Life Story: Mary Dyer (1611-1660)

Mary Barrett was born in England in 1611. When she was twenty-two years old, she married William Dyer. Mary gave birth to a son also named William in London in 1634. He died in infancy. 

Mary and William were Puritans, a group of English Protestants who faced religious persecution in England because they did not comply with the rules of the Church of England. Many Puritans came to believe that the American colonies offered the best chance for them to freely practice their religion and live in peace. Mary and William joined the mass migration of Puritans in 1635, moving to the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Mary and William settled in Boston and joined the local Puritan Church shortly after their arrival. Mary gave birth to another son, Samuel, in December 1635. By 1637 she was pregnant with their third child. Unfortunately, Mary prematurely delivered a stillborn daughter who had physical deformities. This was already devastating for Mary, but according to Puritan belief, stillbirth and physical deformities in infants were caused by the sins of the parents. Mary feared that the community would judge her if they found out, so she asked that the baby be buried secretly and mourned in private.

During this challenging time, Mary was cared for by her friend and midwife Anne Hutchinson. Anne was a radical thinker who challenged Puritan teachings. For example, she believed that women had the capacity to read and interpret the Bible. She also believed that anyone could go to heaven as long as they had a personal relationship with God. She preached publicly about her opinions, which angered the leaders of the Puritan Church. They banned Anne and her followers from the colony in 1638. Mary and William were exiled with her. Anne, Mary, and their families resettled in Pocasset, Rhode Island, along with about thirty other families that were followers of Anne.

After the expulsion, the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony heard rumors about Mary’s stillbirth. In March 1638 he ordered the body dug up in a public event and described the infant’s deformities in detail. He claimed that Mary’s child was the work of the devil and that it was proof of the heresy of Anne and her followers. He even sent descriptions to England, where they were published in 1642 and 1644. This was a devastating and humiliating experience for Mary.

Unfortunately, life was not smooth in Pocasset either. After disagreements between the leaders divided the community, Mary and William left Pocasset and Anne behind. They helped found a new town named Newport, where they became community leaders. Mary gave birth to three sons during this time.

Mary and William traveled to England for a visit in 1652, leaving their children behind in Rhode Island. During the trip, Mary attended a sermon led by George Fox. George was the founder of the Religious Society of Friends, also called Quakers. The Quakers believed in a personal relationship with God, rejected large religious ceremonies, and thought that women and men were equally able to be spiritual leaders. Mary was drawn to these ideas. She converted and became a devout Quaker.

William returned to Rhode Island after a few months, but Mary stayed in London for several years. No records from her stay there have survived. Historians have therefore not been able to determine what she did during her time there. 

The first Quakers settled in Massachusetts in 1656. The Puritan leaders of the colony thought that the Quaker beliefs of an individual relationship with God and spiritual equality between men and women were dangerous, so in 1657 they passed a law banning Quakers from the colony. To protest the new law, Mary returned to Boston in 1657, where she was arrested for her beliefs. Puritan leaders agreed to release Mary if she would stay quiet about Quakerism and leave Massachusetts. 

Mary left Massachusetts, but she did not stay quiet about her religious beliefs. While preaching in New Haven, Connecticut in 1658, she was arrested and expelled from the colony. She then heard that two Quaker men had been arrested in Boston. Mary traveled to Boston in solidarity. She was arrested and put in jail. After a few months, all three were released and urged to leave Boston and never return.

Mary and the two men were adamant that the law against Quakers was unjust, so all three returned to Boston again to draw attention to their cause. All three were arrested. The men were convicted and hanged, and Mary was forced to watch their executions. Then the hangman placed the rope around Mary’s neck. At the last moment Mary was pardoned because the leadership in Boston did not want to execute a woman. William, who was not a Quaker, had also privately asked that Mary be spared. The leaders hoped the ordeal would scare Mary into submission. They released her again, warning her to give up preaching and stay out of Boston. 

Mary returned to Rhode Island, where she continued to preach. She also traveled to Long Island in New York to share her beliefs and recruit converts. But she believed so strongly that the religious intolerance in Massachusetts was unjust that she could not resist returning to Boston again in 1660. She was arrested for the fourth time. William, her family, and her friends all asked for Mary to beg for mercy, but she refused. Puritan leadership convicted Mary of breaking the law that banned Quakers from Massachusetts. She was sentenced to death on May 31, 1660. The following day, Mary died by public hanging on Boston Common. According to eyewitness accounts, she used her last words to publicly condemn the laws against religious toleration one final time.

Puritan leaders hoped Mary’s death would serve as an example of what would happen to anyone who questioned their authority. But Mary’s supporters believed she died a martyr to the cause of religious freedom, and they shared her story widely. In time, the executions of religious dissidents caused growing outrage, which eventually led to the repeal of the law against Quakers.

• heresy: A belief or practice that is contrary to a religion’s teachings.
• martyr: A person who dies for their religious or political beliefs and is admired by others for it.
• Puritans: A group of English Protestants who left England for the New World to start their own settlements where religion would govern daily life.
• Quaker: The informal name for the Religious Society of Friends, a Protestant Christian group that was founded in 1650. Quakers stood apart from other Christian groups in the 1700s because of their commitment to nonviolence and their belief that women should receive formal education.

• APUSH Connection: 2.3 The Regions of British Colonies
• Include this life story in a lesson about life in the New England colonies. This story helps students understand the extent to which Puritan beliefs governed early New England society. 
• Pair this life story with Anne Hutchinson and Life Story: Lady Deborah Moody, another woman who left Massachusetts because of religious intolerance. 
• The stillbirth of her daughter had a major impact on Mary Dyer’s life. Pair this life story with Mourning Poetry of Anne Bradstreet to consider the impacts of high infant mortality rates on women in the English colonies.
• Consider the role of religion in Puritan New England by combining this life story with Ornaments for the Daughters of Zion and Connecticut Witch Trials.
• For a larger lesson on how religion played an important role in women’s lives during the colonial era, teach this life story alongside any of the following: 
  • Life Story: Kateri Tekakwitha 
  • Life Story: Doña Teresa de Aguilera y Roche
  • Life Story: Marie Rouensa

POWER AND POLITICS; IMMIGRATION, MIGRATION, AND SETTLEMENT