies were believed to be resurrected as bodies after death. And there was quite a bit of debate about exactly which male organ from where of the stomach, where they were resurrected or not, they took this extremely seriously. The reverend cotton explained they assume a heavenly body in which from which they can see and hear and float along side angels who are also male. In pureten theology, heaven is an entirely masculine place, which strangely leads me to a hopeful final note arising from the salem witch craft crisis of 1692 in which massachusetts murdered 27 innocent people. That crisis surprisingly had some positive outcomes. Including the creation of the First Independent judiciary in the western hemisphere. The Supreme Judicial Court of massachusetts which was created as a direct result to trials. The notion of an independent judiciary was created as well as that was t last witch craft execution on this continent. Another positive outcome of the witch hunt was a change of heart within one of the nine judges. Sammal sual. Ninetyfour years after four years after it trial, he stood up in his church, bostons third to acknowledge his personal shame and blame for having killed innocent people. The fact of suals repentance is well known as is the fact he was the author of the first antislavery tract in American History which he published in 1700 when one in five baus ownians owned slaves. Less well known is what sual did nearly 30 years later as an old man when he considered the possibility that women are equal to men. It was the summer of 1724 when the retired judge was spending long hours at the bed side of his oldest daughter, hannah while waiting on my dear child in her last sickness as he put it. Did all he could to help his dying daughter sitting with her had, praying and singing songs. When she fell asleep, he read. One of the books he read that summer was published in london in 1711. Was a sort of book you keep in your guest bathroom. It contained 2000 answers to curious questions in most arts and sciences, approved of by many of the most learned and ingenious of both cambridge and oxford and the royal society. Things you might wonder about with the correct answers. He read some of the british apallo allowed to his had daughter but on page 200 he came to a question that seemed unsuitable for sharing with her had. The question was is there now or will there be at the resurrection any females in heaven . This was a relevant question according to the text since there seems to be no need of them there. And the british apollos reply was since sexes are corporal distinctions t follows there can be not any distinction of sex in hev hadden, our rising bodies will not be distinguished if to sexes. In resurrection the dead are as the angels of god, male. This thats a quote, troubled samuel sual. Since there seems to be no need of them there, it was especially irritating. He said there will be no needless impertinant things or persons in heaven because its a roomy, magnificent palace with the most rich and splendid entertainments. So many of the women he loved wer dead he felt sure that god is their father and therefore heaven is their country. He could see no convincing evidence that womens bodies are less likely to be resurrected than mens. Although this was the teaching of his church. So the 72yearold judge took up an old diary and common place book and he began to address the issue of quote whether the bodies of women deceased shall be again raised up and remain in their own sex closed quote. He titled his work an aeramaic expression that means maiden arise. Using the Research Methods hed acquired in the 167 7070s he s his thesis. Quote he who if had stuted both sexes will restore both in heaven. Is there no need for a dotter to go and see her father when he sends for her . Is there no need for her to see god who though he may be a great king is a most loving and tender hearted father . Need is not relevant. God has no need of any creature. Agusts provided plane, undeniable truth. And noting the beautiful variety with which god had been pleased to adorn his works, he wrote its past dispute that mary shall enjoy her own body and john shall enjoy his or perhaps in the resurrected world hillary shall enjoy her own body and donald or berock or george shall enjoy his. Then, samuel sul invoked the concept of the right of women which was a remarkable thing two centuries before women could vote. Quote if any kauncontroversy be inhi injurious to women, in my opinion they are of quick understanding,