Map of Long Island
George Rogers Howell after W. Hubbard, A plott of ye situations of the towns & places on ye wester end of Long Island to Hempstead Rounds, dated July 3, 1666 / by W. Hubbard (wants the towns of Brooklyn & Bushwick), 1895. New York State Library.
Deborah Dunch was born in London, England in 1586. She was the daughter of Walter Dunch, the auditor of the Royal Mint, and his wife, Deborah. Her ancestors were loyal supporters of the British monarchy and the Church of England. She married Sir Henry Moody in 1606, becoming Lady Deborah Moody.
After the death of her husband in 1629, Deborah became an Anabaptist. The Anabaptists were a Protestant sect of Christianity who believed that baptism should not occur until a person was old enough to consent. In England, where the Church of England was headed by the king, Anabaptists were considered a danger to the stability of the nation. Women in particular were vilified for following this religion. When word of her new beliefs got out, Deborah was summoned to appear in court. Rather than face whatever punishment the government had in mind, Deborah gathered her wealth and set sail for the English colonies in North America. She was fifty-four when she arrived in Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1639. The colony was run by Puritans, another Protestant sect that had been forced to flee England. Deborah probably chose it thinking it would be a place where she could practice her beliefs in peace.
The Massachusetts Bay Colony was not the haven of tolerance that Deborah hoped for. Deborah originally settled in the town of Saugus, Massachusetts, before moving to a large farm in Swampscott, just outside of Salem. She conducted a lively correspondence with other people in the area who were not Puritans. This drew the attention of her closest neighbor, Reverend Hugh Peter. Hugh believed that the Massachusetts colony should have religious unity. He had already expelled another Anabaptist woman, Anne Hutchinson, two years prior to Deborah’s arrival. In 1643 Deborah was brought before the court for spreading religious dissent. During her trial, Puritan leader John Endecott described her as a “dangerous woman.” She was given the choice to change her beliefs or be excommunicated from the colony. Deborah chose excommunication, gathered her fellow Anabaptists, and set out once again to find a place where they could practice their religion in peace.
Deborah drew up the plans for her new community and named it Gravesend. It was the first New World settlement founded by a woman.
At the same time that Deborah was standing trial in Massachusetts, Director Willem Kieft of the Dutch West India Company was looking to recruit new settlers to the New Netherland colony. Willem had recently started a war with local Mohawk communities and wanted to increase the colony’s population to make it harder for the Mohawk to take back their land. Deborah was a woman with money who already had followers willing to help settle a new community. The Netherlands and its colonies practiced a greater degree of religious tolerance than England and Massachusetts, so Anabaptist beliefs were less worrisome there. Willem granted Deborah the southwestern tip of Long Island, territory that now encompasses parts of Bensonhurst, Coney Island, Brighton Beach, and Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn.
Deborah drew up the plans for her new community and named it Gravesend. It was one of the first settlements in the American colonies founded by a woman. She allowed the inhabitants of Gravesend to follow whatever religious practices they chose, so long as they abided by the laws of the colony. Gravesend was targeted by local Native American communities who were angry with the Dutch colonists settling their land. This was no minor threat—in 1643 another outlying settlement in New Netherland was destroyed because of the ongoing conflict. In spite of these very real dangers, Deborah and her followers chose to stay.
As Deborah’s community grew, so did her influence in the government of New Netherland. In 1647 she was among the colony’s elite who greeted the new Director-General Peter Stuyvesant. In 1654 Peter called on her to mediate a tax dispute, and in 1655 she was called upon to nominate magistrates for Gravesend. Deborah lived in Gravesend until her death in 1659.
Vocabulary
- Anabaptist: A Protestant Christian sect that believed that only adults should be baptized.
- Christianity: Religion that believes in and follows the teachings of Jesus Christ.
- Church of England: Also called the Anglican Church. A Protestant Christian church that is led by the king or queen of England.
- Dutch West India Company: The company that owned and ran New Netherland.
- excommunication: The act of formally removing a person from a religious community.
- magistrate: An official who enforces laws.
- Mohawk: An Indigenous community that originally inhabited the area now known as New Jersey, New York, and southeastern Canada. One of the five founding nations of the Haudenosaunee. Today the Mohawk live in upstate New York and Quebec and Ontario, Canada.
- Pelham Bay: An area in modern day Bronx, NY.
- Protestant: The Christian communities that separated from the Catholic Church during the Protestant Reformation.
- Puritans: A group of English Protestants who left England for the New World to start their own settlements where religion would govern daily life.
- Royal Mint: The place where coins are made for the English government.
Discussion Questions
- Why did Deborah Moody have to leave England and then Massachusetts? What does this tell us about religious freedom in England and its colonies?
- How did New Netherland benefit from the arrival of Deborah Moody and her followers?
- Why was New Netherland a safe place for Deborah Moody to settle?
- What life circumstances gave Deborah Moody the freedom to follow her religious beliefs?
Suggested Activities
- APUSH Connection: 2.7 Colonial Society and Culture
- Include this life story in a lesson about religion in the North American colonies. This life story illustrates varying reasons for European settlement in the colonies and how colonists moved between the colonies.
- Pair this resource with Life Story: Mary Dyer to consider how women experienced religious persecution in the colonies. What did these two women have in common? How are their stories different?
- Lady Deborah Moody was not the only woman to exercise power in New Netherland. Invite students to compare and contrast her experiences with any of the women listed below:
- Religion was a powerful force in the daily lives of women in the European colonies of the Americas. Combine this life story with any of the following resources for a lesson on colonial women and religious life:
Themes
IMMIGRATION, MIGRATION, AND SETTLEMENT
