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Part Taken by Women in American History

eventually she planned her settlement in the solitude of what is now called Rochelle. A swamp in the vicinity of her cottage still bears the name of Hutchinson's river and we may imagine how as the evening shades closed in upon them the settlers would gather around their leader, who read from the Scriptures and exhorted them to continue steadfast in the faith she had delivered to them. As the candle-lights shone and flickered on her strong face with its lines of struggle and of sorrow and was reflected in the deep, dark eyes, she seemed a woman who had fled away to this remote spot divinely inspired.

But she had chosen a bad time to come to this part of the country, for while safe from the men of her own race, who had given her nothing but injustice and persecution, she was surrounded by dangers from the natives. Governor Kieft, the Dutch Governor, had by cruel treatment aroused the Indians to sullen resentment. Not long after the arrival of Anne Hutchinson and her little colony, savage hostilities broke out. Suddenly, when the New Netherlander were unprepared, an army of fifteen hundred swarthy warriors swept over Long Island, killing, burning and torturing the settlers on Manhattan Island and carrying their savage warfare to the very gates of the fort.

Far out across the Harlem River, Anne Hutchinson's weak settlement of sixteen souls was at the mercy of the merciless Indians. The chief who had entered the land of this section according to tribal laws had sent to find out the strength and weakness of the colony. The messenger was treated with the hospitality which it was a part of Anne Hutchinson's religion to show to the "Stranger" who came within her gates. But the Indian spy was the messenger of death, for that night the colony was attacked and every one of that little settlement perished by clubs or tomahawks. Anne Hutchinson and her children with the exception of one, perished in the flames of