“Nay, man, I am not now to repent” - last words of Mary Dyer.

The women who helped shape the history of Rhode Island varied from artistic to tragic and from altruistic to selfish. A few were very beautiful, while others were brilliant. Most, if not all, were dedicated to changing the world to their liking.

One of the most dedicated and tragic figures was Mary Barrett Dyer (c. 1611-June 1, 1660), an English Puritan turned Quaker who had a significant influence on Roger Williams and helped establish the Quaker form of worship in Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

Mary supported the controversial Anne Hutchinson in Boston and angered the magistrates in Massachusetts. After Mary Dyer gave birth to a deformed stillborn baby, the Puritans in the Bay Colony claimed this was proof that she was guilty of heresy and she, her husband, Anne Hutchinson and her followers were forced to leave the colony. On advice from Roger Williams, they settled in Portsmouth, R.I.

A number of historians believe that Mary was instrumental in convincing Roger Williams of adult baptism and that this led to his being baptized and founding the Baptist church in Providence. In 1652, when Roger Williams and the Baptist preacher John Clarke went to England to plead their case for religious freedom, Mary and William Dyer accompanied them.

In England, Mary fell under the influence of George Fox who founded the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). Mary soon joined that sect and in 1657, she left Rhode Island to travel to other areas of New England to preach Quakerism. She was arrested in New Haven, Conn., and again in Massachusetts, where she was banished and told not to return. She defied that order and on her third arrest in the Bay Colony, she was sentenced to death. At that time she was given a reprieve by Governor John Winthrop and again told not to return to preach Quaker theology.

She returned to Rhode Island where religious freedom was granted to all, including Quakers. Her zeal and energy convinced a number of men and women to embrace the principles she advocated. In 1660, after taking her views to New York, she once again tried to preach in Massachusetts and to defy the anti-Quaker laws there. This time she was tried, convicted and sentenced to death. Her crime was in being a Quaker. On June 1, 1660 she was hanged on the Boston Common.

This act by the Puritans turned many against their harsh laws. Mary Dyer was considered a martyr and this started a movement to repeal the anti-Quaker laws and to gain new converts to the Quaker theology in Rhode Island and throughout New England. Thanks to her sacrifice, there was a rise in the number of Quakers in Newport and other areas of the colony. As there were Quakers in many of the mercantile centers of Europe, much of the trade that was established between the Quakers in Newport and the rest of the world brought great prosperity to Rhode Island in the Colonial era.

Mary Dyer is now considered one of the five Quakers called the “Boston martyrs” and a statue to her memory has been erected outside the Massachusetts State House.