MARY DYER:
Mary Dyer was a gentlewoman by birth and a rebel by trade.
The wife of a London milliner, she could have spent
her life as a dutiful Puritan, reading the Scriptures
with other cossetted women of her class. Instead, she
went willingly to her death, a martyr to the cause of
Quakerism and religious freedom.
Quakers were considered dangerous subversives in 17th
century England, where they were flogged, deported,
even hanged. When they fled to the colonies, the
Quakers hoped to find a more tolerant religious
climate. But in Massachusetts, at least, they
encountered a society as repressive as the one they
left behind.
America was founded on the principles espoused by
Quakerism: free speech, freedom of assembly, the
separation of church and state.
These beliefs flew in the face of the strict
religious orthodoxy of the Puritans.
Dyer wasn't always a Quaker. First, she became good
friends with Anne Hutchinson, a notorious
free-thinker who was kicked out of Massachusetts for
her unorthodox views.
When the Hutchinsons took refuge in Rhode Island,
Mary and her husband, William, followed and settled
in Newport, where they became "people of
consequence."
Several years later, during a five-year visit to
England, Dyer converted to Quakerism.
When she arrived in Boston on her way home, Dyer was
immediately thrown into prison because of her Quaker
views. She was not set free until her husband
promised that she would speak to no one until she
reached the Massachusetts border.
Two years later, in 1659, Dyer was caught visiting
several Quakers in a Boston prison. This time she was
formally banished with a warning that she would be
hanged if she ever returned.
But within a month, Dyer was back, demanding fair
treatment for her fellow Quakers. She was imprisoned
and, after a short trial, sentenced to be hanged.
On the day of her execution, the crowd was so great
that the bridge between Boston and the North End
broke.
Dyer was led to the gallows, a giant elm on the
Boston Common. Her arms were bound, her skirts tied
around her ankles and her face covered with a
handkerchief.
"She was made to watch while her companions were
executed," wrote H. Addington Bruce, author of Women
in the Making of America. "The rope was placed around
her neck. She ascended the ladder. Only then was she
told that she would not die."
Her reprieve carried a price: She could never return to Massachusetts.
Once again Dyer was hustled off to Rhode Island,
where she could have practiced her faith in the
safety and comfort of her family and friends.
But she returned to Boston a few months later.
Again she was arrested and sentenced to die. Again
she was given a chance to save herself on the
gallows. And once again she refused.
"Nay, I cannot," she told the crowd. "For in
obedience to the will of the Lord, I came. And in His
will, I abide, faithful to the death."
Dyer was hanged June 1, 1660. The next day she was
buried in an unmarked grave on the Boston Common.
After her execution, a Puritan said scornfully, "She
did hang as a flag for others to take example by."
He was right. The king of England then banned all
further executions of Quakers in Boston.
Sources: Women in the Making of America by H.
Addington Bruce; Rebel Saints by Mary Agnes Best; The
Hanging of Mary Dyer by George Hodges.