Mary Dyer

Mary Barrett Dyer ( * 1611 in London, † June 1, 1660 in Boston ) was a Quaker who was hanged in Boston (Massachusetts), because they had repeatedly enter the city, though the Quakers were banished from her.

In 1637, Mary Dyer met Anne Hutchinson, who taught that God talks directly to anyone, and not just to the clergy. Mary Dyer was a follower of Hutchinson and a member of a movement that they " antinomian heresy " called. The group organized Bible readings, in which counter-positions to the religious laws of the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony were developed.

1638 were banished along with Anne Hutchinson from the colony Mary Dyer and her husband William. Following the recommendation of Roger Williams, the group moved to the Dyers in the colony Portsmouth, Rhode Iceland to. There, William Dyer signed along with 18 other men as a " Portsmouth Compact" known manifesto.

Mary Dyer and her husband returned along with Roger Williams and John Clarke in 1652 to England. There, Mary heard a sermon by the founder of the Quakers, George Fox and then converted, as they felt a great closeness to the position taken by her and Anne Hutchinson thoughts. Finally, they appointed himself a Quaker preacher.

1657, the couple returned Dyers back to Rhode Iceland. A year later, Mary again traveled to Boston, where a new law banned the Quakers from the colony. She was arrested and banished from the colony. Her husband, who was not converted to the Quakers, was not arrested.

Then Mary Dyer toured New England to spread the teachings of the Quakers. 1658 she was arrested in New Haven, Connecticut. After her release, she returned to Massachusetts to visit two Quakers who were imprisoned there, and banished for life from the colony.

During a third visit in Massachusetts, in which she performed public opposition to the law, together with a group of Quakers, she was arrested again. In a brief court hearing, she was sentenced along with two other Quakers to death. While their fellow prisoners were hanged, could an objection of her husband at his friend, the governor of the colony, John Winthrop, cause a reprieve at the last second - contrary to their own will; Mary had refused to renounce the teachings of the Quakers.

Mary was forced to return to Rhode Iceland. From there they traveled to Long Iceland, to spread the teachings of the Quakers there. 1660 she was appointed to a second time to travel to Massachusetts to fight the law banning Quakers. Contrary to the entreaties of her husband and her children, she refused to renounce. So it was put back to court and sentenced on May 31, 1660 death. The next day she was hanged.

Her last words were:

His statue was erected in front of the capitol of Massachusetts in Boston to it.