Ann Austin (n.d. – 1665) was one of the first

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of Christian denomination, denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belie ...

travelling preachers. She and Mary Fisher became the first Quakers to visit the English North American colonies.

Mission to the New World

Austin was a resident of

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

and the mother of five children when she left England with Mary Fisher to take the Quaker message of

George Fox George Fox (July 1624 – 13 January 1691) was an English Dissenter, who was a founder of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as the Quakers or Friends. The son of a Leicestershire weaver, he lived in times of social upheaval and ...

to the

New World The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 3 ...

. She may well have then been in her sixties as she was described at the time as being ‘stricken in years’. They were subsidised in their mission by Quaker charitable funds and first sailed to

Barbados Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of the Americas, and the most easterly of the Caribbean Islands. It occupies an area of and has a population of about 287,000 (2019 estimate). ...

in the

Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...

where they were well received and where they converted the Lieutenant Governor of the island to Quakerism. On 11 July 1656 they became the first Quakers to visit the English North American colonies, arriving at

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

in the

Massachusetts Bay Colony The Massachusetts Bay Colony (1630–1691), more formally the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, was an English settlement on the east coast of North America around the Massachusetts Bay, the northernmost of the several colonies later reorganized as the ...

on the ''Swallow''. There they met with fierce hostility from the

Puritan The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Catholic Church, Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become m ...

population and the Deputy Governor of the colony,

Richard Bellingham Richard Bellingham (c. 1592 – 7 December 1672) was a colonial magistrate, lawyer, and several-time governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and the last surviving signatory of the colonial charter at his death. A wealthy lawyer in Lincolnshi ...

, as news of the heretical views of the Quakers had preceded them. On arrival, they were taken ashore and imprisoned. They were forced to undress in public, and their bodies were intimately examined for signs of

witchcraft Witchcraft traditionally means the use of magic or supernatural powers to harm others. A practitioner is a witch. In medieval and early modern Europe, where the term originated, accused witches were usually women who were believed to have us ...

, Ann reporting that one of the female searchers was ''‘a man in womens apparel’''. Their books and pamphlets were seized and burned by the Boston hangman. An innkeeper,

Nicholas Upsall Nicholas Upsall (1596 20 August 1666) was an early Puritan immigrant to the American Colonies, among the first 108 Freemen in colonial America. He was a trusted public servant who after 26 years as a Puritan, befriended persecuted Quakers and sh ...

, offered to pay their fines if he were permitted to speak with them in prison but the magistrates, having ordered their prison window to be boarded up so as to isolate them refused his request, the intention being to starve them to death. Upsall then bribed their warder by paying him five shillings a week to allow him to bring food to the women and so saved their lives. Fisher and Austin were deported back to Barbados on the ''Swallow'' after five weeks' imprisonment, having been unable to share their faith with anyone except Upsall, who became the first North American Puritan convert to Quakerism. Fisher and Austin returned to England in 1657. The Boston council declared on 11 July 1656, the day of their arrival that:

"there are several laws long since made and published in this jurisdiction bearing testimony against heretics and erroneous persons," and that Ann Austin and Mary Fisher, "upon examination are found not only to be transgressors of the former laws, but to hold very dangerous, heretical, and
blasphemous Blasphemy is a speech crime and religious crime usually defined as an utterance that shows contempt, disrespects or insults a deity, an object considered sacred or something considered inviolable. Some religions regard blasphemy as a religiou ...
opinions; and they do also acknowledge that they came here purposely to propagate their said errors and heresies, bringing with them and spreading here sundry books, wherein are contained most corrupt, heretical, and blasphemous doctrines contrary to the truth of the
gospel Gospel originally meant the Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words an ...
here professed amongst us."

On her return from Boston, Ann Austin's ministry continued until her death in prison during the

Great Plague of London The Great Plague of London, lasting from 1665 to 1666, was the last major epidemic of the bubonic plague to occur in England. It happened within the centuries-long Second Pandemic, a period of intermittent bubonic plague epidemics that origi ...

in 1665. She was buried in the Quaker Burying Ground, Bunhill Fields, London's first Quaker burial ground. It has also been speculated that Austin may have settled, as did Mary Fisher, among the Quakers of

South Carolina )''Animis opibusque parati'' ( for, , Latin, Prepared in mind and resources, links=no) , anthem = " Carolina";" South Carolina On My Mind" , Former = Province of South Carolina , seat = Columbia , LargestCity = Charleston , LargestMetro = ...

in the 1680s.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Austin, Ann Converts to Quakerism 17th-century Quakers English Quakers American Quakers Burials at Bunhill Fields Quaker ministers 1665 deaths Year of birth unknown

Mission to the New World

See also

References