Religious Conflict and Tolerance Theme Analysis

Hope Leslie portrays events surrounding the Fletcher household in the 17th-century Massachusetts Bay Colony, a context that was infamously intolerant of diverse religious beliefs. The colony was founded by the Puritans, or pilgrims, a Calvinist Protestant group fleeing religious persecution in England and seeking to establish a purely Christian society in the American wilderness. This quest led to conflict with the beliefs of already-present American Indian groups, such as the Pequots, who occupy a prominent role in the story. Such conflict is personal to the Fletchers, whose devoutly Puritan household includes among its adoptive children Hope Leslie, whose Christianity is less sectarian, and Magawisca, a non-Christian Pequot. Though Sedgwick does openly acknowledge the threats of persecution and extinction faced by American Indians in particular, Sedgwick’s portrayal of the convictions and interactions among Native peoples and the Puritan and other Christian characters suggests that close proximity will lead, over time, to increased tolerance in society as a whole.

Puritan religious intolerance poses an existential threat to non-Puritans in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. After Magawisca tells her friend Everell Fletcher about the massacre of her village by men who professed Christian beliefs, “Magawisca’s reflecting mind suggested the most serious obstacle to the progress of the Christian religion […] the contrariety between its divine principles and the conduct of its professors; which, […] is too often the darkest cloud that obstructs the passage of its rays to the hearts of heathen men.” Magawisca, as an outsider to Christianity, perceives that Christianity doesn’t spread more successfully among so-called “heathen” people because it’s readily apparent that Christians don’t always live up to the beliefs they profess—especially when they behave violently toward people whom they professedly desire to convert to their faith.

When the old Pequot woman Nelema uses her healing skills to save the life of a member of the Fletcher household, she is quickly accused of witchcraft, which will likely lead to a death sentence. Hope Leslie attempts to defend Nelema, asking Mr. Fletcher “if it were right to take the confession of these poor children of ignorance and superstition against themselves,” and even defending Magawisca’s belief that she can communicate with the benign spirits present in nature. “Why not believe the one,” Hope asks Mr. Fletcher, “as well as the other?” In other words, though Hope classifies non-Christian American Indian beliefs as “ignorant” and “superstitious,” she deflects the representation of Nelema’s practice as “witchcraft” by arguing that Indian beliefs include relationships with both good and bad spiritual elements, and therefore that their beliefs as a whole shouldn’t be dismissed as wicked or devilish. Though Nelema is still arrested, Hope’s public defense (and secret rescue) of Nelema show that tolerance for different views is possible, even within Puritan society.

Seeds of tolerance can be found even within Puritan society, suggesting that society as a whole is moving toward greater open-mindedness at this time. When William Fletcher tells his wife about an American Indian woman who died without having converted to Christianity, he says, “But, Martha, we should not suit God’s mercy to the narrow frame of our thoughts. This poor savage’s life […] was marked with innocence and good deeds,” and thus they have grounds to hope for her soul’s salvation (though he warns Martha not to express such hopes aloud). Though the Fletcher household is a model of Puritan religious observance, even here a measure of religious tolerance can be found—even if it’s not considered fit for public utterance.

Protagonist Hope Leslie’s upbringing is influenced by various Christian denominations, which lends itself to a certain open-mindedness: “like the bird that spreads his wings […] [she] permitted her mind to expand beyond the contracted boundaries of sectarian faith. Her religion was pure and disinterested,” showing Sedgwick’s belief that “pure” truth is to be found in the rejection of too-particular religious affiliation. Hope’s “purity” and “disinterestedness” in supporting and defending non-Christians Nelema and Magawisca, for example, contrast with the narrower, harsher motivations of those who condemn the women’s beliefs as satanic.

Hope’s and Magawisca’s mothers are buried near each other in the same Boston graveyard, and this prompts Magawisca to consider the mercy of the being she refers to as the “Great Spirit”: “Think ye not that the Great Spirit looks down on these sacred spots […] with an equal eye; think ye not their children are His children, whether they are gathered in yonder [church] […] or bow to Him beneath the green boughs of the forest?” Here, Magawisca utters religious claims—essentially, that all religions and their believers are equal—that would perhaps have been considered heretical if uttered by a Christian character, allowing Sedgwick to subtly champion tolerance and common humanity without explicitly advancing these ideals.

Catharine Maria Sedgwick, though raised in a Calvinist family, became a Unitarian as an adult—a denomination that rejected many traditional Christian beliefs and even questioned the validity of formalized doctrines and acknowledged value in other religious traditions. Although Sedgwick portrays all of her devout characters with respect, her critique of what she saw as a dangerously narrow Puritanism is obvious, and indeed, her more tolerant characters—whether Christian or Native American—sound notably Unitarian in their theological musings. This unsurprising congruence suggests that Sedgwick saw Unitarianism, or at least a progressive, non-doctrinal Christianity, as the answer to the Puritans’ search for a truly Christian society in the wilderness.