"Several miscarriages of a public nature": networks of female religious dissent in colonial New England
Date
2020
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
By applying a queer analysis to the 1646 religious dissent trial of Lucy Brewster in New Haven, Connecticut, this thesis shifts the analytical lens away from reading religious dissent trials as battles of individual women against patriarchal authorities. Instead, this thesis places the cases of female religious dissenters into conversation with one another in order to discuss how the interpersonal relationships they built with one another led to exchange and development of religious thought. ☐ The first chapter lays the groundwork of religious ideology at play in New England during the 1630s and 1640s, discussing Puritan belief systems and how they impacted the outcome of these trials. The following chapters analyze the cases of Anne Hutchinson, Anne Yale Eaton, and Lucy Brewster, three infamous female religious dissenters in New England, placing each woman into context with her community, her church, and her relationships with the women around her.
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Keywords
Colonial New England, Lucretia Brewster, New Haven Colony, Religious Dissent