Gracious Disciples and Frightened Magistrates

Abstract

This chapter begins with the Quakers in England, the appeal of the Quaker movement in New England, including Hutchinson's followers, and the threat that Quakers posed to the New England magistracy. It examines Hutchinson’s followers in some detail, but the Quaker/ Magistrate conflict is central to the chapter. The response of the governors and clerics mirrored so completely the official responses to the Hutchinsonians that the Quaker crisis becomes a venue through which the same social, political, and ideological issues are encountered and resolved. This is less a second-generation event than the last gasp of the founding generation.