Anne Hutchinson faced fate portrayed in The Crucible
REPRINTED FROM 11-24-2011
Both the civil and religious trials of Anne Hutchinson resulted in guilty
verdicts and she was excommunicated from the Church of Boston and
banished from the colony.
BRONX TIMES REPORTER, DECEMBER 28 BTR -JANIARY 3, 2019 33
I recently attended another
great theatrical production of
the City Island Theater Group.
This time it was “The Crucible”
by Arthur Miller. He
wrote it in 1953 and it brought
to life the Salem Witch trials of
the 1690’s. What it didn’t say,
but what lurked in the back of
Miller’s mind when he wrote
it, and in the minds of those
savvy enough to understand
the political climate of the day,
was Wisconsin Senator Joe Mc-
Carthy’s quest to rid America
of Communists. He managed
to see one behind every tree
and made it his mission in life
to unmask them. Although
I’m sure he did some good also,
it appears that he hurt a lot of
innocent people along the way
and was eventually censured
for his actions.
What “The Crucible”
overtly discoursed upon was
the existence of witches in
the minds of many of our fore
founders. Hallucinations possibly
brought about by ingesting
bread made from ergot infected
rye or a variety of other
possible explanations appears
to have caused the village of Salem
to become panic-stricken.
Betty Parris, the young daughter
of the local minister was
the fi rst victim to exhibit the
strange behavior and it soon
spread throughout the village
with real or imagined results.
Soon a good portion of the settlement
went amok with visions
of witchcraft.
That spring and summer of
1692 saw nineteen hard working
men and women hanged
and one old man crushed to
death under the weight of heavy
rocks placed upon his chest for
not admitting to witchcraft. It
was a sad time in our colonial
history and the theme was
resurrected by Arthur Miller
when he saw how ugly and often
untrue accusations were
causing the political or economic
destruction of numerous
good people simply because Mc-
Carthy accused them of being
communists or abetting leftists.
Some of his accusations
may have been true, but it’s the
innocent victims who also suffered.
The play was an apt metaphor
but unfortunately many
minds were already closed.
Watching the inquisitors
question the accused reminded
me, and some of the others in
the audience familiar with colonial
history, of the trial of
Anne Hutchinson (1591-1643).
As most readers know, this is
the 420th anniversary of her
birth and has been celebrated
all year in some areas of Massachusetts
as well as here in
the Bronx and in the Town of
Eastchester. Although she
was not accused of witchcraft,
she was declared to be an antinomian
which was a treasonable
offence in that era. She
was forced to remain standing
for the full two days of her
civil trial on November 7th and
8th, 1637 and then had to face
a religious trial the following
March. She was condemned
at both trials and her sentence
was excommunication from
the church and banishment
from the colony. The methods
of inquisition had not changed
much from 1637 and 1638 to
1692. The theatrical production
was well worthwhile and
I’m certainly glad that I made
it a point to attend.