Mary Dyer Sculpture
Introduction
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Images
Mary Dyer Sculpture
Mary Dyer Sculpture
Backstory and Context
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The prominent Englishman Henry Vane started an opposition party and eventually was elected to governor, but ultimately was defeated by Winthrop and his supporters. One of Vane’s supporters was Anne Hutchinson, an outspoken critic of Winthrop and a close friend of Mary Dyer. As punishment for supporting the opposition, Winthrop ordered the exhumation of Mary Dyer’s stillborn child, which was found to be grotesquely deformed. Winthrop and the other Boston leaders regarded the child’s deformities as the result of Mary’s deformed spiritual beliefs, which allegedly ranged from dissolute living to supernatural communication.
After the exhumation, the Dyers left for Rhode Island with other persecuted individuals including Anne Hutchinson, who had been banished from Massachusetts. In the early 1650’s the Dyers returned to England where Mary joined the Quaker church. Despite the continuing persecution of Quakers in Massachusetts, the Dyers returned in 1657 and Mary began missionary work on behalf of the Quaker church. She was immediately imprisoned and subsequently expelled with the threat of execution if she returned.
Mary risked execution by returning to Massachusetts in order to continue her missionary work on behalf of the Quakers. This time she was sentenced to execution along with two other male Quakers. At the begging of her son William the Governor granted Mary a reprieve, but once again expelled her from the colony. On her third and final return to Boston Mary was arrested and on June 1st, 1660 she was executed on the Boston Common.
Sources
Bibliography
"Mary Barrett Dyer." Encyclopaedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/biography/
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"Mary Dyer." American National Bibliography. Last modified February 2000.
http://www.anb.org.ezproxy.bu.edu/view/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.001.0001/
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"Mary Dyer." Brooklyn Museum. https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/dinner_party/heritage_floor/
mary_dyer.
"Mary Dyer Statue." Friends Center. http://www.friendscentercorp.org/?page_id=117.
"Notes from the Archives: Mary Dyer Executed #onthisday in 1660." City of Boston.
https://www.boston.gov/news/notes-archives-mary-dyer-executed-onthisday-1660.
Setka, Stella. "A Picture of Piety:The Remaking of Mary Dyer as a True Woman in Arthur’s Home
Magazine." American Periodicals: A Journal of History & Criticism.
http://muse.jhu.edu.ezproxy.bu.edu/article/542234.
"Statue of Mary Dyer." https://www.citywalkingguide.com/boston/statueofarydyer.