17th-century American Women

Coffee Tales - The sexual revolution from the 17th to 18th-century England & her colonies

2012-01-21T08:17:00.001-05:00

Queen Anne Silver Octagonal Coffee Pot made in London c 1711 by Thomas Folkingham

I woke up this morning, to find a fine artilcle in yesterday's newspaper The Guardian about a little known sexual revolution in 18th-century England. It was written by Faramerz Dabhoiwala in anticipation of the publication of his forthcoming book, The Origins of Sex: A History of the First Sexual Revolution.

Here are a few snippets. "Since the dawn of history, every civilisation had punished sexual immorality. The law codes of the Anglo-Saxon kings of England treated women as chattels, but they also forbade married men to fornicate with their slaves, and ordered that adulteresses be publicly disgraced, lose their goods and have their ears and noses cut off. Such severity reflected the Christian church's view of sex as a dangerously polluting force, as well as the patriarchal commonplace that women were more lustful than men and liable to lead them astray...

" When the Massachusetts settler James Britton fell ill in the winter of 1644, he became gripped by a "fearful horror of conscience" that this was God's punishment on him for his past sins. So he publicly confessed that once, after a night of heavy drinking, he had tried (but failed) to have sex with a young bride, Mary Latham. Though she now lived far away, in Plymouth colony, the magistrates there were alerted. She was found, arrested and brought back, across the icy landscape, to stand trial in Boston. When, despite her denial that they had actually had sex, she was convicted of adultery, she broke down, confessed it was true, "proved very penitent, and had deep apprehension of the foulness of her sin … and was willing to die in satisfaction to justice". On 21 March, a fortnight after her sentence, she was taken to the public scaffold. Britton was executed alongside her; he, too, "died very penitently". In the shadow of the gallows, Latham addressed the assembled crowds, exhorting other young women to be warned by her example, and again proclaiming her abhorrence and penitence for her terrible crime against God and society. Then she was hanged. She was 18 years old.

"That is the world we have left behind. Over the following century and a half it was transformed by a great revolution that laid the ground for the sexual culture of the 19th and 20th centuries, and of our own day. The most obvious change was a surge in pre- and extramarital sex. We can measure this, crudely but unmistakably, in the numbers of children conceived out of wedlock. During the 17th century this figure had been extremely low: in 1650 only about 1% of all births in England were illegitimate. But by 1800, almost 40% of brides came to the altar pregnant, and about a quarter of all first-born children were illegitimate. It was to be a permanent change in behaviour."

The article, actually a review of Dabhoiwala's book, then goes on to explore the reasons for this sexual revolution. You can find the article here.

Detail from The Bed, etching, engraving and drypoint by Rembrandt (1646). at the British Museum
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A Day in the Life of the Archaeological Lab at Jamestown, Virginia

2012-01-05T18:30:00.002-05:00

A Timeline of Events Leading to Jamestown, Virginia

2012-01-04T19:31:00.004-05:00

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This timeline was prepared by the Jamestown Rediscovery project of Preservation Virginia. It comes from their website here. For much more information on Jamestown visit their fine website; & if you can, donate to their continuing work.

A Timeline of Events and References

Leading Up To and Through the Founding of Jamestown

1558

Queen Elizabeth succeeds Queen Mary.

1562

Jean Ribault establishes Huguenot colony (Charles Fort) at Port Royal in South Carolina.

John Hawkins makes his first voyage to the West Indies.

1563

Charles Fort abandoned.

1564

Second colony of Huguenots under Rene de Laudonniere established on St. John's River in Florida.

John Hawkins makes his second voyage to the West Indies and Guinea.

1565

St. Augustine established.

1567

John Hawkins departs on third voyage.

1568

Hawkins fights Spanish at Battle of Vera Cruz, later set ashore at Tampico, Mexico, where three of his men began a 12 month march to the north, reaching Cape Breton.

1576

Martin Frobisher's first voyage.

1577

Martin Frobisher's second voyage.

1578

Martin Frobisher's third voyage.

England and Netherlands sign treaty to fight Spain.

Humphrey Gilbert sailed for America with 350 men but was forced to return.

1580

Sir Francis Drake returns to England from voyage around the world.

1583

Sir Humphrey Gilbert's voyage to Newfoundland; his ship was lost on the return voyage.

1584

Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe reach Roanoke Island in July, returned to England in September.

1585

Raleigh's fleet of seven vessels under Richard Grenville and Ralph Lane, with 108 men, reach Roanoke Island in June.

1586

In June, Sir Francis Drake arrives from Florida and removes the Lane colony to England.

Sir Richard Grenville and three ships arrive at Roanoke in August.

1587

John White with 150 men, women, and children sent by Sir Walter Raleigh to plant the Cittie of Raleigh on the Chesapeake Bay, landed at Hatorask on July 22.

1590

John White returns to Roanoke Island.

1592

Capt. Christopher Newport sailed for the West Indies.

1596

Capts. Amias Preston and George Somers sail to the West Indies.

1602

Sir Walter Raleigh sent Samuel Mace of Weymouth on a voyage to Virginia (North Carolina) to gather plant materials and to search for survivors of the Lost Colony.

Capt. Bartholomew Gosnold, Capt. Bartholomew Gilbert, Capt. Gabriel Archer, and others sent on voyage to New England coast.

Nova Scotia visited regularly by English traders.

1603

Capt. Martin Pring sent to New England coast by Bristol merchants.

Capt. Bartholomew Gilbert sent on voyage to Chesapeake Bay; Gilbert and 4 others went ashore (likely the Eastern Shore) and were killed by Indians.

James VI of Scotland becomes James I.

1606

Fleet leaves London on December 20.

1607

April 30
Ships arrived at Cape Comfort with the original group of settlers; a vanguard boat stopped at Kecoughtan where the natives welcomed the English.

May 13
"The thirteenth day, we came to our seating place in Paspihas Countrey, some eight miles from the point of Land, which I made mention before: where our shippes doe lie so neere the shoare that they are moored to the Trees in six fathom water." George Percy (Tyler 1952:15)

May 14
"The fourteenth day, we landed all our men, which were set to worke about the fortification, and others some to watch and ward as it was convenient." George Percy (Tyler 1952:15)

"the Councell contrive the Fort..." "The Presidents overweening jealousie would admit no exercise at armes, or fortification but the boughs of trees cast together in the forme of a halfe moon by the extraordinary paines and diligence of Captain Kendall." John Smith, Proceedings (Barbour 1964:206)

May 14+
Newport, Smith, Percy, Archer, and others spent 6 days exploring the James River up to the falls and Powhatan's village.

May 26
"Hereupon the President was contented the Fort should be pallisadoed, the ordinance mounted, his men armed and exercised, for many were the assaults and Ambuscadoes of the Salvages...." John Smith, Proceedings (Barbour 1964)

200 armed Indians attack Jamestown, killing 1 and wounding 11.

May 28
"we laboured, pallozadoing our fort." Gabriel Archer (Arber)

June 4
"by breake of Day. 3. Of them had most adventurously stollen under our Bullwark and hidden themselves in the long grasse...." Gabriel Archer (Arber)

June 10
John Smith released from arrest and sworn in as member of the Council.

June 15
"The fifteenth of June we had built and finished our Fort, which was triangle wise, having three Bulwarkes, at every corner, like a halfe Moone, and foure or five pieces of Artillerie mounted in them. We had made our selves sufficiently strong for these Savages. We had also sowne most of our Corne on two Mountaines." George Percy (Tyler 1952:19)

June 22
Newport sails for England.

June 27
"... our extreme toile in bearing and planting pallisadoes." John Smith, Proceedings (Barbour 1964:210)

September 10
President Wingfield deposed, Ratcliffe elected.

Early December
Smith captured by Opechancanough.

1608

January
Newport returns with the First Supply and about 100 new settlers, finds only 38 survivors.

Powhatan releases Smith.

January 7
Fire destroyed "all the houses in the fort."

March (?)
"repairing our Pallizadoes." John Smith

April 10
Newport sails for England.

Summer (?)
"Jamestowne being burnt, we rebuilt it and three forts more ... invironed with a palizado of fourteen or fifteene feet, and each as much as three or four men could carrie ... we had three Bulwarkes, foure and twenty peeces of ordnance of Culvering, Demiculvering, sacar and falcon and most well mounted upon convenient platforms...." John Smith, General History (Barbour 1964:325)

September 10
Smith elected President.

"Now the building of Ratliffes Pallace stayed as a thing needlesse; the Church was repaired; the Store-house recovered; buildings prepared for the Supplyes, we expected; the Fort reduced to a five-square forme; the order of the Watch renewed; the squadrons (each setting of the Watch) trained; the whole Company every Saturday exercised, in the plaine by the west Bulwarke, prepared for that purpose, we called Smithfield: . . ." (Third Book, Barbour II 180-181)

October
Newport arrives with the Second Supply including the first two women and 8 Dutchmen or Poles who were "glasse-men." No more supplies from England until May of 1610.

End of Year
Newport returns to England carrying with him "tryals of Pitch, Tarre, Glasse, Frankincense, Sope Ashes. . . ."

1609

"Now we so quietly followed our businesse, that in 3 monthes we made 3 or 4 last of pitch and tarre, and sope ashes, and produced a triall of glasse, made a well in the forte of excellent sweete water (which till then was wanting) built some 20 houses, recovered our Church, ..., builte a blocke house in the necke of our Ile, kept by a garrison, to entertaine the Salvages trade, and none to passe or repasse ..., 30 or 40 acres of ground we digged, and planted; ... but the hogges were transposted to Hog Ile, where also we built a blocke house with a garrison, to give us notice of any shipping, ..." "We built also a fort for a retreat. . . ." (Proceedings, Barbour I 263)

May 23
Virginia Company replaces Council with Governor who has absolute control.

August
Seven ships arrive at Jamestown, Sea Venture wrecked on Bermuda. 200-300 men, women, and children.

September 10
Capt. George Percy replaces Capt. John Smith as president of the Council, Smith returned to England.

"James towne being burnt, wee rebuilt it and three Forts more, besides the Church and Store-house, we had about fortie or fiftie severall houses to keepe us warme and dry, invironed with a palizado of foureteene or fifteene foot, and each as much as three or foure men could carrie. We digged a faire Well of fresh water in the Fort, where wee had three Bulwarks, four and twentie peeces of Ordnance, of Culvering, Demiculvering, Sacar, and Falcon, and most well mounted upon convenient plat-formes, planted one hundred acres of Corne." John Smith, (Fourth Book, Barbour II 325).

1610

May 23
Gates (acting as Virginia's first governor until arrival of Thomas West-Lord De La Warr), John Rolfe, Ralph Hamor, Sir George Somers, and other survivors of the Sea Venture wrecked at Bermuda arrive at Jamestown. Find 60 survivors of the "Starving Time."

"Viewing the fort, we found the palisades torn down, the ports open, the gates from off the hinges, and the empty houses (which owners had taken from them) rent up and burnt, rather than the dwellers would step into the woods a stone's cast off from them to fetch other firewood. And it is true, the Indians killed as fast without, if our men stirred but beyond the bounds of their blockhouse, . . . " William Strachey (Wright 1964:64)

May 24
Gates issues The Divine, Moral, and Martial Laws.

June 7
Gates decides to abandon Jamestown.

"This consultation taking effect, our governor, having caused to be carried aboard all the arms and all the best things in the store which might to the adventurers make some commodity upon sale thereof at home, and burying our ordnances before the fort gate which looked into the river, . . ." William Strachey (Wright 1964:76)

June 8
Gates's convoy meets Lord De La Warr's ships at Mulberry Island.

June 10
" ... relanded all his men at the fort again." William Strachey (Wright 1964:77)

"Upon His Lordship's landing at the south gate of the palisade (which looks into the river), our governor caused his company in arms to stand in order and make a guard. ... and after marched up into the town, where at the gate I bowed with the colors and let them fall at His Lordship's feet, who passed on into the chapel. . . . " William Strachey (Wright 1964:84)

"...Is cast almost into the forme of a Triangle, and Pallizadoed. The south side next to the river (howbeit extended in a line, or Curtaine sixscore foote more in length, then the other two, by reason the advantage of the ground doth so require) containes 140 yards: the West and East sides 100 only. At every Angle or corner, where the lines meete, a Bulwarke or Watchtower is raised, and in each Bulwarke a peece of Ordance or two well mounted. To every side, a proportionate distance from the Pallisade, is a settled streete of houses, that runs along, so each line of the angle hath his streete. In the midst is a marhet place, a storehouse, and a corps de guarde, as likewise a pretty chapel, though (at this time when we came in) as ruined and unfrequented. But the lord governor and captain general hath given order for the repairing of it, and at this instant many hands are about it. It is in length threescore foot, in breadth twenty-four .... And thus enclosed, as I said, round with a Palizade of Planckes and strong Posts, foure foot deep in the ground, of yong Oakes, Walnuts, etc., the fort is called, in honor of his Majesty's name, Jamestown. The principal gate from the town, through the palisade, opens to the river, as at each bulwark there is a gate likewise to go forth and at every gate a demiculverin, and so in the market place. The houses first raised were all burnt by a casulty of fire the beginning of the second year of their seat and in the second voyage of Captain Newport, which since have been better rebuilded, though as yet in no great uniformity, either for the fashion or beauty of the street. A delicate wrought fine kind of mat the Indians make, with which (as they can be trucked for snatched up) our people do dress their chambers and inward rooms, which make their houses so much the more handsome. The houses have wide and large country chimneys, in which is supposed (in such plenty of wood) what fires are maintained; and they have found the way to cover their houses now (as the Indians) with barks of trees, as durable and as good proof against storms and winter weather as the best tile, defending likewise the piercing sunbeams of summer and keeping the inner lodgings cool enough, which before in sultry weather would be like stoves, whilst they were, as at first, pargeted and plastered with bitumen or tough clay." William Strachey (Wright 1964:79-81)

August 9
English launch major attack on the Paspahegh village, capturing and executing the Queen and her children, burning houses and cutting down corn fields. Subsequent use of word Paspahegh in documents refers to their former territory.

1611

March 28
De La Warr leaves for England, George Percy is Deputy Governor until arrival of Thomas Dale, about 150 people left.

May 12
Dale arrives off Point Comfort.

August
Sir Thomas Gates, Lt. Governor returns to Virginia with 280 people and assumes control.

"Sir Thomas Gates ... happily arrived about the second of August, with sixe good Shippes, men, provisions and cattle ... the resolution of Sir Thomas Dale, now wholy busied (our land fortifications to weake to withstand a forraigne Enemy). . . ." Hamor (1957:28).

September
Dale with 350 men start building Henricus.

Early Fall
William Strachey leaves Virginia for England.

Also in 1611
John Rolfe imports tobacco seeds from Trinidad, Nicotiana tabacum; native tobacco was Nicotiana rustica.

1612

John Rolfe exports first crop of improved tobacco.

1613

"...and the forts which they have are of boards and so weak that a kick would break them down, and once arrived at the ramparts those without would have the advantage over those within because its beams and loopholes are common to both parts - a fortifcation without skill and made by unskilled men. Nor are they efficient soldiers, although the rulers and captains make a great profession of this because of the time they have served in Flanders on the side of Holland, where some have companies and castles. The men are poorly drilled and not prepared for military action." Diego de Molina (Tyler 1952:221).

"Twenty leagues off is this colony with one hundred and fifty persons and six pieces; . . ." Diego de Molina (Tyler 1952:224).

April
Pocahontas captured and brought to Jamestown.

June
John Rolfe makes first shipment of West Indian tobacco grown in Virginia to England.

1614

"The Towne [James Town] it selfe by the care and providence of Sir Thomas Gates, who for the most part had his chiefest residence there, is reduced into a handsome forme, and hath in it two faire rowes of houses, all of framed Timber, two stories, and an upper Garret, or Corne loft high, besides the three large, and substantial Storehouses, joyned together in a length some hundred and twenty foot, and in breadth forty, and this town hath been lately newly, and strongly impaled, and a faire platforme fro Ordence in the west Bulwarke raised: there are also wothout this towne in the Island, some very pleasant, and beautifull houses, tow Blockhouses, to observe and watch least the Indians at any time should swim over the back river, and come into the Island, and certain other farme houses." Hamor (1957:33).

"No sooner was he thus fenced, and in a manner secured from the Indians, but his next worke (without respect to his owne health or particular welfare) was building at each corner of the towne, very strong and high commanders or watch-towers, a faire and handsome Church, and storehouses, ... There is in this town 3 streets of well framed houses, a hansom Church, and the foundations of a more stately one laid, of Brick, in length, an hundred foote, and fifty foot wide, beside Store houses, watch houses, and such like: there are also, as ornaments belonging to this Town, upon the verge of this River, five faire Block houses, or commanders, wherein live the honesteo sort of people, as in Farmes in England. ... by name, Hope in faith, Coxen Dale, secured by five Forts, called, Charity Fort, Mount malado, a retreat, or guest house for sick people, a high seat, and wholesome aire, Elizabeth Fort, and Fort patience: and heere hath Mr. Whitacres chosen his Parsonage, or Church land ... called Rocke Hall ... " Hamor (1957: 29-31).

February
Gates leaves Virginia, leaving Dale as Deputy Governor.

April 5
John Rolfe and Pocahontas married at Jamestown.

June
Argall and Ralph Hamor depart from Virignia for England.

1615

Pocahontas gives birth to son Thomas Rolfe.

1616

John Rolfe lists settlements at Henrico with 38 men under Capt. Smalley, Bermuda Nether Hundred with 119 under Capt. Yeardley, West and Sherley Hundred with 25 under Capt. Maddeson, James Towne with 50 under Lt. Sharpe, Kequoughtan with 20 under Capt. George Webb, and Dales Gifte with 17 under Lt. Cradock.

May
John Rolfe, Pocahontas, and son depart Virginia for England.

June 2
Thomas Dale arrives in London, leaving Virginia in the hands of Capt. George Yeardley.

This list is not intended to be complete but to give an overview of the common references associated with James Fort.

Jamestown - Backfilling the western end of the 1608 church archaeological site

2011-12-24T18:33:00.003-05:00

William Penn's 2nd Wife, Hannah Callowhill Penn 1671-1726

2011-09-14T10:03:00.000-04:00

Hannah Callowhill Penn by John Hesselius

Hannah Callowhill Penn (1671-1726) second wife & executrix of William Penn (1644-1718), founder of Pennsylvania, was born in Bristol, England. She was the daughter of Thomas Callowhill, a prosperous Quaker button manufacturer, linen draper, & merchant, & his wife, Anna (Hannah) Hollister. Although she had 8 siblings, by the time Hannah was 15, she was her parents’ only surviving child. They taught her to keep accounts & to understand the various aspects of family commercial ventures, which later proved useful.

When she finally consented to be Penn’s wife after almost a year‘s persistent courtship, he was fifty-two, a widower with teen-age children. Their marriage took place on Mar. 5, 1696, at the old Broadhead Meeting in Bristol; in the next twelve years she bore Penn eight children (not seven as commonly stated). Of these, the first did not live long enough to be named. The succeeding children were John, call “the American” because he was born in Philadelphia (1700); Thomas (1702), later chief proprietor of Pennsylvania; Hannah Margarita (1703); Margaret (1704); Richard (1706); Dennis (1707); & Hannah (1708). Both Hannahs died in early childhood.

In this first period of her married life Hannah Penn made her only trip to Pennsylvania, with her husband & stepdaughter Letitia. They remained in the province just twenty-three months (1699-1701), but during that time she came to know Penn’s associates in the provincial government & gained their respect by her common sense, prudence, & dignity. Though she became aware of the economic problems & developing factionalism in the young province, she was concerned primarily with managing the farm at Pennsbury in Bucks County while her husband was engaged in the business of government. Penn had hoped to settle permanently in the province, but political & financial problems that arose in England required them to return.

In the years following Hannah saw her husband pressured by debts & imprisoned, & watched him grow disillusioned with his contentious Assembly & eventually realize that William, Jr., his eldest son by his first marriage, was unsuitable as the future heir to the proprietorship & province of Pennsylvania. She was in full accord with Penn, as a result, in 1703 initiated his first proposal to surrender the government of his province to the Crown for a cash settlement, while retaining title to the land, & when , in order to pay off his debts, he arranged to mortgage the land to English Quaker trustees.

Hannah Callowhill (Mrs. William) Penn, by Henry J. Wright, after Francis Place, 1874.

William Penn died in 1718. In his will, written in 1712 after his first stroke, he had demonstrated his confidence in Hannah by naming her sole executrix & leaving to her & her children the greater part pf his Pennsylvania land. But by vesting the government of the province to the hands of English trustees he had laid the foundation for a claim to both soil & government by his eldest son, William, Jr., the de jure heir. That claim, initiated immediately after Penn’s death, complicated the last period of Hannah’s life with tedious & expensive litigation over the will.

In 1721, now aged fifty, Hannah suffered what was called a “fit of the dead palsy” which, though it left her mind unimpaired, weakened her physically. From then until her death much of the proprietary business was left to the discretion of the devoted Simon Clement & of her eldest son, John, now of age. Never fully relinquished her right of stewardship, she continued to keep in tough with events in the province & in 1724 concluded a temporary agreement with Lord Baltimore over the long-vexed question of the Pennsylvania-Maryland boundary. By then the mortgage was nearly all paid, & she had come to view the surrender of government with less enthusiasm. She knew that the people of Pennsylvania thought it “inconsistent with the Proprietor’s first engagement” with them; moreover, if the will was confirmed in favor of her family, divorcing the soil from the proprietorship & its perquisites would deprive her sons of their full inheritance.

She lived just long enough to learn that she had won by default, & that Penn’s will would be upheld. A week later she died at the home of her son John in London, following another stroke. She was buried at Jordans Friends Meeting in Buckinghamshire; her coffin reputedly reposes on that of her husband. By her dedication to her husband’s policies & her ability through all her trials to act, as Isaac Norris wrote, “with a wonderful evenness, humility & freedom,” she had succeeded in keeping the Province of Pennsylvania intact & the people contented. Pennsylvania was held by her branch of the Penn family as a proprietary colony until the Revolution.

This posting based on information from Notable American Women edited by Edward T James, Janet Wilson James, Paul S Boyer, The Belknap Press of Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1971
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In the Jamestown Well - Below the water level in the mid 17th-century

2011-09-13T11:21:00.000-04:00

The Life of Condemned Massachusetts Witch Rebecca Nurse 1621-1692

2011-09-13T11:20:00.010-04:00

Rebecca Nurse, "Oh Lord, help me! It is false. I am clear. For my life now lies in Your Hands..."

Rebecca Nurse (1621-1692), victim of the Salem witchcraft delusion, was baptized (Feb. 21) & presumably born at Great Yarmouth, England, the oldest child of William & Joanna (Blessing) Towne. When she was about twenty the family came to America & settled in Salem, Mass. There Rebecca married Francis Nurse, a woodworker & “tray maker.” His affairs prospered, & he was able to buy a rich 300-acre farm in Salem Village (later Danvers), to which they removed in 1678. As their 8 children-Rebecca, Sarah, John, Samuel, Mary, Elizabeth, Francis & Benjamin- married, they were given land & houses on this property, so that by 1692 the old couple were surrounded by a brood of loyal descendants. Throughout her life Rebecca Nurse took particular pains in the education of her children. Though a member of the Salem Town Church, she usually attended the Rev. Samuel Parris’ church in nearby Salem Village, where she was seated (on the women’s side) with the Widow Putnam, matriarch of the most powerful local family, an indication of her respected place in the community.

As 1692 began, little but the infirmities of age, especially a growing deafness, disturbed the peaceful tenor of Rebecca Nurse’s life. In February of that year, however, several high-strung girls & women in the households of Samuel Parris & Thomas Putnam began to have hysterical outbursts, which were readily attributed to witchcraft. The important role of the Devil in Puritan theology made Massachusetts highly vulnerable to this still widely believed superstition, particularly at a time when Satan’s hand seemed so evident in the revocation of the colony’s charter, in Indian warfare, & in the decline of religious zeal. Furthermore, Salem Village, had special afflictions, including a divided congregation & land disputes involving the Putnams, the Nurse clan, & others.

When 3 accused witches were arrested, Rebecca Nurse took a guarded stand against the action, averring “that there was persons spoken of [as witches] that were as innocent as she was.” While the Rev. Mr. Parris & others fanned the flames of emotion she absented herself from meeting, & from the magistrates’ examinations of the accused. Consequently, when Mrs. Ann Putnam, Mrs. Putnam’s daughter (also named Ann), & others continued to suffer mysterious seizures, they readily added Rebecca Nurse to the list of their tormentors.

She was arrested on Mar. 24, 1692. The next day, when she was examined by 2 magistrates, “the great noise of the afflicted,” rolling about in their fits & howling accusations against her, was such that Samuel Parris, acting as clerk, admitted his inability to hear all the testimony. A man walking some distance from the meetinghouse later reported that he had never heard “such an hideous scrietch & noise” (Burr, p. 159). Undeterred, Mrs. Nurse earnestly professed her innocence. Great pressure was brought upon all the accused to plead their guilt, & in the outcome no “witch” who confessed was executed. However, neither Rebecca Nurse nor her 2 sisters who were also arrested would ever do so, refusing to “belay their souls.”

From March to June, Mrs. Nurse lay in chains in filthy & verminous jails in Salem & Boston, enduring false testimony, the mockery of visitors, & the humiliating search for “witches’ marks” on her body without losing her composure of her faith in God’s ultimate justice. The punishment for witchcraft was clearly set forth, in the Old Testament command “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,” & in May 1692 a special Court of Oyer & Terminer, comprising 7 eminent men of Massachusetts, was established at Salem to execute this stern injunction upon the rapidly growing group of the accused. The first to be tried, Bridget Bishop, was hanged on June 10.

The trial or Rebecca Nurse came next, on June 30. Unlike some of the accused, she was unfailingly supported by her husband, her family, & many friends, & for a time it appeared that she might be cleared. Forty citizens of Salem Village, including 7 members of the Putnam family, signed petitions of her behalf. Although the trial gave full weight to the “spectral” evidence of those who testified to visits from her “shape,” the jury at first returned a verdict of not guilty. At this the “afflicted” girls in the courtroom began howling, moaning, & twitching, & the stern William Stoughton, chief justice of the court & lietenant governor of the Commonwealth, urged the jurymen to reconsider. They did so, but again returned, this time requesting that Mrs. Nurse be asked to explain one of her remarks. She was asked but, being deaf, did not hear the request & sat in silence. Now at last the jury brought in a guilty verdict, & Mrs. Nurse was sentenced to hang. Her family submitted to the court a deposition explaining her silence at the critical moment, as well as the innocuous meaning of the queried statement, but to no avail. They next petitioned the governor, Sir William Phips, for a reprieve, which was at first granted. Unnamed “Salem gentlemen” intervened, however, & the reprieve was withdrawn. On July 3, in her presence, an edict of excommunication was pronounced against Rebecca Nurse in the Salem church. About two weeks later she & 4 others were hanged on “Gallows Hill” in Salem. The bodies were at first placed in a common grave near the gallows.

Eleven more hangings-including those of Martha Corey & Mary Esty, Mrs. Nurse’s sister-occurred before the hysteria ran its course. None of those executed in 1692 had as much said in her favor & as little against her as did Rebecca Nurse, & the Nurse family continued to work for her vindication after her death. They refused reconciliation with Samuel Parris, & in 1696, for this & other reasons, Parris left the ministry.

In 1706 young Ann Putnam, seeking church membership was forced publicly to confess that it was “a great delusion of Satan that deceived me in that sad time”; she asked especial forgiveness for her accusations against Rebecca Nurse. Five years later the Massachusetts legislature reversed the convictions of Mrs. Nurse, her sister, & 12 others whose families had also petitioned. At last, in 1712, after twenty years, the Salem church revoked the excommunication of their former member “that it may no longer be a reproach to her memory & an occasion of grief to her children.”

Rebecca Nurse Homestead

According to descendants, Nurse’s children brought her body back to the property after her execution and buried her somewhere in the family graveyard on the property. In 1885, the Nurse family erected a monument in her memory. The house is still preserved, & two granite shafts mark the traditional burial site, the second commemorating those who signed the petition on her behalf.

Rebecca Nurse 1885 Monument

The monument includes a poem by John Greenleaf Whittier:
“O, Christian martyr! who for truth could die,
When all about thee owned the hideous lie!
The world, redeemed from superstition’s sway,
Is breathing freer for thy sake today.”

The other side of the monument reads:
“Accused of witchcraft she declared “I am innocent and God will clear my innocency.”
Once acquitted yet falsely condemned she suffered death July 19, 1692.
In loving memory of her Christian character even then fully attested by
forty of her neighbors This monument is erected July 1885.”

The story of Nurse and her family is the focus of the film Three Sovereigns for Sarah. The Sarah of the title is Sarah Cloyce, and the film follows her quest to clear the names of her executed sisters Mary Easty and Rebecca Nurse.

This posting based on information from Notable American Women edited by Edward T James, Janet Wilson James, Paul S Boyer, The Belknap Press of Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1971
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Jamestown - Unique glass shallow dish found in posthole

2011-09-13T11:19:00.000-04:00

Witches - A Condemned 1692 Salem Witch & Her Husband Speak Out

2011-09-13T11:15:00.002-04:00

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Ulrich Molitor. De Lamiis et Phitonicis Mulieribus, 1493

Mary Towne Easty, the daughter of William Towne & Joanna Blessing Towne of Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, England, was baptized on August 24, 1634. One of 8 children, she & her family sailed for Massachusettes around 1640.

Mary married Isaac Eastey in 1655, in Topsfield, Massachusetts. Isaac, a successful farmer, was born in England on November 27, 1627. Together the couple had 12 children. Two of Easty's sisters, Rebecca Nurse & Sarah Cloyse, were also accused of witchcraft during the Salem outbreak.

At the time of her questioning, Easty was about 58 years old. Her examination followed the pattern of most in Salem: girls had fits & were speechless at times. The magistrate became angry when she would not confess her guilt, which he deemed proven beyond doubt by the sufferings of the afflicted.

Easty was condemned to death on September 9, 1692. She was executed on September 22nd, despite an eloquent plea to the court to reconsider & not spill any more innocent blood. On the gallows she prayed for a end to the witch hunt.

Petition of Mary Easty To his Excellency S'r W'm Phipps: Govern'r and to the honoured Judge and Magistrates now setting in Judicature in Salem.

That whereas your poor and humble petitioner being condemned to die Doe humbly begg of you to take it into your Judicious and pious considerations that your Poor and humble petitioner knowing my own Innocencye Blised be the Lord for it and seeing plainly the wiles and subtility of my accusers by my Selfe can not but Judge charitably of others that are going the same way of my selfe if the Lord stepps not mightily in i was confined a whole month upon the same account that I am condemned now for and then cleared by the afflicted persons as some of your honours know and in two dayes time I was cryed out upon by them and have been confined and now am condemned to die the Lord above knows my Innocence then and Likewise does now as att the great day will be know to men and Angells -- I Petition to your honours not for my own life for I know I must die and my appointed time is sett but the Lord he knowes it is that if it be possible no more Innocent blood may be shed which undoubtidly cannot be Avoyded In the way and course you goe in I question not but your honours does to the uttmost of your Powers in the discovery and detecting of witchcraft and witches and would not be gulty of Innocent blood for the world but by my own Innocency I know you are in this great work if it be his blessed you that no more Innocent blood be shed I would humbly begg of you that your honors would be plesed to examine theis Afflicted Persons strictly and keep them apart some time and Likewise to try some of these confesing wichis I being confident there is severall of them has belyed themselves and others as will appeare if not in this wor[l]d I am sure in the world to come whither I am now agoing and I Question not but youle see and alteration of thes things they my selfe and others having made a League with the Divel we cannot confesse I know and the Lord knowes as will shortly appeare they belye me and so I Question not but they doe others the Lord above who is the Searcher of all hearts knows that as I shall answer att the Tribunall seat that I know not the least thinge of witchcraft therfore I cannot I dare not belye my own soule I beg your honers not to deny this my humble petition from a poor dying Innocent person and I Question not but the Lord will give a blesing to yor endevers.

Petitions for Compensation and Decision Concerning Compensation

Account of Isaac Easty -- Case of Mary Easty

Topsfield Septemb'r 8 th. 1710

Isaac Esty (Senior, about 82 years of age) of Topsfield in the county of Essex in N.E. having been sorely exercis'd through the holy & awful providence of God depriving him of his beloved wife Mary Esty who suffered death in the year 1692 & under the fearfull odium of one of the worst of crimes that can be laid to the charge of mankind, as if she had been guilty of witchcraft a peice of wickedness witch I beleeve she did hate with perfect hatered & by all that ever I could see by her never could see any thing by her that should give me any reason in the lest to think her guilty of anything of that nature but am firmly persuaded that she was innocent of it as any to such a shameful death-Upon consideration of a notification from the Honored Generall Court desiring my self & others under the like circumstances to give some account of what my Estate was damnify'd by reason of such a hellish molestation do hereby declare which may also be seen by comparing papers & records that my wife was near upon 5 months imprisioned all which time I provided maintenance for her at my own cost & charge, went constantly twice aweek to provide for her what she needed 3 weeks of this 5 months she was in prision at Boston & I was constrained to be at the charge of transporting her to & fro. So that I can not but think my charge in time and money might amount to 20 pounds besides my trouble & sorrow of heart in being deprived of her after such a manner which this world can never make me any compensation for.

I order and appoint my son Jacob Esty to carry this to the Honored Committee Appointed by the Honored Generall Court & are to meet at Salem Sept. 12, 1710. Dated this 8th of Sept. 1710.

Easty's family was compensated with 20 pounds from the government in 1711 for her wrongful execution.
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A Halberd of Lord De La Warre found in the bottom of the Jamestown well from 1610.

2011-09-13T11:14:00.003-04:00

Witches - Cotton Mather on Witches 1689

2011-09-13T11:06:00.000-04:00

In 1692, at the Salem Village in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Sarah Goode, Sarah Osborne, & Tituba, an Indian slave from Barbados, were charged with the illegal practice of witchcraft. Later that day, Tituba, possibly under coercion, confessed to the crime, encouraging the authorities to seek out more Salem witches.

Just 3 years before this New England minister Cotton Mather (1663-1728) published his 1689 Memorable Providences about witches, which I read in my 1st year of grad school. I thought it was hilarious--the invisible horse was my absolute favorite. I realize that it eats up a lot of room, but once you begin reading it, you will see why I just have to post it.

Cotton Mather 1663-1728

Memorable Providences, Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions... Written by Cotton Mather, Minister of the Gospel, and Recommended by the Ministers of Boston, and Charleston. Printed at Boston in N. England by R.P. 1689.

Witchcrafts and Possessions.
The First Exemple.

Section I. There dwells at this time, in the south part of Boston, a sober and pious man, whose Name is John Goodwin, whose Trade is that of a Mason, and whose Wife (to which a Good Report gives a share with him in all the Characters of Vertue) has made him the Father of six (now living) Children. Of these Children, all but the Eldest, who works with his Father at his Calling, and the Youngest, who lives yet upon the Breast of its mother, have laboured under the direful effects of a (no less palpable than) stupendous Witchcraft...

Sect. II. The four Children (whereof the Eldest was about Thirteen, and the youngest was perhaps about a third part so many years of age') had enjoyed a Religious Education, and answered it with a very towardly Ingenuity....

Sect. III. About Midsummer, in the year 1688, the Eldest of these Children, who is a Daughter, saw cause to examine their Washerwoman, upon their missing of some Linnen ' which twas fear'd she had stollen from them; and of what use this linnen might bee to serve the Witchcraft intended, the Theef's Tempter knows! This Laundress was the Daughter of an ignorant and a scandalous old Woman in the Neighbourhood; whose miserable Husband before he died, had sometimes complained of her, that she was undoubtedly a Witch, and that whenever his Head was laid, she would quickly arrive unto the punishments due to such an one. This Woman in her daughters Defence bestow'd very bad Language upon the Girl that put her to the Question; immediately upon which, the poor child became variously indisposed in her health, an visited with strange Fits, beyond those that attend an Epilepsy or a Catalepsy, or those that they call The Diseases of Astonishment.

Sect. IV. It was not long before one of her Sisters, an two of her Brothers, were seized, in Order one after another with Affects' like those that molested her... for one good while, the children were tormented just in the same part of their bodies all at the same time together; and tho they saw and heard not one anothers complaints, tho likewise their pains and sprains were swift like Lightening, yet when (suppose) the Neck, or the Hand, or the Back of one was Rack't, so it was at that instant with t'other too.

Sect. V. The variety of their tortures increased continually... Sometimes they would be Deaf, sometimes Dumb, and sometimes Blind, and often, all this at once. One while their Tongues would be drawn down their Throats; another-while they would be pull'd out upon their Chins, to a prodigious length. They would have their Mouths opened unto such a Wideness, that their Jaws went out of joint; and anon they would clap together again with a Force like that of a strong Spring-Lock. The same would happen to their Shoulder-Blades, and their Elbows, and Hand-wrists, and several of their joints. They would at times ly in a benummed condition and be drawn together as those that are ty'd Neck and Heels;' and presently be stretched out, yea, drawn Backwards, to such a degree that it was fear'd the very skin of their Bellies would have crack'd. They would make most pitteous out-cries, that they were cut with Knives, and struck with Blows that they could not bear. Their Necks would be broken, so that their Neck-bone would seem dissolved unto them that felt after it; and yet on the sudden, it would become, again so stiff that there was no stirring of their Heads; yea, their Heads would be twisted almost round; and if main Force at any time obstructed a dangerous motion which they seem'd to be upon, they would roar exceedingly...

Woodcut of Witch Traveling to Hell 1493

Sect. VI. It was a Religious Family that these Afflictions happened unto; and none but a Religious Contrivance to obtain Releef, would have been welcome to them. ...

Sect. VII. The Report of the Calamities of the Family for which we were thus concerned arrived now unto the ears of the Magistrates, who presently and prudent y apply'd themselves, with a just vigour, to enquire into the story... when she was asked, Whether she believed there was a God? her Answer was too blasphemous and horrible for any Pen of mine to mention. An Experiment was made, Whether she could recite the Lords Prayer; and it was found, that tho clause after clause was most carefully repeated unto her, yet when she said it after them that prompted her, she could not Possibly avoid making Nonsense of it, with some ridiculous Depravations...

Sect. VIII. It was not long before the Witch thus in the Trap, was brought upon her Tryal... Order was given to search the old womans house, from whence there were brought into the Court, several small Images, or Puppets, or Babies, made of Raggs, and stuff't with Goat's hair, and other such Ingredients. When these were produced, the vile Woman acknowledged, that her way to torment the Objects of her malice, was by wetting of her Finger with her Spittle, and streaking of those little Images... when they asked her, What she thought would become of her soul? she reply'd "You ask me, a very solemn Question, and I cannot well tell what to say to it." She own'd her self a Roman Catholick; and could recite her Pater Noster in Latin very readily; but there was one Clause or two alwaies too hard for her, whereof she said, " She could not repeat it, if she might have all the world." In the up-shot, the Doctors returned her Compos Mentis; and Sentence of Death was pass'd upon her.

Sect. IX. Diverse dayes were passed between her being Arraigned and Condemned. In this time one of her Neighbours...had seen Glover sometimes come down her Chimney; That she should remember this, for within this Six years she might have Occasion to declare it. This Hughes now preparing her Testimony, immediately one of her children, a fine boy, well grown towards Youth, was taken ill, just in the same woful and surprising manner that Goodwins children were. One night particularly, The Boy said he saw a Black thing with a Blue Cap in the Room, Tormenting of him; and he complained most bitterly of a Hand put into the Bed, to pull out his Bowels. The next day the mother of the boy went unto Glover, in the Prison, and asked her, Why she tortured her poor lad at such a wicked rate? This Witch replied, that she did it because of wrong done to her self and her daughter. Hughes denied (as well she might) that she had done her any wrong. "Well then," sayes Glover, "Let me see your child and he shall be well again." Glover went on, and told her of her own accord, "I was at your house last night." Sayes Hughes, "In what shape?" Sayes Glover, "As a black thing with a blue Cap." Saye's Hughes, "What did you do there?" Sayes GIover, "with my hand in the Bed I tryed to pull out the boyes Bowels, but I could not..."

Sect. X. While the miserable old Woman was under Condemnation, I did my self twice give a visit unto her. She never denyed the guilt of the Witchcraft charg'd upon her; but she confessed very little about the Circumstances of her Confederacies with the Devils; only, she said, That she us'd to be at meetings, which her Prince and Four more were present at. As for those Four, She told who they were; and for her Prince, her account plainly was, that he was the Devil...

Sect. XI. When this Witch was going to her Execution, she said, the Children should not be relieved by her Death... It came to pass accordingly, That the Three children continued in their Furnace as before, and it grew rather Seven times hotter than it was. All their former Ails pursued them still, with an addition of (tis not easy to tell how many) more, but such as gave more sensible Demonstrations of an Enchantment growing very far towards a Possession by Evil spirits.

Sect. XII. The Children in their Fits would still cry out... the Boy obtain'd at some times a sight of some shapes in the room. There were Three or Four of 'em... A Blow at the place where the Boy beheld the Spectre was alwaies felt by the Boy himself in the part of his Body that answered what might be stricken at; and this tho his Back were turn'd; which was once and again so exactly tried, that there could be no Collusion in the Business. But as a Blow at the Apparition alwaies hurt him, so it alwaies help't him too; for after the Agonies, which a Push or Stab of That had put him to, were over, (as in a minute or 2 they would be) the Boy would have a respite from his Fits a considerable while ' and the Hobgoblins disappear...

Sect. XIII. The Fits of the Children yet more arriv'd unto such Motions as were beyond the Efficacy of any natural Distemper in the World. They would bark at one another like Dogs, and again purr like so many Cats. They would sometimes complain, that they were in a Red-hot Oven, sweating and panting at the same time unreasonably: Anon they would say, Cold water was thrown upon them, at which they would shiver very much. They would cry out of dismal Blowes with great Cudgels laid upon them; and tho' we saw no cudgels nor blowes, yet we could see the Marks left by them in Red Streaks upon their bodies afterward. And one of them would be roasted on an invisible Spit, run into his Mouth, and out at his Foot, he lying, and rolling, and groaning as if it had been so in the most sensible manner in the world; and then he would shriek, that Knives were cutting of him. Sometimes also he would have his head so forcibly, tho not visibly, nail'd unto the Floor, that it was as much as a strong man could do to pull it up. One while they would all be so Limber, that it was judg'd every Bone of them could be bent. Another while they would be so stiff, that not a joint of them could be stir'd. They would sometimes be as though they were mad, and then they would climb over high Fences, beyond the Imagination of them that look'd after them. Yea, They would fly like Geese; and be carried with an incredible Swiftness thro the air, having but just their Toes now and then upon the ground, and their Arms waved like the W'ings of a Bird. One of them, in the House of a kind Neighbour and Gentleman (Mr. Willis) flew the length of the Room, anout 20 foot, and flew just into an Infants high armed Chair; (as tis affirmed) none seeing her feet all the way touch the floor.

Sect. XIV. Many wayes did the Devils take to make the children do mischief both to themselves and others... "They say, I must do such a thing!" Diverse times they went to strike furious Blowes at their tenderest and dearest friends, or to fling them down staires when they had them at the Top, but the warnings from the mouths of the children themselves, would still anticipate what the Devils did intend. They diverse times were very near Burning, or Drowning of themselves...When they were tying their own Neck-clothes, their compelled hands miserably strangled themselves, till perhaps, the standers-by gave some Relief unto them. But if any small Mischief happen'd to be done where they were. as the Tearing or Dirtying of a Garment, the Falling of a C'up, the breaking of a Glass or the like; they would rejoice extremely, and fall into a pleasure and Laughter very extraordinary...

Sect. XV. They were not in a constant Torture for some Weeks, but were a little quiet, unless upon some incidental provocations; upon which the Devils would handle them like Tigres, and wound them in a manner very horrible. Particularly, Upon the least Reproof of their Parents for any unfit thing they said or did, most grievous woful Heart-breaking Agonies would they fall into... It would sometimes cost one of them an Hour or Two to be undrest in the evenin , or drest in the morning. For if any one went to unty a string, or undo a Button about them, or the contrary; they would be twisted into such postures as made the thing impossible. And at Whiles, they would be so managed in their Beds, that no Bed-clothes could for an hour or two be laid upon them; nor could they go to wash their Hands, without having them clasp't so odly together, there was no doing of it. But when their Friends were near tired with Waiting, anon they might do what they would unto them. Whatever Work they were bid to do, they would be so snap't in the member which was to do it, that they with grief still desisted from it. If one ordered them to Rub a clean Table, they were able to do it without any disturbance; if to rub a dirty Table, presently they would with many Torrnents be made uncapable. And sometimes, tho but seldome, they were kept from eating their meals, by having their Teeth sett when they carried any thing unto their Mouthes.

Sect. XVI. But nothing in the World would so discompose them as a Religious Exercise. If there were anv Discourse of God, or Christ, or any of the things which are not seen qnd are eternal, they would be cast into intolerable Anguishes... Once, those two Worthy Ministers Mr. Fisk' and Mr. Thatcher bestowing some gracious Counsils on the Boy, whom they there found at a Neighbours house, he immediately lost his Hearing, so that he heard not one word... Yea, if any one in the Room took up a Bible to look into it, tho the Children could see nothing of it, as being in a croud of Spectators, or having their Faces another way, yet would they be in wonderful Miseries, till the Bible were laid aside...

Sect. XVII...I took the Eldest of them home to my House. The young Woman continued well at our house, for diverse dayes... But on the Twentieth of November in the Fore-noon, she cry'd out, "Ah, They have found me out! I thought it would be so!" and immediately she fell into her fits again. ..

Sect. XVIII. Variety of Tortures now siez'd upon the Girl... she often would cough up a Ball as big as a small Egg, into the side of her Wind-pipe, that would near choak her, till by Stroking and by Drinking it was carried down again. At the beginning of her Fits usually she kept odly Looking up the Chimney, but could not say what she saw. When I bad her Cry to the Lord Jesus for Help, her Teeth were instantly sett; upon which I added, "Yet, child, Look unto Him," and then her Eyes were presently pulled into her head, so farr, that one might have fear'd she should never have us'd them more. When I prayed in the Room, first her Arms were with a strong, tho not seen Force clap't upon her ears; and when her hands were with violence pull'd away, she crted out, " They make such a noise, I cannot hear a word!" She likewise complain'd, that Goody Glover's Chain was upon her- Leg, and when she essay'd to go, her postures were exactly sluch as the chained Witch had before she died...

Woodcut of Witches at Cauldron

Sect. XIX. In her ludicrous Fits, one while she would be for Flying; and she would be carried hither and thither, tho not long from the ground, yet so long as to exceed the ordinary power of Nature in our Opinion of it: another-while she would be for Diving, and use the Actions of it towards the Floor, on which, if we had not held her, she would have throwrn her self...

Sect. XX. While she was in her Frolicks I was willing to try, Whether she could read or no; and I found, not only That If she went to read the Bible her Eyes would be strangely twisted and blinded, and her Neck presently broken, but also that if any one else did read the Bible in the Room, tho it were wholly out of her sight, and without the least voice or noise of it, she would be cast into very terrible Agonies...

Sect. XXI. ... A few further Tryals, I confess, I did make; but what the event of 'em was, I shall not relate, because I would not offend...

Woodcut of Devil Snatching Woman on Pitchfork

Sect. XXII. There was another most unaccountable Circumstance which now attended her... Ever now and then, an Invisible Horse would be brought unto her, by those whom she only called, "them," and, "Her Company... "They say, I am a Tell-Tale, and therefore they will not let me see them." Upon this would she give a Spring as one mounting an Horse, and Settling her self in a RidingPosture-she would in her Chair be agitated as one sometimes Ambleing, sometimes Trotting, and sometimes Galloping very furiously...

Sect. XXIII. One of the Spectators once ask'd her, Whether she could not ride up stairs; unto which her Answer was, That she believe'd she could, for her Horse could do very notable things. Accordingly, when her Horse came to her again, to our Admiration she Rode (that is, was tossed as one that rode) up the stairs: there then stood open the Study of one belonging to the Family, into which entring, she stood immediately upon her Feet, and cry'd out, "They are gone; they are gone! They say, that they cannot,-God won't let 'em come here! "

Sect. XXIV. ...Presently upon this her Horse returned, only it pestered her with such ugly paces, that she fell out with her Company, and threatned now to tell all, for their so abusing her. I was going abroad, and she said unto them that were about her, "Mr. M. is gone abroad, my horse won't come back, till he come home; and then I believe"...

Sect. XXV. From this day the power of the Enemy was broken; and the children, though Assaults after this were made upon them, yet were not so cruelly handled as before...

Sect. XXVI. Within a day or two after the Fast, the young Woman had two remarkable Attempts made upon her... Another time, they putt an unseen Rope with a cruel Noose about her Neck, Whereby she was choaked, until she was black in the Face; and though it was taken off before it had kill'd her, yet there were the red Marks of it, and of a Finger and a Thumb near it, remaining to be seen for a while afterwards.

Sect. XXVII. This was the last Molestation that they gave her for a While...

Sect. XXVIII. ... I was in Latin telling some young Gentlemen of the Colledge, That if I should bid her Look to God, her Eyes would be put out, upon which her eyes were presently served so. I was in some surprize, When I saw that her Troublers understood Latin, and it made me willing to try a little more of their Capacity. We continually found, that if an English Bible were in any part of the Room seriously look'd into, though she saw and heard nothing of it, she would immediately be in very dismal Agonies.

Sect. XXIX. Devotion was now, as formerly, the terriblest of all the provocations that could be given her...During the time of Reading, she would be laid as one fast asleep; but when Prayer was begun, the Devils would still throw her on the Floor, at the feet of him that prayed. There would she lye and Whistle and sing and roar, to drown the voice of the Prayer; but that being a little too audible for Them, they would shutt close her Mouth and her ears, and yet make such odd noises in her Threat as that she her self could not hear our Cries to God for her. Shee'd also fetch very terrible Blowes with her Fist, and Kicks with her Foot at the man that prayed; but still (for he had bid that none should hinder her) hei, Fist and Foot would alwaies recoil, when they came within a few hairs breadths of him just as if Rebounding against a Wall; so that she touch'd him not, but then would beg hard of other people to strike him, and particularly she entreated them to take the Tongs and smite him; Which not being done, she cryed out of him, "He has wounded me in the Head." But before Prayer was out, she would be laid for Dead, wholly sensless and (unless to a severe Trial) Breathless; with her Belly swelled like a Drum, and sometimes with croaking Noises in it; thus would she ly, most exactly with the stiffness and posture of one that had been two Days laid out for Dead...When Prayer was ended, she would Revive in a minute or two, and continue as Frolicksome as before.

Woodcut of Witch Riding a Cat Backwards

Sect. XXX. After this, we had no more such entertainments. The Demons it may be would once or twice in a Week trouble her for a few minutes with perhaps a twisting and a twinkling of her eyes, or a certain Cough which did seem to be more than ordinary...

Sect. XXXI. ...We could cheat them when we spoke one thing, and mean't another. This was found when the Children were to be undressed. The Devils would still in wayes beyond the Force of any Imposture, wonderfully twist the part that was to be undress't, so that there was no coming at it. But, if we said, untye his neckcloth, and the parties bidden, at the same time, understood our intent to be, unty his Shooe! The Neckcloth, and not the shooe, has been made strangely inaccessible...

Sect. XXXII. The Last Fit that the young Woman had, was very peculiar. The Daemons having once again seiz'd her, they made her pretend to be Dying; and Dying truly we fear'd at last she was: She lay, she tossed, she pull'd just like one Dying, and urged hard for some one to dy with her, seeming loth to dy alone... Anon, the Fit went over; and as I guessed it would be, it was the last Fit she had at our House...

Woodcut of Witch 1643

Sect. XXXIII. This is the Story of Goodwins Children, a Story all made up of Wonders! I have related nothing but what I judge to be true. I was my self an Eye-witness to a large part of what I tell...

Following the publication of Mather's 1689 treatise, the 1692 hysteria in the small Puritan community of Salem began when 9-year-old Elizabeth Parris & 11-year-old Abigail Williams, the daughter & niece of the Reverend Samuel Parris, began experiencing fits & other mysterious maladies. A doctor concluded that the children were suffering from the effects of witchcraft, & the young girls corroborated the doctor's diagnosis. With encouragement from a number of adults in the community, the girls, who were soon joined by other "afflicted" Salem residents, accused a widening circle of local residents of witchcraft, mostly middle-aged women but also several men and even one four-year-old child. During the next few months, the afflicted area residents incriminated more than 150 women & men from Salem Village and the surrounding areas of Satanic practices.

In June 1692, the special Court of Oyer, "to hear," & Terminer, "to decide," convened in Salem under Chief Justice William Stoughton to judge the accused. The first to be tried was Bridget Bishop of Salem, who was found guilty & executed by hanging on June 10. Thirteen more women & 4 men from all stations of life followed her to the gallows; & one man, Giles Corey, was executed by crushing. Most of those tried were condemned on the basis of the witnesses' behavior during the actual proceedings, characterized by fits & hallucinations that were argued to be caused by the defendants on trial.

In October 1692, Governor William Phipps of Massachusetts ordered the Court of Oyer and Terminer dissolved & replaced with the Superior Court of Judicature, which forbade the type of sensational testimony allowed in the earlier trials. Executions ceased, & the Superior Court eventually released all those awaiting trial and pardoned those sentenced to death. The Salem witch trials, which resulted in the executions of 19 innocent women & men, had effectively ended.
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Jamestown - Virginia's 1608 Church Revealed

2011-09-13T11:05:00.001-04:00

Witches - Timeline of the 1692 Salem's Anti-Woman Witch Hunt

2011-09-13T11:03:00.000-04:00

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During 1692, formal charges of witchcraft were brought against 156 people & most were women. On both sides of the Atlantic, witchcraft was perceived as a primarily female phenomenon & over ¾ of the accused were women. Puritans did not believe that women were by nature more evil than men, but they did see them as weaker & thus more susceptible to sinful impulses. Ministers regularly reminded New England congregations, that it was Eve who first gave way to Satan & then seduced Adam, when she should have continued to serve his moral welfare in obedience to God.

Some women were much more likely than others to be suspected of witchcraft. Throughout the 17th century New England women became especially susceptible to accusation, if they were seen as challenging their prescribed place in a gendered hierarchy that puritans held to be ordained by God. Women who fulfilled their allotted social roles as wives, mothers, household mistresses, & church members without threatening assumptions about appropriate female comportment were respected and praised as the handmaidens of the Lord; but those whose circumstances or behaviour seemed to disrupt social norms could easily become branded as the servants of Satan.

Especially vulnerable were women who had passed menopause & no longer served the purpose of procreation; women who were widowed & so neither fulfilled the role of wife nor had a husband to protect them from malicious accusations; & women who had inherited or stood to inherit property in violation of society's expectations that wealth would be transmitted from man to man.

Women who seemed unduly aggressive & contentious were also likely to be accused; behaviour that would not have struck contemporaries as particularly egregious in men seemed utterly inappropriate in women. Bridget Bishop & Susannah Martin, both executed in 1692, exemplifed these characteristics. Both had been widowed. Bishop had assumed control of her first husband's property before remarrying. Martin had engaged in protracted litigation over her father's estate in an unsuccessful attempt to secure what she considered her rightful inheritance. Both women had displayed an assertiveness & fiery temper that some of their neighbours found deeply troubling.

Events in Salem Village in 1692

January 20
Nine-year-old Elizabeth Parris and eleven-year-old Abigail Williams began to exhibit strange behavior, such as blasphemous screaming, convulsive seizures, trance-like states and mysterious spells. Within a short time, several other Salem girls began to demonstrate similar behavior.

Mid-February
Unable to determine any physical cause for the symptoms and dreadful behavior, physicians concluded that the girls were under the influence of Satan.

Late February
Prayer services and community fasting were conducted by Reverend Samuel Parris in hopes of relieving the evil forces that plagued them. In an effort to expose the "witches", John Indian baked a witch cake made with rye meal and the afflicted girls' urine. This counter-magic was meant to reveal the identities of the "witches" to the afflicted girls.
Pressured to identify the source of their affliction, the girls named three women, including Tituba, Parris' Carib Indian slave, as witches. On February 29, warrants were issued for the arrests of Tituba, Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne.

Although Osborne and Good maintained innocence, Tituba confessed to seeing the devil who appeared to her "sometimes like a hog and sometimes like a great dog." What's more, Tituba testified that there was a conspiracy of witches at work in Salem.

March 1
Magistrates John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin examined Tituba, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborne in the meeting house in Salem Village. Tituba confessed to practicing witchcraft.
Over the next weeks, other townspeople came forward and testified that they, too, had been harmed by or had seen strange apparitions of some of the community members. As the witch hunt continued, accusations were made against many different people.

Frequently denounced were women whose behavior or economic circumstances were somehow disturbing to the social order and conventions of the time. Some of the accused had previous records of criminal activity, including witchcraft, but others were faithful churchgoers and people of high standing in the community.

March 12
Martha Corey is accused of witchcraft.

March 19
Rebecca Nurse was denounced as a witch.

March 21
Martha Corey was examined before Magistrates Hathorne and Corwin.

March 24
Rebecca Nurse was examined before Magistrates Hathorne and Corwin.

March 28
Elizabeth Proctor was denounced as a witch.

April 3
Sarah Cloyce, Rebecca Nurse's sister, was accused of witchcraft.

April 11
Elizabeth Proctor and Sarah Cloyce were examined before Hathorne, Corwin, Deputy Governor Thomas Danforth, and Captain Samuel Sewall. During this examination, John Proctor was also accused and imprisoned.

April 19
Abigail Hobbs, Bridget Bishop, Giles Corey, and Mary Warren were examined. Only Abigail Hobbs confessed.
William Hobbs "I can deny it to my dying day."

April 22
Nehemiah Abbott, William and Deliverance Hobbs, Edward and Sarah Bishop, Mary Easty, Mary Black, Sarah Wildes, and Mary English were examined before Hathorne and Corwin. Only Nehemiah Abbott was cleared of charges.

May 2
Sarah Morey, Lydia Dustin, Susannah Martin, and Dorcas Hoar were examined by Hathorne and Corwin.
Dorcas Hoar "I will speak the truth as long as I live."

May 4
George Burroughs was arrested in Wells, Maine.

May 9
Burroughs was examined by Hathorne, Corwin, Sewall, and William Stoughton. One of the afflicted girls, Sarah Churchill, was also examined.

May 10
George Jacobs, Sr. and his granddaughter Margaret were examined before Hathorne and Corwin. Margaret confessed and testified that her grandfather and George Burroughs were both witches.
Sarah Osborne died in prison in Boston.

Margaret Jacobs "... They told me if I would not confess I should be put down into the dungeon and would be hanged, but if I would confess I should save my life."

May 14
Increase Mather returned from England, bringing with him a new charter and the new governor, Sir William Phips.

May 18
Mary Easty was released from prison. Yet, due to the outcries and protests of her accusers, she was arrested a second time.

May 27
Governor Phips set up a special Court of Oyer and Terminer comprised of seven judges to try the witchcraft cases. Appointed were Lieutenant Governor William Stoughton, Nathaniel Saltonstall, Bartholomew Gedney, Peter Sergeant, Samuel Sewall, Wait Still Winthrop, John Richards, John Hathorne, and Jonathan Corwin.
These magistrates based their judgments and evaluations on various kinds of intangible evidence, including direct confessions, supernatural attributes (such as "witchmarks"), and reactions of the afflicted girls. Spectral evidence, based on the assumption that the Devil could assume the "specter" of an innocent person, was relied upon despite its controversial nature.

May 31
Martha Carrier, John Alden, Wilmott Redd, Elizabeth Howe, and Phillip English were examined before Hathorne, Corwin, and Gedney.

June 2
Initial session of the Court of Oyer and Terminer. Bridget Bishop was the first to be pronounced guilty of witchcraft and condemned to death.
Early June
Soon after Bridget Bishop's trial, Nathaniel Saltonstall resigned from the court, dissatisfied with its proceedings.

June 10
Bridget Bishop was hanged in Salem, the first official execution of the Salem witch trials.
Bridget Bishop "I am no witch. I am innocent. I know nothing of it."

Following her death, accusations of witchcraft escalated, but the trials were not unopposed. Several townspeople signed petitions on behalf of accused people they believed to be innocent.

June 29-30
Rebecca Nurse, Susannah Martin, Sarah Wildes, Sarah Good and Elizabeth Howe were tried for witchcraft and condemned.
Rebecca Nurse "Oh Lord, help me! It is false. I am clear. For my life now lies in your hands...."

Mid-July
In an effort to expose the witches afflicting his life, Joseph Ballard of nearby Andover enlisted the aid of the accusing girls of Salem. This action marked the beginning of the Andover witch hunt.

July 19
Rebecca Nurse, Susannah Martin, Elizabeth Howe, Sarah Good, and Sarah Wildes were executed.
Elizabeth Howe "If it was the last moment I was to live, God knows I am innocent..."

Susannah Martin "I have no hand in witchcraft."

August 2-6
George Jacobs, Sr., Martha Carrier, George Burroughs, John and Elizabeth Proctor, and John Willard were tried for witchcraft and condemned.
Martha Carrier "...I am wronged. It is a shameful thing that you should mind these folks that are out of their wits."

August 19
George Jacobs, Sr., Martha Carrier, George Burroughs, John Proctor, and John Willard were hanged on Gallows Hill.
George Jacobs "Because I am falsely accused. I never did it."

September 9
Martha Corey, Mary Easty, Alice Parker, Ann Pudeator, Dorcas Hoar, and Mary Bradbury were tried and condemned.
Mary Bradbury "I do plead not guilty. I am wholly innocent of such wickedness."

September 17
Margaret Scott, Wilmott Redd, Samuel Wardwell, Mary Parker, Abigail Faulkner, Rebecca Eames, Mary Lacy, Ann Foster, and Abigail Hobbs were tried and condemned.

September 19
Giles Corey was pressed to death for refusing a trial.

September 21
Dorcas Hoar was the first of those pleading innocent to confess. Her execution was delayed.

September 22
Martha Corey, Margaret Scott, Mary Easty, Alice Parker, Ann Pudeator, Wilmott Redd, Samuel Wardwell, and Mary Parker were hanged.

October 8
After 20 people had been executed in the Salem witch hunt, Thomas Brattle wrote a letter criticizing the witchcraft trials. This letter had great impact on Governor Phips, who ordered that reliance on spectral and intangible evidence no longer be allowed in trials.

October 29
Governor Phips dissolved the Court of Oyer and Terminer.

November 25
The General Court of the colony created the Superior Court to try the remaining witchcraft cases which took place in May, 1693. This time no one was convicted.

Mary Easty "...if it be possible no more innocent blood be shed...I am clear of this sin."

Woodcut of Witches Gathering

By early October, when the court proceedings were halted amid acrimonious controversy, 19 people had been hanged. Over 100 individuals were in prison awaiting trial, & 4 died during their confinement.

The Salem trials were halted primarily because of controversy over the court's reliance upon problematic testimony, which reaffirmed & intensified judicial concerns regarding evidentiary issues. Such concerns combined with embarrassment & distress over the deaths that resulted from the trials that year to discourage future prosecutions, though an end to witch trials in New England by the century's close did not signify an end to the belief in & fear of witches.

See: Salem witches & their accusers. Richard Godbeer
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004
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Jamestown - The Moment of Discovery: A Pewter Flagon in a Jamestown Well

2011-09-13T11:02:00.002-04:00

Witches - Wenlock Christison & The Price Paid for Defending Female Witches in Massachusetts

2011-09-13T11:00:00.000-04:00

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Article from The Salisbury Times (now called The Delmarva Times), Salisbury, Maryland - April 3, 1958 from the Delmarva Heritage Series, by Dr. William H. Wroten, Jr.

In the middle of the 17th century, religious freedom was not a major characteristic of Puritan New England; in fact, persecutions were being committed; and Massachusetts was on the threshold of her witchcraft period. In September, 1659, three Quakers, Mary Dyer, William Robinson and Marmaduke Stevenson counting martyrdom were banished from Massachusetts. All three, however, returned and the two men were hanged. Mrs. Dyer, after having her hands and legs bound, face covered and the rope adjusted about her neck was reprieved. When she returned again in the spring of 1660, she was executed. Later in the same year William Leddra was to suffer the same fate.

However, as the famous American historian Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker clearly points out, the Massachusetts theocracy was fighting a hopeless battle. The suffering of the Quakers was winning sympathy from thousands who were not necessarily interested in the Quaker doctrine. Shortly before the execution of Leddra, Wenlock Christison walked into the office of Governor John Endicott, and looking him straight in the eye said, "I came to warn you that you should shed no more innocent blood, for the blood that you have shed already cries to the Lord for vengeance to come upon you."

For his action, Christison was brought to trial but the magistrates were not sure what should be done, for public sentiment was turning against the cruel persecutions. Yet there was one among the group who was not hesitant, and that was Governor Endicott. Pounding on the table, the good governor exclaimed, "You that will not consent, record it. I thank God I am not afraid to give judgment." Governor Endicott had his way and Christison was condemned to death, but the sentence was never carried out. Partly from fear of interference by the King and also because of the growing opposition by the people, persecution began to take milder forms.

Before this at Plymouth, Christison had been robbed of his waistcoat, had his Bible taken to pay for his fines, and suffered a whipping. Later he was banished from Boston and threatened with the death penalty should he return - but return he did, and on this occasion was told to renounce his religious principles or be executed. Although it was at this time that Christison saw Leddra hanged, he refused to change his faith or in any other way seek mercy from the court. Instead, according to Henry Chanlee Forman, this great fighter for religious freedom said, "for the last man that was put to death here are five come in his room, and if you have power to take my life from me, God can raise up the same principle of life in ten of his servants and send them among you in my room, that you may have torment upon torment."

Back, by way of Salem, Wenlock Christison in June, 1664 met two other Quakers, Mary Thompson and Alice Gary, who recently had arrived from Virginia where they had been persecuted. Christison was shortly arrested on the old charge, and along with the women once again banished form the colony. Only this time all three were stripped to the waist, fastened to a cart and whipped through Boston, Roxbury and Dedham. Christison received ten lashes and the two ladies six lashes in each of the towns.

Finding no haven in Rhode Island, (probably the only colony in all New England which could claim any religious toleration at this time) the three came back to Boston supposedly under the protection of the King's Agents. But again there was trouble, a trial and the sentence that they should be whipped out of the province. However, shortly after this all three sailed to the Caribbean region - never to return to New England.

We lose their story for the next few years, but in 1670 Wenlock Christison and Alice Gary were in Maryland. Dr. Peter Sharpe of Calvert County turned over to Christison 150 acres of land in Talbot County - a plantation fittingly named in Christison's case, the "Ending of Controversie."

The Quaker records of Talbot County show that a daughter, Elizabeth, was born to Wenlock and Mary Christison in 1673. We would like to believe that his wife was the same Mary Thompson with whom he had shared such cruel punishment in New England but that fact is not known.

Christison soon rose to a position of trust in Maryland; he was one of the first Quakers to have the honor of holding public office. He became a member of the House of Delegates from Talbot County in 1676 and served in that body at St. Mary's City until his death in 1679, although his name must have been retained on the rolls until 1681 when, according to the Maryland Archives, it was recorded that he was a deceased member.

Upon his Death the widow, his second wife, thought it more appropriate to change the man of the plantation form "Ending of Controversie" to "Widow's Change."

Henry Forman, who has long been interested in colonial buildings and has made a special study of Christison's house which is about three miles northwest of Easton, wrote in the Maryland historical Magazine of September, 1939, "Perhaps when Wenlock took his last look through the little square bedroom window, the memory of his fantastic early life came back to mind. It is difficult to believe that he ever forgot the time when, on trial because of his faith - he stood before Governor Endicott of Massachusetts, who called to him, "Wast thou not banished upon pain of death?" And his own answer, calm, steady, fearless, "Yea, I was. I refuse not to die." What could you do with a man like that? What could be done with one who would sooner suffer the gallows that take off his hat? Or who, on trial for his life, tried to prove that Massachusetts had forfeited the King's Patent, at the same time turning the charges of his accusers into accusations against themselves? The Boston punishments where the lashes of knotted ropes made holes in the body deep enough for peas to lie in were not enough to break the spirit of this man . . . The little grey cottage with mossy roof, decaying by the sleepy river shore, is the last material monument of a man that Maryland will long remember."
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Jamestown - 400-year-old Armor backplate excavation time-lapse

2011-09-13T10:50:00.002-04:00

America Already Had a Few Customs when the English Colonists 1st Arrived

2011-08-16T11:42:00.007-04:00

1585 John White (English artist, c 1540-1593) A Land Crab

1 1585 John White (English artist, c 1540-1593) Indian Village of Pomiooc 1585

1585 John White (English artist, c 1540-1593) An Indian Chief

1585 John White (English artist, c 1540-1593) Indian Village of Pomiooc

1585 John White (English artist, c 1540-1593) Festive Dance

1585 John White (English artist, c 1540-1593) A Fire Ceremony

1585 John White (English artist, c 1540-1593) Indian Manner of Fishing

1585 John White (English artist, c 1540-1593) Cooking Fish

1585 John White (English artist, c 1540-1593) Turtle
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Women Already in America when English Colonists 1st Arrived

2011-08-16T11:19:00.002-04:00

1585 John White (English artist, c 1540-1593) Indian Woman and Young Girl 1585

1585 John White (English artist, c 1540-1593) Indian Woman

1585 John White (English artist, c 1540-1593) Man and Woman Eating

1585 John White (English artist, c 1540-1593) Indian Woman and Baby of Pomeiooc

1585 John White (English artist, c 1540-1593) Indian Woman of Secoton

1585 John White (English artist, c 1540-1593) Indian Woman of Florida

Theodor de Bry’s engraving of an American Indian woman, published in Thomas Hariot’s 1588 book A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia.

1616 An Anglicized Pocahontas
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Women in America Timeline 1607-1620

2011-08-16T04:35:00.004-04:00

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Timeline Of Events Directly Affecting Women

Copies of complete documents may be found by clicking on highlighted descriptions.

1606
The First Charter of Virginia; April 10

1607
Virginia. The British establish their first American colony at Jamestown named for King James I, who ascended to the throne only four years earlier. Virginia was named for the virgin Queen Elizabeth, who never married. England was financially pressed following years of war with Spain. To raise funds to explore the New World, to bring back gold and other riches, and to seek the Northwest Passage to the Middle East and India, James I grants a proprietary charter for the Chesapeake region to two competing branches of the Virginia Company, which were supported by private investors--the Plymouth Company and the London Company. Of the original 105 settlers, only 32 survived the first year.

1608
First English women arrive at Jamestown contributing to Jamestown's ultimate survival. Lord Bacon, a member of His Majesty's Council for Virginia, stated about 1620 that "When a plantation grows to strength, then it is time to plant with women as well as with men; that the plantation may spread into generations, and not be ever pieced from without."

Anne Burras came to Jamestown in 1608 married John Laydon three months after her arrival becoming the first Jamestown wedding. Anne and John raised four daughters in the new Virginia wilderness.

John Smith (1580-1631) claims (some 24 years later & 7 years after her death) that Pocahontas saves him from execution by Algonquian Chief Powhatan who was her faher.

1609
The Dutch East India Company sends Henry Hudson on a seven month voyage to explore the area around present-day New York City and the river north to Albany, which bears his name. The Dutch claimed the land.

Temperance Flowerdew, arrived at Jamestown with 400 ill-fated settlers in the fall of 1609. The following winter, dubbed the "Starving Time," saw over 80 percent of Jamestown succumb to sickness, disease and starvation. Temperance survived but soon returned to England. By 1619, Temperance returned to Jamestown with her new husband, Governor George Yeardley. After his death in 1627, she married Governor Francis West and remained in Virginia until her death in 1628.

The Second Charter of Virginia; May 23

1609-1612
Tobacco cultivation is introduced in Virginia and within a decade becomes the colony's chief source of revenue.

1611
Authorized version of King James Bible published

The Third Charter of Virginia; March 12

1613
Pocahontas is taken hostage by Jamestown colonists in the first Anglo-Powhatan war.
A Dutch trading post is set up on lower Manhattan island.

1614
Pocahontas is baptized a Christian and marries John Rolfe, one of the Jamestown colonists.

General Charter for Those who Discover Any New Passages, Havens, Countries, or Places; March 27

Grant of Exclusive Trade to New Netherland by the States-General of the United Netherlands; October 11

1616
Pocahontas and John Rolfe departed for England, where she met King James I. Pocahontas and Rolfe were awarded funds to return to the colony to establish a college to Christianize the Powhatan Indians, but on beginning the trip home she died unexpectedly, in March 1617, at Gravesend, England, where she is buried.

John Smith writes A Description of New England.

1619
Virginia settlers were first granted their own personal property, the acreage dependent on the time and situation of their arrival. This was the beginning of private property for Virginia men. The men, however, asked that land also be allotted for their wives who were just as deserving "...because that in a newe plantation it is not knowen whether man or woman be the most necessary." The Virginia Company of London hoped to anchor their discontented bachelors to the soil of Virginia by using women as a stabilizing factor. They ordered that "...a fit hundredth might be sent of women, maids young and uncorrupt, to make wives to the inhabitants and by that means to make the men there more settled and less movable...." Ninety arrived in 1620 and the company records reported in May of 1622 that, "57 young maids have been sent to make wives for the planters, divers of which were well married before the coming away of the ships."

The first session of the first legislative assembly in America occurs as the Virginia House of Burgesses convenes in Jamestown. It consists of 22 burgesses, all men, representing 11 plantations.

Twenty Africans, 17 men & 3 women, are brought by a Dutch ship to Jamestown for sale as indentured servants, marking the beginning of slavery in Colonial America.

Petition for a Charter of New England by the Northern Company of Adventurers; March 3

1620
Massachusetts. A group of 101 Puritan Separatists frustrated in their attempts to achieve reform within the Church of England sail on board the Mayflower to America and establish Plymouth Colony on Cape Cod in New England. When 41 men from the group set up the the Mayflower Compact establishing a form of local government in which the colonists agree to abide by majority rule and to cooperate for the general good of the colony, later colonies us it as a model as they set up governments. Plymouth was absorbed by Massachusetts Bay Colony with the issuance of the Massachusetts Bay charter of 1691.

Charter of New England; November 3

Mayflower Compact; November 11

The first public library in the colonies is organized in Virginia with books donated by landowners

See:
Yale Law School, The Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History, and Diplomacy. New Haven, CT.

Burt, Daniel S., editor. THE CHRONOLOGY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE: AMERICA'S LITERARY ACHIEVEMENTS FROM THE COLONIAL ERA TO MODERN TIMES. Houghton Mifflin Internet.

HISTORY MATTERS. American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning (Graduate Center, CUNY) and the Center for History and New Media (George Mason University). Internet.

Women in America Timeline 1621-1650

2011-08-16T04:31:00.001-04:00

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Timeline Of Events Directly Affecting Women

Copies of complete documents may be found by clicking on highlighted descriptions.

1621
One of the first treaties between colonists & Native Americans is signed as the Plymouth Pilgrims enact a peace pact with the Wampanoag Tribe, with the aid of Squanto, an English speaking Native American.

First Thanksgiving celebrated at Plymouth.

Charter of the Dutch West India Company; June 3

Ordinances for Virginia; July 24-August 3

1622
Maine was settled in 1622. Massachusetts Bay colony encroached into Maine during the English Civil War; but, with the Restoration, Maine regained autonomy in 1664.

A Grant of the Province of Maine to Sir Ferdinando Gorges and John Mason, esq., August 10

A sudden attack by Powhatan Indians on the English colony at Jamestown results in the death of nearly 400 settlers including women & children.

1623
New Hampshire grew from a series of land grants dating from 1623 to 1680. For much of its history the colony was controlled by the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The settlement at Exeter was founded in 1638 by John Wheelwright, a disciple of Anne Hutchinson, who was banned from the Massachusetts Bay Colony by her fellow Puritans. By 1691, it became the royal Province of New Hampshire. One disputed New Hampshire grant territory (New Hampshire claimed it, a judge awarded it to New York) later became the state of Vermont.

1624
New York. The island of Manhattan is purchased from local Indians by the Dutch; the colony is named New Netherlands & its capital New Amsterdam. The first group of 34 families of Dutch settlers disperse up the Hudson River, to the Delaware River area in New Jersey, to Governor's Island, Manhattan Island, & Long Island.

Warrant for William Ussling to Establish a General Company for Trade to Asia, Africa, America and Magellanica; December 21

The Virginia Company charter is revoked in London & Virginia is declared a Royal colony.

1625
Charles I comes to the throne in England.

1626
Dutch colonist Peter Minuit buys Manhattan island from Native Americans for 60 guilders (about $24) & names the island New Amsterdam.

Notification of the Purchase of Manhattan by the Dutch; November 5

1628
Slavery is introduced into Manhattan by the Dutch.

Thomas Morton & colonists at Merrymount dance around a maypole and celebrate May Day, upsetting the Plymouth Pilgrims. In June, Capt. Miles Standish eradicates the settlement & sends Morton back to England.

1629
Massachusetts. John Winthrop (1588–1649) assumes leadership of the English settlers in present-day Salem; this marks the beginning of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Winthrop chooses Boston as his seat of government.

Charter of the Colony of New Plymouth Granted to William Bradford and His Associates; January 13

Grant of Land North of the Saco River to Thomas Lewis and Richard Bonighton by the Council for New England; February 12

The Charter of Massachusetts Bay; March 4

Sir Robert Heath's Patent 5 Charles 1st; October, 30

Grant of Hampshire to Capt. John Mason, November 7

Grant of Laconia to Sir Ferdinando Gorges and Captain John Mason by the Council for New England; November 17

England's King Charles I dissolves parliament & attempts to rule as absolute monarch, spurring many to leave for the American colonies.

1630
Population: 3,000 colonists in Virginia; 300 at Plymouth. Between 1630-1640, another 16,000 colonists will arrive.

1630 – 1643
English Puritan families immigrate to the Massachusetts Bay Colony

1632
Maryland. Lord Baltimore of England receives a charter from King Charles I for land north of the Potomac River. Lord Baltimore is Catholic & draws up a charter allowing the establishment of churches of all religions. Although Maryland was an early pioneer of religious toleration in the British colonies, religious strife between denominations was common in the early years.

Charter of Maryland; June 20

1633
Williamsburg, first known as Middle Plantation, is founded in Virginia

The first town government in the colonies is organized in Dorchester, Massachusetts.

1634
Royal Commission for Regulating Plantations; April 28

1635
Boston Latin School, for boys, is established as the first public school in America.

Confirmation of the Grant from the Council for New England to Captain John Mason

Grant of the Province of New Hampshire to John Wollaston, Esq., April 18

Grant of the Province of New Hampshire to Mr. Mason, By the Name of Masonia; April 22

Grant of the Province of New Hampshire to Mr. Mason, By the Name of New Hampshire; April 22

Declaration for Resignation of the Charter by the Council for New England; April 25

The Act of Surrender of the Great Charter of New England to His Majesty; June 7

Grant of the Province of New Hampshire From Mr. Wollaston to Mr. Mason, June 11

Grant of His Interest in New Hampshire by Sir Ferdinando Gorges to Captain John Mason; September 17

1636
North America's first university, for men, is founded at Cambridge in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and soon receives a large bequest from John Harvard

Massachusettes First American built slave carrier, Desire, is launched in Massachusettes

Rhode Island. Providence Plantation was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Baptist minister fleeing from religious persecution in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He was joined there by Anne Hutchinson after her banishment. In 1663, a Royal Charter was granted by Charles II of England for the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. The charter guaranteed religious freedom for all -- even Jews. See this blog for Anne Hutchinson's trial record.

A small Jewish population existed in Rhode Island, the only one in the original 13 British colonies of North America in which they were able to practice their religion freely.

Connecticut. The River Colony was organized on March 3, 1636 as a haven for Puritan noblemen. After early struggles with the Dutch, the English gained control by the late 1630s. Two other English colonies merged into the Connecticut Colony: Saybrook Colony in 1644; New Haven Colony in 1662.

20 January. Boston clergyman John Wheelwright preaches a sermon supporting the ideas of Anne Hutchinson and her followers and is thereby sentenced to banishment on 12 November. Anne Hutchinson is sentenced to banishment at the same time.

To prevent the re-election of Governor Vane, who is sympathetic to Anne Hutchinson and her ideas, John Winthrop moves the voting to Newtown & thus is himself elected Governor of the colony.

December. Under the leadership of Peter Minuit, a group of Swedish colonists establishes a settlement called New Sweden on the Delaware River.

1637
Proclamation Against the Disorderly Transporting His Majesty's subjects to the Plantations Within the Parts of America; April 30

Commission to Sir Ferdinando Gorges as Governor of New England by Charles; July 23

New Haven was settled in late 1637. New Haven was absorbed by Connecticut Colony with the issuance of the Connecticut Charter in 1662.

1638
Anne Hutchinson is expelled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for “traducing the ministers” & for advocating personal revelation of the role of the Puritan clergy. Her family and other religious dissenters found Rhode Island. See this blog for Anne Hutchinson's Trial record.

Delaware.

In 1638 the New Sweden Company created the first permanent settlement of Delaware & created an outpost named after the queen of Sweden, Fort Christina. The end of the Swedish rule came in 1655. In 1664, after James, Duke of York, captured New Amsterdam. They renamed New Amstel New Castle. This effectively ended Dutch claims to any land in colonial North America. Delaware was governed from New York by a Deputy of the Duke of York from 1664 to 1682. After William Penn was granted the province of Pennsylvania in 1681, he received the lands of Delaware from the Duke of York.

The first colonial printing press is set up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, owned by a woman, Mrs. Jose Glover. Mrs. Glover took financial charge of the first press in Cambridge upon her husband's death on the sea journey to America. Her's was the only press in the colonies. She established the business and, until her marriage to Henry Dunster, President of Harvard College in 1641, served as owner/publisher, with Stephen Daye as "the overseer or manager." Mrs. Glover Dunster died in1643

1639
Richard Fairbanks, given responsibility for delivering mail in Massachusetts, is allowed to charge a penny per letter

Fundamental Orders; January 14

Grant of the Province of Maine; April 3

Fundamental Agreement, or Original Constitution of the Colony of New Haven, June 4

Agreement of the Settlers at Exeter in New Hampshire, August 4

1640-59
Civil war breaks out in England as the culmination of the rivalry between Charles I & Parliament. The Battle of Naseby (1645) ends in triumph for the Parliamentary army led by Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658). Charles I was executed in 1649. England, Scotland, & Ireland are collectively declared a commonwealth, with Cromwell acting as Lord Protector. During the period of strict Puritan rule, the arts are suppressed, theaters are closed, & cultural patronage declines as the elites retire to their safer country seats.

1640
New Netherlands forbids residents from harboring or feeding runaway slaves.

When Ann Hibbens of Boston insisted that she had the right to complain about the work of male carpenters she hired, the church elders attacked her for thinking she can manage these affairs better than her husband, "which is a plain breach of the rule of Christ." She is excommunicated, and 16 years later, she is hanged for witchcraft.

William Bradford, &c. Surrender of the Patent of Plymouth Colony to the Freeman; March 2

Plantation Agreement at Providence; August 27 - September 6,

1641
Massachusettes legalizes slavery

Government of Rhode Island-March 16-19

The Combinations of the Inhabitants Upon the Piscataqua River for Government, October 22

1643
Anne Hutchinson & family murdered by Native Americans near Eastchester, Long Island (N. Y.)

Patent for Providence Plantations - March 14

The Articles of Confederation of the United Colonies of New England; May 19

Government of New Haven Colony; October 27 - November 6

New England Confederation of Plymouth, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Haven adopts a fugitive slave law.

With her friends, Lady Deborah Moody (c 1585-c 1659) leaves the orthodoxy of the Massachusetted colony to set up a community based on religious tolerance in Gravesend, Long Island. After receiving a patent from the Dutch in 1645, she participates in the town council meetings, helping to draw up the plans for the town & select magistrates.

In his 1643 writings about the Narragansett indians, Rhode Island founder Roger Williams describes the women's work: taking down, carrying, & setting up the mats or house coverings, when the people move from summer to winter homes. They also "plant, weede, & hill, & gather & barne all the corne."

1646
In Massachusetts, the general court approves a law that makes religious heresy punishable by death.

In New Haven, Anne Eaton, the governor's wife, attacks the church on the issue of baptism of infants. She and 3 of her female supporters are put on trial. Supporter Mrs. Leech points to the "untruths" in church doctrine.

Robert Child and others protest the intolerance of Massachusetts Puritans toward those of other faiths; in response, Governor John Winthrop & others justify their policies & banish Child.

1647 - 1648
First woman barrister in the colonies, Margaret Brent (1601-1671) of Maryland, seeks & is denied the right to vote in the assembly. The unmarried Brent, one of the largest landowners in Maryland, asks the Maryland Assembly for two votes, one for herself & another as Leonard Calvert's administrator & Lord Baltimore's attorney. Her request is denied.

1648
In England, George Fox founds Society of Friends (Quakers)

1649
Oliver Cromwell becomes Lord Protector of England.

1650
Anne Bradstreet’s (c. 1612-1672) The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up In America is published, without her knowledge, in London by her brother-in-law. The collection includes rhymed discourses & chronicles

See:
Yale Law School, The Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History, and Diplomacy. New Haven, CT.

Burt, Daniel S., editor. THE CHRONOLOGY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE: AMERICA'S LITERARY ACHIEVEMENTS FROM THE COLONIAL ERA TO MODERN TIMES. Houghton Mifflin Internet.

HISTORY MATTERS. American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning (Graduate Center, CUNY) and the Center for History and New Media (George Mason University). Internet. http://historymatters.gmu.edu.

Women in America Timeline 1651-1670

2011-08-16T04:25:00.003-04:00

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Timeline Of Events Directly Affecting Women

Copies of complete documents may be found by clicking on highlighted descriptions.

1650s
Immigrants moving south from Virginia settle the coast of present-day North Carolina. A governor is appointed in 1664, but the first town is established by the arrival of the French Huguenots in 1704.1650
Slave Francis Payne of Northampton County, Virginia, paid for his freedom about 1650 by purchasing three white servants for his master's use. Francis Payne was married to a white woman named Amy by September 1656, when he gave her a mare by deed of jointure.

1651
First Indian Reservation is created near Richmond, Virginia.

1652
Rhode Island enacts the first law restricting slavery in the colonies and declares slavery illegal for more than 10 years.

Massachusettes requires all black and Indian male servants to receive military training

1654
Boat with twenty-three Jews, mostly refugees from Recife, Brazil, arrives in New Amsterdam (New York), marking the beginning of Jewish communal settlement in North America.

A Virginia court allows African Americans to hold slaves.

1655
Jews in New Netherlands are granted rights to trade, travel, and stand guard.

Elizabeth Key, daughter of a slave, sues for her freedom and wins in Virginia. (See blog for further information.)

1656
Members of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly referred to as Quakers, arrive in Boston from England. While springing from the same religious turmoil that gave rise to the Separatist movement, the Quakers lack respect for hierarchy and believe in man’s ability to achieve his own salvation. Tenets so contrary to orthodox Puritanism quickly turn most New Englanders against them.

Massachusetts Bay Colony Puritans whip, imprison, & banish the first Quakers to arrive in the colony. Legislation in 1658 bars the Quakers from holding their services, called "meetings."

On 22 September 1656 in Maryland, an all-woman jury, the first in the colonies, acquits Judith Catchpole on charges of murdering her unborn child.

The small number of Quakers in Plymouth Colony congregate primarily in Sandwich on Cape Cod and in Scituate. Laws are passed forbidding any to transport Quakers into the colony, to give them “entertainment” (housing) or to attend a Quaker meeting. Punishments include fines, whipping, imprisonment or banishment. A number of people are brought before the courts on these charges.

The Massachusetts Bay Colony passes a law fining any person bringing a Quaker into the colony £100. A Quaker returning to the colony, after being expelled, will have their ears cropped and their tongues bored with hot iron.

Jews in New Netherlands are granted rights to own property and to establish a Jewish cemetery.

1657
Virginia passes a fugitive slave law strong

1658
At Oliver Cromwell's death, the English Commonwealth soon dissolves. The late monarch's heir is brought out of exile to rule as Charles II in 1660. The decades following the reestablishment of the monarchy are marked by a surge of artistic, literary, and dramatic output.

Three Quakers each lose an ear after returning to Massachusetts. The Boston authorities pass a new law with the penalty for expelled Quakers returning to the colony being death.

Long Island passes a similar anti-Quaker law.

1659
Quakers William Robinson & Marmaduke Stephenson are hanged for refusing to leave Massachusetts. Mary Barrett Dyer, a follower of Anne Hutchinson & later a Quaker, is scheduled to hang with them but is reprieved at the last minute.

1660
Mary Barrett Dyer is executed on Boston Common for her Quaker proselytizing & for defying an expulsion order by returning to Boston. She is one of four Quakers hanged between 1659 and 1661. See this blog for Mary Dyer's letters from jail to her husband.

The English Crown approves a Navigation Act requiring the exclusive use of English ships for trade in the English Colonies & limits exports of tobacco and sugar & other commodities to England or its colonies.

An Act for Supressing the Quakers is passed in Virginia.

Charles II, King of England, orders the Council of Foreign Plantations to devise strategies for converting slaves and servants to Christianity.

1660s
The first native Africans were brought to Virginia in 1619. They were hired, with rights of contract, for work on large plantations of tobacco, rice, & indigo. By the 1660s, plantation owners change the laws & revoke contracts, so that African men, women, & children cannot earn their freedom.

After her husband's death in 1660, Margaret Hardenbrook de Vries (later Philipse) takes over his business as a merchant buying furs and shipping them to Holland in return for Dutch products, which she sells in New Amsterdam. Although she remarries, she continues to run the business until she dies in 1690. See blog for life of Margarieta Hardenbrook De Vries Philipse.

1661
Massachusetts continues to punish Quakers by hanging those who refuse to leave the colony. After a royal edict requires Massachusetts authorities to release imprisoned Quakers & return them to England, the authorities allow them to leave for other colonies. Corporal punishment for Quakers & other dissenters is suspended in the Massachusetts Bay colony by order of Parliament.

1662
Virginia General Assembly declares children of enslaved women to be slaves.

Massachusetts reverses a ruling dating back to 1652, which allowed blacks to train in arms. New York, Connecticut, and New Hampshire pass similar laws restricting the bearing of arms.

1663
The Carolinas. King Charles II of England grants a charter for the Carolina colonies to 8 loyal supporters. The Province of Carolina was divided into North Carolina & South Carolina in 1712. (Both colonies became royal colonies in 1729.)

A Declaration and Proposals of the Lord Proprietor of Carolina, Aug. 25-Sept. 4

Navigation Act of 1663 requires that most imports to the colonies must be transported via England on English ships.

In Gloucester County, Virginia, the first documented slave rebellion in the colonies takes place.

Maryland legalizes slavery.

1664
The British take control of New Amsterdam & New Netherlands, introduce English constitutional forms. The Dutch settlers were able to retain their properties & worship as they please. The Colonial Dutch style of art & life remains pervasive in New York throughout the 18th century.

The Concession and Agreement of the Lords Proprietors of the Province of New Caesarea, or New Jersey, to and With All and Every the Adventurers and All Such as Shall Settle or Plant There; February 10

Grant of the Province of Maine; March 12

The Duke of York's Release to John Ford Berkeley, and Sir George Carteret; June 24

Anne Bradstreet’s MEDITATIONS DIVINE AND MORALL is a collection of her prose devotional writings written for her son Simon, which draw on her daily experiences. Probably written between 1655-1665, but found after her death in 1672.

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.

Maryland is the first colony to take legal action against marriages between white women and black men.

The State of Maryland mandates lifelong servitude for all black slaves. New York, New Jersey, the Carolinas, and Virginia all pass similar laws

1665
Legislation in several states tightens the bonds of slavery. English law provides that slaves may be freed if they convert to Christianity and establish legal residence, but Maryland, New York, New Jersey, the Carolinas, and Virginia pass laws allowing conversion & residence without freeing any slaves.

Concessions and Agreements of the Lords Proprietors of the Province of Carolina
Charter of Carolina; June 30

Great Plague of London begins.

1666
Maryland passes a fugitive slave law.

1667
Virginia declares that Christian baptism will not alter a man or a woman's status as a slave.

New Jersey passes a fugitive slave law.

1669

The Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina : March 1

1670
The State of Virginia prohibits free blacks and Indians from keeping Christian (i.e. white) servants.

See:
Yale Law School, The Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History, and Diplomacy. New Haven, CT.

Burt, Daniel S., editor. THE CHRONOLOGY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE: AMERICA'S LITERARY ACHIEVEMENTS FROM THE COLONIAL ERA TO MODERN TIMES. Houghton Mifflin Internet.

HISTORY MATTERS. American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning (Graduate Center, CUNY) and the Center for History and New Media (George Mason University). Internet. http://historymatters.gmu.edu
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Women in America Timeline 1670-1700

2011-08-16T04:16:00.006-04:00

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Timeline Of Events Directly Affecting Women

Copies of complete documents may be found by clicking on highlighted descriptions.

c. 1674 Elizabeth Clarke Freake (Mrs. John Freake) and Baby Mary, about 1671 and 1674

1672

A Declaration of the True Intent and Meaning of us the Lords Proprietors, and Explanation of There Concessions Made to the Adventurers and Planters of New Caesarea or New Jersey; December 6

George Fox, founder of the Society of Friends (Quakers), & missionary William Edmundson visit Albemarle converting many colonists to Quakerism. Quakers are the first religious body to obtain a foothold in Carolina.

1673
Dutch military forces retake New York from the British; but in 1674, The Treaty of Westminster ends hostilities between the English & Dutch returning the Dutch colonies in America to the English.

The British Navigation Act of 1673 sets up the office of customs commissioner in the colonies to collect duties on goods that pass between colonies.

1674
New Jersey was divided into 2 separate colonies, East & West New Jersey in 1674, only to be reunited in 1702.

Grant of the Province of Maine; June 29

His Royal Highness's Grant to the Lords Proprietors, Sir George Carteret; July 29

New York declares that blacks who convert to Christianity after their enslavement will not be freed.

In Albany, Maria Van Cortlandt Van Rennselaer (1645-1688/9) manages her 24 mile square estate after the death of her husband in 1674. She does not remarry and clears title to the property when the English reclaim New York. (See more about Maria on this blog.)

1676
Nathaniel Bacon leads southside Virginians against the Indians and in violation of Governor Berkeley's wishes. He openly rebels against Berkley and burns Jamestown to the ground before dying of dysentery on October 26. Slaves and indentured servants participate.King Philip's War begins when Metacomet (King Philip) leads an attack against Swansea in retaliation for the Plymouth colony's execution of three Wampanoag tribe members. The bloody war rages up & down the Connecticut River valley in Massachusetts & in the Plymouth & Rhode Island colonies, eventually killing 600 English colonials & 3,000 Native Americans, including women & children on both sides. Metacomet is shot on 12 August 1676. In New Hampshire & Maine, the Saco Indians continue to raid settlements for another year and a half. Sir Edmond Andros finally makes peace in Maine on 12 April 1678.The Royal Africa Company is given a monopoly in the English slave trade bringing male & female slaves to the British American colonies.

When Bacon is marching back to Jamestown & things are looking bleak, his men are still supporting him. When one of the men, a Scotsman named Drummond, was warned that this was rebellion, he replied recklessly, "I am in over shoes, I will be in over boots."

His wife was even more bold. "This is dangerous work," said some one, "and England will have something to say to it." Then Sarah Drummond picked up a twig, and snapping it in two, threw it down again. "I fear the power of England no more than that broken straw," she cried.

The Charter or Fundamental Laws, of West New Jersey, Agreed Upon

Quintipartite Deed of Revision, Between E. and W Jersey: July 1

1677
Sarah Symmes Fiske (1627-1692) writes her only known literary work A CONFESSION OF FAITH: OR, A SUMMARY OF DIVINITY. DRAWN UP BY A YOUNG GENTLE-WOMAN, IN THE TWENTY-FIFTH YEAR OF HER AGE, which would not be published until 1704. The work is a spiritual biography emphasizing Puritan theology and argument. (See this blog for more on Sarah Symmes Fiske.)

1678
Anne Bradstreet’s SEVERAL POEMS COMPILED WITH GREAT VARIETY OF WIT AND LEARNING…BY A GENTLEWOMAN OF NEW ENGLAND is published posthumously and includes revisions of her earlier work and a dozen new works found among her papers after her death and includes "On the Burning of Her Home," a short spiritual autobiography in prose; "Religious Experience;" and "Contemplation," regarded by many as her greatest poetic achievement. (See this blog for more on Anne Bradstreet.)

1679 Mrs. Richard Patteshall (Martha Woody) and Child. Attributed to: Thomas Smith, American, c 1650–1691

1680
The State of Virginia forbids blacks and slaves from bearing arms, prohibits blacks from congregating in large numbers, and mandates harsh punishment for slaves who assault Christians or attempt escape.

Duke of York's Second Grant to William Penn, Gawn Lawry, Nicholas Lucas, John Eldridge, Edmund Warner, and Edward Byllynge, for the Soil and Government of West New Jersey; August 6

Commission of John Cutt of New Hampshire; September 18

1681
Concessions to the Province of Pennsylvania - July 11Charter for the Province of Pennsylvania; February 28

Province of West New-Jersey, in America; November 25

William Penn (1644–1718), a wealthy Quaker, receives a large land grant west of the Delaware River, Pennsylvania. Penn received the colony as payment in lieu of debt that the Crown owed his father, naval hero Sir William Penn. Establishment of the colony also solved the problem of the growing Society of Friends or "Quaker" movement in England, which was causing much embarrassment to the Church of England. While still in England, Penn outlined certain rights to its citizens. The three counties of the Delaware Colony, captured from the Dutch, were deeded to William Penn in 1682, but regained a separate existence in 1704.

Sarah Whipple Goodhue (1641-1681) writes "VALEDICTORY AND MONITORY-WRITING." Goodhue's letter to provide spiritual guidance to her family would be read for inspiration through the 19th century. The Ipswich, Massachusetts, native had written the work anticipating that she might die in childbirth. It offers advice to her husband & children and remains interesting for the light it sheds on colonial family life. (See this blog for the entire text of Sarah Goodhue's letter to her family.)

Maria, a slave is burned at the stake for trying, with 2 men, to burn down her master's house in Massachusetts. The court condemns her most severely, claiming she lacks "the feare of God before her eyes."

1682
Mary White Rowlandson (c. 1635-c. 1678) writes THE SOVEREIGNTY & THE GOODNESS OF GOD... BEING A NARRATIVE OF THE CAPTIVITY AND RESTAURATION OF MRS. MARY ROWLANDSON. One of the most famous and popular examples of colonial American prose chronicles Rowlandson's spiritual & physical travails after her 11 week captivity among Indians in 1676. It is the first widely popular book written by a woman. (See this blog for more on Mary Rowlandson plus the entire text of her book.)

Virginia declares all imported African American servants to be slaves for life.

Mary Avery may have been the colonies' first woman publisher. She published The Rule of the New-Creature (a children's book) at Boston in 1682.

Duke of York's Confirmation to the 24 Proprietors; March 14

Penn's Charter of Libertie; April 25

Frame of Government of Pennsylvania; May 5
1683
A group of German Mennonites & Quakers founded the settlement of Germantown. They were led by Francis Daniel Pastorius who soon wrote a promotional piece to encourage more Germans to emigrate to Pennsylvania.

Quakers establish the first school in Pennsylvania. They are among the first to teach both girls & boys to read and write. Training in classical languages, history, & literature is available at a public school in Philadelphia beginning in 1689.

Mennonite and other German families begin to settle in Penn's colony.

William Penn & Native Americans negotiate a peace treaty at Shackamaxon under the Treaty Elm

Frame of Government of Pennsylvania: February 2

The Fundamental Constitutions for the Province of East New Jersey in America

The King's Letter Recognizing the Proprietors' Right to the Soil and Government ; November 23

1684
Charter of the Massachusetts Bay Colony is revoked ending the requirement of church membership for voting.

New York makes it illegal for slaves to sell goods.

1685
The Duke of York ascends the British throne as King James II. He creates The Dominion of New England with the consolidation of Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, East Jersey, & West Jersey into a single larger colony in 1685. The experiment ended with the Glorious Revolution of 1688-89, and the nine colonies re-established their separate identities in 1689.

Protestants in France lose their guarantee of religious freedom as King Louis XIV revokes the Edict of Nantes, spurring many families to leave for America.

1686-88
New England Royal Governor Sir Edmund Andros begins issuing a series of unpopular orders aimed at the consolidation of colonies into one large settlement. He dissolves the assemblies of New York & Connecticut; limits the number of town meetings in New England to one per year; places the militia under his direct control & forces Puritans & Anglicans to worship together.

1687
Governor Andros, orders Boston's Old South Meeting House to be converted into an Anglican Church. In August, the Massachusetts towns of Ipswich & Topsfield resist assessments imposed by Andros in protest of taxation without representation.

1688
Catholic King James II of England flees to France after being deposed by influential English leaders.

Resolutions of The Germantown Mennonites; February 18

Commission of Sir Edmund Andros for the Dominion of New England; April 7

Quakers in Pennsylvania issue a formal resolution against slavery of men & women in America.

1689
Governor Andros is jailed by rebellious colonists in Boston. In July, the English government orders Andros to be returned to England to stand trial. Cotton Mather supports the rebellion.

The New England colonies reestablish their previous systems of government.

William III of Orange (the Netherlands) is crowned king of England with wife Mary, daughter of James II. They reign together until 1694, when Mary dies; William rules alone until 1702.

1689-1763
The French and Indian War begins with King William's War. Schenectady, N. Y. and other areas are burned by French and Native Americans; Massachusetts colonists capture Port Royal, Nova Scotia; and Canadian forces destroy Casco, Maine
. Unknown Woman New York, 1690–1700 Attributed to Gerret Duyckinck from New York, (New Amsterdam) 1660–1710)

1691
The Province of Massachusetts Bay was organized October 7, 1691 by William & Mary. The charter was enacted May 14, 1692 and included Massachusetts Bay Colony, Plymouth Colony, Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, the Province of Maine & what is now Nova Scotia. The New Hampshire gained its independence

South Carolina passes the first comprehensive slave codes

Virginia passes the first anti-miscegenation law, forbidding marriages between whites and blacks or whites and Native Americans. And Virginia prohibits the manumission of slaves within its borders. Manumitted slaves are forced to leave the colony

In New York, the newly appointed Governor of New England, Henry Sloughter, arrives from England & institutes royally sanctioned representative government.

The Charter of Massachusetts Bay; October 7

1692
The Salem witch trials accuse 150 of which 20 are condemned to die including 14 women; most of the accused & the accusers are women.

1693
William & Mary College, named for the British rulers, is chartered in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Thomas Smith, attributed, Maria Catherina Smith, about 1690-93

1694
Rice cultivation is introduced into Carolina. Slave importation increases dramatically.

1695
First known Jew settles in Charleston, South Carolina.

Dinah Nuthead inherits her husband's printing press in St. Mary's City, Maryland. She moves it to Annapolis when the government relocates there, and continues to run the printing business.

1696
The Royal African Trade Company loses its slave trade monopoly, spurring colonists in New England to engage in trading male & female slaves for profit.

Frame of Government of Pennsylvania

The English pass the Navigation Act of 1696 requiring colonial trade to be done exclusively via English built ships. The Act also expands the powers of colonial custom commissioners, including rights of forcible entry, and requires the posting of bonds on certain goods.

1697
Massachusetts general court expresses official repentance for the witchcraft trials; Samuel Sewall confesses guilt from his Boston church pew.

King William's War ends as the French & English sign the Treaty of Ryswick.

1690-1700 Rebecca Bonum Eskridge. Unknown Artist.

1699
Cockacoeske, Queen of the Pamunkey Indians, signs a peace treaty with Virginia.

Peace treaty at Casco Bay, Maine, brings hostilities between the Abenaki Indians & the Massachusetts colony to an end.

English Parliament passes the Wool Act, protecting its own wool industry by limiting wool production in Ireland & forbidding the export of wool by Americans.

See:
Yale Law School, The Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History, and Diplomacy. New Haven, CT.

Burt, Daniel S., editor. THE CHRONOLOGY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE: AMERICA'S LITERARY ACHIEVEMENTS FROM THE COLONIAL ERA TO MODERN TIMES. Houghton Mifflin Internet.

HISTORY MATTERS. American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning (Graduate Center, CUNY) and the Center for History and New Media (George Mason University). Internet. http://historymatters.gmu.edu/
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Recreating 17th-Century America

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Jamestown Settlement 1607 Virginia

1682 Pennsylvania Laws Against Adultery, Incest, Rape, & Polygamy

2011-07-23T13:52:00.004-04:00

1682 Pennsylvania Laws

Against Adultery, Incest, Rape, & Polygamy

LAW AGAINST ADULTRY.
Chapter 7. And be it &c: That whosoever defileth the marriage bed, by Lying with another Women or Man, than their own wife or husband, being Legally convicted thereof, Shall for the first offence be publickly whipt, & Suffer one whole year’s imprisonment in the house of correction at hard Labour, to the behoof of the publick & Longer if the chief Magistrate See meet And both hee & the Woman Shall be Liable to a Bill of Divorcement, if required by the greived husband or wife, within the said term of one whole year after Conviction. And for the Second Offence Imprisonment in Manner aforesaid, during Life. And if the party with whom the husband or wife Shall defile their beds be Unmarryed, for the first offence they Shall Suffer half a year’s imprisonment in the manner aforesaid. And for the Second offence, Imprisonment for Life.

LAW AGAINST INCEST.
Chapter 8. And be it &c: That if any person Shall be Legally convicted of Incest, which is uncleanness betwixt near relations in blood, Such Shall forfeit one half of his Estate, and both Suffer imprisonment a whole year in the house of Correction at hard Labour, And for the Second offence imprisonment in Manner aforesaid during Life.

LAW AGAINST RAPE.
Chapter 10. And be it &c: That whosoever Shall be Convicted of Rape or Ravishment, that is, forcing a Maid, Widow or Wife, Shall forfeit One third part of his Estate to the parent of the said Maid & for want of a parent to the said Maid, And if a Widow to the said Widow, And if a Wife to the husband of the said wife &the Said party be whipt, & Suffer a year’s imprisonment in the house of Correction at hard Labour, And for the second offence imprisonment in Manner aforesaid
during Life.

LAW AGAINST POLYGAMY.
Chapter 11. And be it &c: That whosoever Shall be Convicted of having two Wives or two husbands att one and the Same time Shall be imprisoned all their Life-time in the house of Correction at hard Labour, to the behoof of the former wife & children or the former husband & children And if a Man or Women being Unmarried do knowingly Marry the husband or wife of another person, hee or shee Shall be punished after the same Manner aforesaid.
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Recreating 17th-Century America

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Plimoth Plantation 1627 Massachusettes

1640 History of the Founding of Harvard College

2011-06-30T22:20:00.003-04:00

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New England's First Fruits 1640, for Men Only, Of Course...

The History of the Founding of Harvard College

AFTER GOD HAD carried us safe to New England, and we had built our houses, provided necessaries for our livelihood, reared convenient places for God's worship, and led the civil government, one of the next things we longed for and looked after was to advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity; dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches, when our present ministers shall lie in the dust.

And as we were thinking and consulting how to effect this great work, it pleased God to stir up the heart of one Mr. Harvard (a godly gentleman and a lover of learning, there living among us) to give the one-half of his estate (it being in all about £700) toward the ing of a college, and all his library. After him, another gave £300; others after them cast in more; and the public hand of the state added the rest.

The college was, by common consent, appointed to be at Cambridge (a place very pleasant and accommodate) and is called (according to the name of the first founder) Harvard College. The edifice is very fair and comely within and without, having in it a spacious hall where they daily meet at commons, lectures, and exercises; and a large library with some books to it, the gifts of diverse of our friends, their chambers and studies also fitted for and possessed by the students, and all other rooms of office necessary and convenient with all needful offices thereto belonging. And by the side of the college, a fair grammar school, for the training up of young scholars and fitting of them for academical learning, that still as they are judged ripe they may be received into the college of this school.

Master Corlet is the master who has very well approved himself for his abilities, dexterity, and painfulness in teaching and education of the youths under him.

Over the college is Master Dunster placed as president, a learned, a conscionable, and industrious man, who has so trained up his pupils in the tongues and arts, and so seasoned them with the principles of divinity and Christianity, that we have to our great comfort (and in truth) beyond our hopes, beheld their progress in learning and godliness also. The former of these has appeared in their public declamations in Latin and Greek, and disputations logic and philosophy which they have been wonted (besides their ordinary exercises in the college hall) in the audience of the magistrates, ministers, and other scholars for the probation of their growth in learning, upon set days, constantly once every month to make and uphold. The latter has been manifested in sundry of them by the savory things of their spirits in their godly versation; insomuch that we are confident, if these early blossoms may be cherished and warmed with the influence of the friends of learning and lovers of this pious work, they will, by the help of God, come to happy maturity in a short time.

Over the college are twelve overseers chosen by the General Court, six of them are of the magistrates, the other six of the ministers, who are to promote the best good of it and (having a power of influence into all persons in it) are to see that everyone be diligent and proficient in his proper place.
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Recreating 17th-Century America

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Plimoth Plantation 1627 Massachusettes

1642 Education - Massachusetts Bay School Law

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Massachusetts Bay School Law

Forasmuch as the good education of children is of singular behoof and benefit to any Common-wealth; and wheras many parents & masters are too indulgent and negligent of their duty in that kinde.

It is therfore ordered that the Select men of everie town, in the severall precincts and quarters where they dwell, shall have a vigilant eye over their brethren & neighbours, to see, first that none of them shall suffer so much barbarism in any of their families as not to indeavour to teach by themselves or others, their children & apprentices so much learning as may inable them perfectly to read the english tongue, & knowledge of the Capital Lawes: upon penaltie of twentie shillings for each neglect therin.

Also that all masters of families doe once a week (at the least) catechize their children and servants in the grounds & principles of Religion, & if any be unable to doe so much: that then at the least they procure such children or apprentices to learn some short orthodox catechism without book, that they may be able to answer unto the questions that shall be propounded to them out of such catechism by their parents or masters or any of the Select men when they shall call them to a tryall of what they have learned of this kinde.

And further that all parents and masters do breed & bring up their children & apprentices in some honest lawful calling, labour or imployment, either in husbandry, or some other trade profitable for themselves, and the Common-wealth if they will not or cannot train them up in learning to fit them for higher imployments.

And if any of the Select men after admonition by them given to such masters of families shal finde them still negligent of their dutie in the particulars aforementioned, wherby children and servants become rude, stubborn & unruly; the said Select men with the help of two Magistrates, or the next County court for that Shire, shall take such children or apprentices from them & place them with some masters for years (boyes till they come to twenty one, and girls eighteen years of age compleat) which will more strictly look unto, and force them to submit unto government according to the rules of this order, if by fair means and former instructions they will not be drawn into it.
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Recreating 17th-Century America

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Plimoth Plantation 1627 Massachusettes

1642 Laws and Statutes for Students of Harvard College - No Women Allowed

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Harvard College Lawes of 1642 (from New England's First Fruits)

1. When any Schollar is able to Read Tully or such like classicall Latine Author ex tempore, and make and speake true Latin in verse and prose suo (ut aiunt) Marte, and decline perfectly the paradigmes of Nounes and verbes in the Greeke tongue, then may hee bee admitted into the College, nor shall any claime admission before such qualifications.

2. Every one shall consider the mayne End of his life and studyes, to know God and Jesus Christ which is Eternall life. Joh. 17.3.

3. Seeing the Lord giveth wisdome, every one shall seriously by prayer in secret, seeke wisdome of him.

4. Every one shall so exercise himselfe in reading the Scriptures twice a day that they bee ready to give an account of their proficiency therein, both in theoreticall observations of Language and Logicke, and in practicall and spirituall truthes as their tutor shall require according to their severall abilities respectively, seeing the Entrance of the word giveth light etc. psal. 119, 130.

5. In the publicke Church assembly they shall carefully shunne all gestures that shew any contempt or neglect of Gods ordinances and bee ready to give an account to their tutors of their profiting and to use the helpes of Storing themselves with knowledge, as their tutours shall direct them, and all Sophisters and Bachellors (until themselves make common place) shall publiquely repeate Sermons in the Hall whenver they are called forth.

6. They shall eschew all prophanation of Gods holy name, attributes, word, ordinances, and times of worship, and study with Reverence and love carefully to reteine God and his truth in their minds.

7. They shall honour as their parents, Magistrates, Elders, tutours and aged persons, by beeing silent in their presence (except they bee called on to answer) not gainesaying shewing all those laudable expressions of honour and Reverence in their presence, that are in uses as bowing before them standing uncovered or the like.

8. They shall be slow to speake, and eschew not onely oathes, Lies, and uncertaine Rumours, but likewise all idle, foolish, bitter scoffing, frothy wanton words and offensive gestures.
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Recreating 17th-Century America

2011-06-23T21:18:00.002-04:00

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Jamestown Settlement 1607 Virginia

Yellow blossoms stretch out over a newly formed squash in Jamestown Settlement’s Powhatan Indian village.

European Persecution - Jews by English

2011-06-23T21:03:00.002-04:00

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BBC 22 June 2011

Jewish bodies found in medieval well in Norwich, England.

There is evidence the children were thrown down the well after the adults.

The remains of 17 bodies found at the bottom of a medieval well in England could have been victims of persecution, new evidence has suggested.

The most likely explanation is that those down the well were Jewish and were probably murdered or forced to commit suicide, according to scientists who used a combination of DNA analysis, carbon dating and bone chemical studies in their investigation.

The skeletons date back to the 12th or 13th Centuries at a time when Jewish people were facing persecution throughout Europe.

They were discovered in 2004, during an excavation of a site in the centre of Norwich, ahead of construction of the Chapelfield Shopping Centre. The remains were put into storage and have only recently been the subject of investigation.

Seven skeletons were successfully tested and five of them had a DNA sequence suggesting they were likely to be members of a single Jewish family.

DNA expert Dr Ian Barnes, who carried out the tests, said: "This is a really unusual situation for us. This is a unique set of data that we have been able to get for these individuals.

"I am not aware that this has been done before - that we have been able to pin them down to this level of specificity of the ethnic group that they seem to come from."

The team has been led by forensic anthropologist Professor Sue Black, of the University of Dundee's Centre for Anthropology and Human Identification.

Professor Sue Black, Dr Xanthe Mallett and Professor Caroline Wilkinson will delve deeper into the mystery and attempt to recreate the faces of those found in the well.

Professor Black, who went to the Balkans following the Kosovo war - where her job was to piece together the bodies of massacred Kosovan Albanians - said this discovery had changed the direction of the whole investigation.

Regarding the nature of the discovery, Professor Black said: "We are possibly talking about persecution. We are possibly talking about ethnic cleansing and this all brings to mind the scenario that we dealt with during the Balkan War crimes."

Eleven of the 17 skeletons were those of children aged between two and 15. The remaining six were adult men and women.

"In terms of the brutality of the ethnic cleansing, it was thought women and children quite frankly weren't worth wasting the bullets on," added Professor Black.

"Pregnant women were bayoneted because that way you got rid of a woman because that wasn't important and you got rid of the next generation because you didn't want them to survive. So I know what sort of pattern I am looking for."

Pictures taken at the time of excavation suggested the bodies were thrown down the well together, head first.

A close examination of the adult bones showed fractures caused by the impact of hitting the bottom of the well. But the same damage was not seen on the children's bones, suggesting they were thrown in after the adults who cushioned the fall of their bodies.

The team had earlier considered the possibility of death by disease but the bone examination also showed no evidence of diseases such as leprosy or tuberculosis.

Giles Emery, the archaeologist who led the original excavation, said at first he thought it might have been a plague burial, but carbon dating had shown that to be impossible as the plague came much later.

And historians pointed out that even during times of plague when mass graves were used, bodies were buried in an ordered way with respect and religious rites.

Norwich had been home to a thriving Jewish community since 1135, and many lived near the well site. But there are records of persecution of Jews in medieval England including in Norwich (see fact box).

Sophie Cabot, an archaeologist and expert on Norwich's Jewish history, said the Jewish people had been invited to England by the King to lend money because at the time, the Christian interpretation of the bible did not allow Christians to lend money and charge interest. It was regarded as a sin.

So cash finance for big projects came from the Jewish community and some became very wealthy - which in turn, caused friction.

"There is a resentment of the fact that Jews are making money... and they are doing it in a way that doesn't involve physical labour, things that are necessarily recognised as work... like people feel about bankers now," said Ms Cabot.

The findings of the investigation represented a sad day for Norwich.

Ms Cabot added: "It changes the story of what we know about the community. We don't know everything about the community but what we do know is changed by this."

Medieval English Jewish History

1066: The Norman Conquest opens the way to Jewish immigration. The monarchy needs to borrow money and Christians are forbidden to lend money at interest. London, Lincoln and York become centres for substantial Jewish populations.

1100s: Resentment against the Jewish community grows over their perceived wealth and belief they killed Jesus. The "blood libels" - Jews are accused of the ritual murder of Christian children.

1190: Many Jewish people massacred in York. In Norwich they flee to the city's castle for refuge. Those who stay in their homes are butchered.

1230s: Executions in Norwich after an allegation a Christian child was kidnapped.

1272: Edward I comes to the throne and enforces extra taxes on the Jewish community.

1290: Edward I expels the Jews en masse after devising a new form of royal financing using Christian knights to fill the coffers.
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Recreating 17th-Century America

2011-06-03T20:29:00.008-04:00

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Jamestown Settlement 1607 Virginia

Africans in Maryland - Slave & Free - Men & Women

2011-06-03T20:25:00.000-04:00

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Africans in Maryland - Slave & Free - Men & Women

Soon after the settlement of Marylandcxin the seventeenth century, British ships with Africans for sale as slaves began to appear in the Chesapeake. The Atlantic Ocean route between Africa and the Americas was called the Middle Passage. Planters looking for a cheap labor force were interested in using Africans as forced laborers on their tobacco plantations. For example, Governor Leonard Calvert negotiated with a ship captain as early as 1642 for the purchase of thirteen Africans to work on his St. Mary's property. Africans were in rising demand by the colonists and British merchants continued to bring them in large numbers. Between 1675 and 1695 about 3,000 Africans entered the Chesapeake region to be put to work mostly on the tobacco plantations of Maryland and Virginia.

In the seventeenth century, British ships with Africans for sale as slaves began to appear in the Chesapeake. The Atlantic Ocean route between Africa and the Americas was called the Middle Passage. Planters looking for a cheap labor force were interested in using Africans as forced laborers on their tobacco plantations. For example, Governor Leonard Calvert negotiated with a ship captain as early as 1642 for the purchase of thirteen Africans to work on his St. Mary's property. Africans were in rising demand by the colonists and British merchants continued to bring them in large numbers. Between 1675 and 1695 about 3,000 Africans entered the Chesapeake region to be put to work mostly on the tobacco plantations of Maryland and Virginia.

These Africans came from various West African ethnic groups from the region of the Gambia River around the coast of present day Nigeria. Men and women, whose complexions ranged from brown to black, brought with them numerous languages and customs, including their own African religious beliefs. Occasionally Muslims were among them, and sometimes Africans came from regions as far away as Madagascar. The Africans wore little clothing, sometimes only strings of beads. Many had filed teeth. Some had hair plaited in elaborate styles, while others had shaven heads. Slave owners often commented on the scarification—slave owners called them "country markings"—the Africans had on their bodies. These markings might be on their faces, arms, or torso and had a variety of distinctive designs, sometimes for ethnic identity and also for body ornamentation. African music, drums, and singing frightened whites who soon outlawed many African practices—especially drumming. After a time an Africanized English became the language that the Africans and their owners all understood. The Africans received new names and learned their work and the stringent boundaries within which slave life was confined. Owners wanted to break the Africans' rebellious spirits and restrict their movements.

Early accounts of Maryland history provide glimpses of the lives of some of the Africans. Ayubva Suleiman Dially was a well-educated Muslim merchant who was born about 1700 in an area located in an area that is now in Mali. He was captured and sold after he had traded two other Africans to a British merchant. He was taken to Annapolis where he was sold. He worked on a tobacco plantation for two years before he was rescued, taken to England and then finally allowed to return to his home.

Charles Ball, a slave sold into the cotton kingdom from the state of Maryland, wrote that after the sale of his mother, his master also decided to sell his father to a southern slave dealer. Ball said that his grandfather, an African, secretly went to his son's cabin, gave him some cider and parched corn, prayed "to the god of his native country" to protect his son, and told him to run away. Ball never saw his father again. His grandfather was originally enslaved in Charles County, Maryland, in about 1730.

By the eighteenth century, Maryland was beginning to get a new generation of Africans, born in America, who did not know their parents' African homeland first hand. In Tobacco and Slaves (1998) Allan Kulikoff uses records of several Maryland plantations to show the gradual changes in the fertility of the enslaved population. On the Edmond Jennings plantation in 1712 almost all the workers were Africans. By 1730, nine out of ten black men and almost all of the black women working on the Robert Carter estates were born in Africa, but beginning in the 1730s the enslaved population began to grow naturally and was composed of both Africans and African Americans. In a few generations Africa became simply a distant misunderstood land to most African Americans.

Written by Debra Newman Ham for the Maryland Online Encyclopedia.
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Recreating 17th-Century America

2011-06-03T20:23:00.006-04:00

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Jamestown Settlement 1607 Virginia

1698 The Story of Squanto by Cotton Mather

2011-05-25T23:16:00.007-04:00

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"The Story of Squanto" from 1698 Magnalia Christi Americana by Cotton Mather

Cotton Mather

A most wicked shipmaster being on this coast a few years before, had wickedly spirited away more than twenty Indians; whom having enticed them aboard, he presently stowed them under hatches, and carried them away to the Streights, where he sold as many of them as he could for Slaves. This avaritious and pernicious felony laid the foundation for grievous annoyances to all the English endeavors of settlements, especially in the Northern parts of the land for several years ensuing. The Indians would never forget or forgive this injury. . .

But our good God so ordered it, that one of the stolen Indians, called Squanto, had escaped out of Spain into England; where he lived with one Mr. Slany, from whom he had found a way to return unto his own country, being brought back by one Mr. Dermer, about half a year before our honest Plymotheans were cast upon this continent. This Indian having received much kindness from the English, who generally condemned the man that first betrayed him, now made unto the English a return of that kindness: and being by his acquaintance with the English language, fitted with a conversation with them, he very kindly informed them what was the present condition of the Indians; instructed them in the way of ordering their Corn; and acquainted them with many other things, which it was necessary for them to understand.

But Squanto did for them a yet greater benefit than all this: for he brought Massasoit, the chief Sachim or Prince of the Indians within many miles, with some scores of his attenders, to make our people a kind visit; the issue of which visit was, that Massasoit not only entred into a firm agreement of peace with the English, but also they declared and submitted themselves to be subjects of the King of England; into which peace and subjection many other Sachims quickly after came, in the most voluntary manner that could be expressed. It seems that this unlucky Squanto having told his countrymen how easie it was for so great a monarch as K. James to destroy them all, if they should hurt any of his people, he went on to terrifie them with a ridiculous rhodomantado, which they believed, that this people kept the plague in a cellar (where they kept their gunpowder), and could at their pleasure let it loose to make such havock among them, as the distemper had already made among them a few years before. . .

Moreover, our English guns, especially the great ones, made a formidable report among these ignorant Indians; and their hopes of enjoying some defence by the English, against the potent nation nation of Narraganset Indians, now at war with them, made them yet more to court our friendship. This very strange disposition of things, was extreamly advantageous to our distressed planters: and who sees not herein the special providence of the God who disposeth all?
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Recreating 17th-Century America

2011-05-25T23:15:00.001-04:00

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Historic Saint Mary's City, Maryland

1681 Virginia Anglican Priest Proposes Teaching Slaves Christianity

2011-05-25T23:10:00.005-04:00

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1681 Morgan Goodwyn, Proposes Teaching the Slaves Christianity

Goodwyn was a Church of England (Anglican) minister who served in both Virginia and Barbadoes. He was one of the rare voices of ministers calling for the religious education of African slaves. Goodwyn's sentiments would be repeated 20 years later, when the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts began to send missionaries to the colonies and encourage the conversion or religious training of slaves.

Before we enter upon this Debate, to prevent all troublesome Clamors and Objections against it, upon the score of lnterest, this Position should first be laid down, and as a Principle fixt and Eternal, and from which a true Christian cannot recede, be resolved on, (viz.) That no Interest how great or (otherwise) just soever, may be admitted to stand in Competition with Christianity. .

And here also in this Consideration, we are especially to avoid Splitting upon this Solecism, both in Policy and Discretion, and against which, Ecclus hath so wisely cautioned us, ch. 37, v.11. [Not to ask Counsel for Religion of one that hath no Religion, nor of Justice of him that hath no Justice] nor of a Coward about Matters of War, nor of a Merchant concerning Exchange, nor of a Buyer concerning selling &c. for such will counsel for themselves, ver. 8. So likewise for a Christian not to be guided or led by Self-ended Men, Enemies to his Profession, in these Debates and Proposals made for the Advancement of it. Such being only like to raise Obstructions, as hitherto they have always done; and (as lately) to render that for impossible, which has not the least difficulty in it, where a right Method is used for effecting it.

No more are we to proceed herein, by the sole Advice of Persons unacquainted with the true State and Condition of the places where this Settlement or Conversion is to be wrought. . . .

These things being agreed on, we must then fall to consider of the People amongst whom we are to take our lot, and thereto to have an especial regard: As, whether they be Slaves, subject to the English, such as most of the Negro's there are; or free People living of themselves, either amongst, or distant from the English; such as most of the Indians on the Continent (in Virginia, &c.) are. Or lastly, whether this is to be performed by way of further Settling and Establishment, even amongst the English themselves, which also is no less necessary. . . .

Now concerning the Negro's, whom I should think fit to be first taken in hand (as being the easiest Task, would their Owners be perswaded to consent thereto; & the most absolutely necessary, this neglect being the most scandalous, and withal, the most impossible to be defended or excused:) The first and great step will be to procure (what I but just mentioned) their Owners consent, as being to be supposed averse thereto: not altogether, as is here believed, out of Interest (it being already secured to them by Laws of their own but by reason of the trouble, and the fancied needlessness of the Work and to prevent all danger from their Slaves being furnisht with knowledge, consequent, they conceive thereto. However, because they pretend the other (and something there may be in that too,) to take off that pretence, it will be requisite,

I. That a Law be enacted to confirm such Laws of theirs, as are or shall be hereafter made to secure their just Interest in their Slaves; That they may thereby be continued in their present State of Servitude notwithstanding their being afterward baptised.

2. That all unjust Interests, and ungodly Advantages arising from their Slaves Sunday-labour and Polygamie (neither of them sufferable among Christians) be upon severest Penalties prohibited; and this as well to the unbaptised, as to the rest. . . .

These pretences being thus fairly removed, if any Aversion still remains (as 'tis feared there will, and that for the truest Reasons above mentioned,) they must afterwards be invited thereto by good Sermons & Books, Preacht and Writ upon this Subject, and by discoursing with them in private. As also by the Example of the Ministers themselves in their Families. And lastly, (and which will do more then all the rest) by Encouragments from the Government.

Another way, and which 'tis possible might prove most effectual, would be to get this impiety decryed here in England, where our Planters have an extraordinary Ambition to be thought well of, and thereby to shame them into better Principles. . . .

Now for the Planter's late Objections against this Work, as I have heard them represented (and I believe they are the best they had), . . .

I. They object their Negro's want of English; Whereas 'tis certain that there are some thousands of them, who understand English, no worse than our own People. Let them begin with those.

2. That it would make them less governable; the contrary to which is experimentally known amongst their Neighbours, both French & Spaniards in those parts. Now 'twould be too great a blemish to the Reformation, to suppose that Popery only makes its Converts better, but Protestancy worse; as this Allegation being admitted, it must be granted. And to prevent any fond conceit in them of Libertie, (an especial Branch of the same Article,) if there be any such danger, let two or three of each great Family be first baptised; whereby the rest seeing them continued as they were, that Opinion would soon vanish: . . .

3. As for their pretended Aversion to Christianity, the contrary thereto is known of most of them. And tho it is to be confessed that some are more careless and indifferent (having bin taught by the English to be needless for them) yet for the general they are observed to be rather ambitious of it. Nor, I dare affirm, can any single Instance of such aversion in any one of them, be produced.

4. As to their (alike pretended) Stupidity, there is as little truth therein: divers of them being known and confessed by their Owners, to be extraordinary Ingenious, and even to exceed many of the English. And for the rest, they are much the same with other People, destitute of the means of knowledge, and wanting Education.

5. One thing more there remains to be added, of which, tho they may be most afraid, yet they carefully keep it to themselves, and that is the possibility of their Slaves Expectation, not of Freedom, but of more merciful Usage from them. . . .

Yet now after this, if difficulties shall still be urged, (as no doubt but there will) and this Work upon that stale pretence must be further neglected and deferred; I shall in opposition thereto, be bold to make some few demands: As, what those difficulties should be, which are so much greater, it seems, than those our Ancestors encountered with, even in Pagan Regions, and happily overcame? Whether we ever tryed how difficult the Work was, thereby to satisfie our selves, whether (indeed) it be such as it is apprehended (or, at least, pretended?) And whether such a trial would not justify us more, than thus, without trying, to conclude it Impossible ? . . .

In short, there is nothing upon Earth more feasible than this Design, were it but heartily undertaken, and, as I have said, a right Method used for the effecting of it. . . .

Source: M. G. [Morgan Godwyn], A Supplement to the Negro's & Indian's Advocate (London, 1681), reprinted in Albert Bushnell Hart, ed., American History Told by Contemporaries (New York, 1898), volume 1, 299-301.
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Recreating 17th-Century America

2011-05-25T23:09:00.007-04:00

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Jamestown Settlement 1607 Virginia

1666 A Brief Description of the Province of Carolina

2011-05-25T22:59:00.007-04:00

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Robert Horne, A Brief Description of the Province of Carolina (1666)

This is one of the earliest descriptions of Carolina. It was published by Robert Horne in London (although he may not have been the author). The explicit purpose of the pamphlet was to entice English men and women to migrate to the colony, and thereby increase the value of the Proprietors' estate.

John White c 1587 Natives Fishing in North Carolina

CAROLINA is a fair and spacious Province on the Continent of America: so called in honour of His Sacred Majesty that now is, Charles the Second, whom God preserve; and His Majesty hath been pleas'd to grant the same to certain Honourable Persons, who in order to the speedy planting of the same, have granted divers privileges and advantages to such as shall transport themselves and Servants in convenient time; This Province lying so neer Virginia, and yet more Southward, enjoys the fertility and advantages thereof; and yet is so far distant, as to be freed from the inconstancy of the Weather, which is a great cause of the unhealthfulness thereof; also, being in the latitude of the Bermudas may expect the like healthfulness which it hath hitherto enjoy'd, and doubtless there is no Plantation that ever the English went upon, in all respects so good as this: for though Bermudas be wonderful healthy and fruitful, yet is it but a Prison to the Inhabitants, who are much streightned for want of room, and therefore many of them are come to Carolina, and more intend to follow. There is seated in this Province two Colonies already, one on the River Roanoak (now called Albemarle River) and borders on Virginia; the Other at Cape Feare, two Degrees more Southerly; of which follows a more perticular Description. . . .

The Perticular Description of Cape Feare.

In the midst of this fertile Province, in the Latitude of 34 degrees, there is a Colony of English seated, who Landed there the 29 of May, Anno 1664. and are in all about 800 persons, who have overcome all the difficulties that attend the first attempts, and have cleered the way for those that come after, who will find good houses to be in whilst their own are in building; good forts to secure them from their enemies; and many things brought from other parts there, increasing to their no small advantage. The entrance into the River, now called Cape-Feare River, the situation of the Cape, and trending of the Land, is plainly laid down to the eye in the Map annexed. The River is barred at the entrance, but there is a Channel close abord the Cape that will convey in safety a ship of 300 Tons, and as soon as a ship is over ihe Bar, the River is 5 or 6 fathom deep for a 100 miles from the Sea; this Bar is a great security to the Colony against a forreign Invasion, the channel being hard to find by those that have not experience of it, and yet safe enough to those that know it.

The Earth, Water, and Air.

The Land is of divers sorts as in all Countryes of the world, that which lyes neer the Sea, is sandy and barren, but beareth many tall Trees, which make good timber for several uses; and this sandy ground is by experienced men thought to be one cause of the healthfulness of the place: but up the River about 20 or 30 mile, where they have made a Town, called Charles-Town, there is plenty of as rich ground as any in the world. It is a blackish mold upon a red sand, and under that a clay, but in some places is rich ground of a grayer colour, they have made Brick of the Clay, which proves very good; and Lime they have also for building. . . . The Woods are stored with Deer and Wild Turkeys, of a great magnitude, weighing many times above 50lbs a piece, and of a more pleasant tast than in England, being in their proper climate; other sorts of Beasts in the Woods that are good for food; and also Fowls, whose names are not known to them. This is what they found naturally upon the place; but they have brought with them most sorts of seeds and roots of the Barbadoes which thrive very well, and they have Potatoes, and the other Roots and Herbs of Barbadoes growing and thriving with them; as also from Virginia, Bermudas, and New England, what they could afford: They have Indigo, Tobacco very good, and Cotton-wool; Lime-trees, Orange, Lemon, and other Fruit-Trees they brought, thrive exceedingly: They have two Crops of Indian-Corn in one year, and great increase every Crop; Apples, Pears, and other English fruit, grow there out of the planted Kernels: The Marshes and Meadows are very large from 1500 to 3000 Acres, and upwards, and are excellent food for Cattle, and will bear any Grain being prepared; some Cattle both great and small, which live well all the Winter, and keep their fat without Fodder; Hogs find so much Mast and other Food in the Woods, that they want no other care than a Swine-herd to keep them from running wild. The Meadows are very proper for Rice, Rape-seed, Lin-seed, etc., and may many of them be made to overflow at pleasure with a small charge. Here are as brave Rivers as any in the World, stored with great abundance of Sturgeon, Salmon, Bass, Plaice, Trout, and Spanish Mackrill, with many other most pleasant sorts of Fish, both flat and round, for which the English Tongue hath no name. . . . Last of all, the Air comes to be considered, which is not the least considerable to the well being of a Plantation, for without a wholsome Air all other considerations avail nothing; and this is it which makes this Place so desireable, being seated in the most temperate Clime, where the neighbour-hood of the glorious Light of Heaven brings many advantages, and his convenient distance secures them from the Inconvenience of his scortching beams. The Summer is not too hot, and the Winter is very short and moderate, best agreeing with English Constitutions. . . .

If therefore any industrious and ingenious persons shall be willing to pertake of the Felicites of this Country, let them imbrace the first opportunity, that they may obtain the greater advantages.

The chief of the Privileges are as follows.

First, There is full and free Liberty of Conscience granted to all, so that no man is to be molested or called in question for matters of Religious Concern; but every one to be obedient to the Civil Government, worshipping God after their own way.

Secondly, There is freedom from Custom, for all Wine, Silk, Raisins, Currance, Oyl, Olives, and Almonds, that shall be raised in the Province for 7. years, after 4 Ton of any of those commodities shall be imported in one Bottom.

Thirdly, Every Free-man and Free-woman that transport themselves and Servants by the 25 of March next, being 1667. shall have for Himself, Wife, Children, and Men-servants, for each 100 Acres of Land for him and his Heirs for ever, and for every Woman-servant and Slave 50 Acres, paying at most 1/2d. per acre, per annum, in lieu of all demands, to the Lords Proprietors: Provided always, That every Man be armed with a good Musquet full bore, 10lbs Powder, and 20lbs of Bullet, and six Months Provision for all, to serve them whilst they raise Provision in that Countrey.

Fourthly, Every Man-Servant at the expiration of their time, is to have of the Country a 100 Acres of Land to him and his heirs for ever, paying only 1/2d. per Acre, per annum, and the Women 50. Acres of Land on the same conditions; their Masters also are to allow them two Suits of Apparrel and Tools such as he is best able to work with, according to the Custom of the Countrey.

Fifthly, They are to have a Governour and Council appointed from among themselves, to see the Laws of the Assembly put in due execution; but the Governour is to rule but 3 years, and then learn to obey; also he hath no power to lay any Tax, or make or abrogate any Law, without the Consent of the Colony in their Assembly.

Sixthly, They are to choose annually from among themselves, a certain Number of Men, according to their divisions, which constitute the General Assembly with the Governour and his Council, and have the sole power of Making Laws, and Laying Taxes for the common good when need shall require.

These are the chief and Fundamental privileges, but the Right Honourable Lords Proprietors have promised (and it is their Interest so to do) to be ready to grant what other Privileges may be found advantageous for the good, of the Colony.

Is there therefore any younger Brother who is born of Gentile [Genteel] blood, and whose Spirit is elevated above the common sort, and yet the hard usage of our Country hath not allowed suitable fortune; he will not surely be afraid to leave his Native Soil to advance his Fortunes equal to his Blood and Spirit, and so he will avoid those unlawful ways too many of our young Gentlemen take to maintain themselves according to their high education, having but small Estates; here, with a few Servants and a small Stock a great Estate may be raised, although his Birth have not entitled him to any of the Land of his Ancestors, yet his Industry may supply him so, as to make him the head of as famous a family.

Such as are here tormented with much care how to get worth to gain a Livelyhood, or that with their labour can hardly get a comfortable subsistance, shall do well to go to this place, where any man what-ever, that is but willing to take moderate pains, may be assured of a most comfortable subsistance, and be in a way to raise his fortunes far beyond what he could ever hope for in England. Let no man be troubled at the thoughts of being a Servant for 4 or 5 year, for I can assure you, that many men give mony with their children to serve 7 years, to take more pains and fare nothing so well as the Servants in this Plantation will do. Then it is to be considered, that so soon as he is out of his time, he hath Land, and Tools, and Clothes given him, and is in a way of advancement. Therefore all Artificers, as Carpenters, Wheelrights, Joyners, Coopers, Bricklayers, Smiths, or diligent Husbandmen and Labourers, that are willing to advance their fortunes, and live in a most pleasant healthful and fruitful Country, where Artificers are of high esteem, and used with all Civility and Courtesie imaginable, may take notice, that

There is an opportunity offers now by the Virginia Fleet, from whence Cape Feare is but 3 or 4 days sail, and then a small Stock carried to Virginia will purchase provisions at a far easier rate than to carry them from hence; also the freight of the said Provisions will be saved, and be more fresh, and there wanteth not conveyance from Virginia thither.

If any Maid or single Woman have a desire to go over, they will think themselves in the Golden Age, when Men paid a Dowry for their Wives; for if they be but Civil, and under 50 years of Age, some honest Man or other, will purchase them for their Wives.

Those that desire further advice, or Servants that would be entertained, let them repair to Mr. Matthew Wilkinson, Ironmonger, at the Sign of the Three Feathers, in Bishopsgate Street, where they may be informed when the Ships will be ready, and what they must carry with them.

Thus much was convenient to be written at present, but a more ample Relation is intended to be published in due time.

Source: Robert Horne, A Brief Description of the Province of Carolina . . . (London, 1666), reprinted in Alexander S. Salley, Jr., ed., Narratives of Early Carolina, 1650-1708 (New York, 1911), 66-73.
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1662 Anglican Church Catechism

2011-05-25T22:55:00.003-04:00

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1662 Anglican Church Catechism

That is to say, an Instruction to be Learned of Every Person, Before he be Brought to be Confirmed by the Bishop.

QUESTION. What is your Name?
Answer. N. or M.
Question. Who gave you this Name?
Answer. My Godfathers and Godmothers in my Baptism; wherein I was made a member of Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven.

Question. What did your Godfathers and Godmothers then for you?
Answer. They did promise and vow three things in my name. First, that I should renounce the devil and all his works, the pomps and vanity of this wicked world, and all the sinful lusts of the flesh. Secondly, that I should believe all the Articles of the Christian Faith. And thirdly, that I should keep God's holy will and commandments, and walk in the same all the days of my life.

Question. Dost thou not think that thou art bound to believe, and to do, as they have promised for thee?
Answer. Yes verily: and by God's help so I will. And I heartily thank our heavenly Father, that he hath called me to this state of salvation, through Jesus Christ our Saviour. And I pray unto God to give me his grace, that I may continue in the same unto my life's end.

Catechist
Rehearse the Articles of thy Belief.
Answer.
BELIEVE in God the Father Almighty, Maker of and earth:
And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, Born of the Virgin Mary, Suffered under Pontius Pilate, Was crucified, dead, and buried, He descended into hell; The third day he rose again from the dead, He ascended into heaven, And sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Ghost; The holy Catholick Church; The Communion of Saints; The Forgiveness of sins; The Resurrection of the body; And the Life everlasting. Amen.
Question. What dost thou chiefly learn in these Articles of thy Belief?
Answer. First, I learn to believe in God the Father, who hath made me, and all the world.
Secondly, in God the Son, who hath redeemed me, and all mankind.
Thirdly, in God the Holy Ghost, who sanctifieth me, and all the elect people of God.

Question.
OU said, that your Godfathers and Godmothers did promise for you, that you should keep God's commandments. Tell me how many there be?
Answer. Ten.
Question. Which be they?

Answer.
HE same which God spake in the twentieth Chapter of Exodus, saying, I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
I. Thou shalt have none other gods but me.
II. Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image, nor the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down to them, nor worship them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, and visit the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me, and shew mercy unto thousands in them that love me, and keep my commandments.
III. Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain: for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his Name in vain.
IV. Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath-day. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all that thou hast to do; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. In it thou shalt do no manner of work, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, thy man-servant, and thy maid-servant, thy cattle, and the stranger that is within thy gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it.
V. Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
VI. Thou shalt do no murder.
VII. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
VIII. Thou shalt not steal.
IX. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
X. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his servant, nor his maid, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is his.

Question.
HAT dost thou chiefly learn by these Commandments?
Answer. I learn two things: my duty towards God, and my duty towards my Neighbour.
Question. What is thy duty towards God?
Answer. My duty towards God, is to believe in him, to fear him, and to love him with all my heart, with all my mind, with all my soul, and with all my strength; to worship him, to give him thanks, to put my whole trust in him, to call upon him, to honour his holy Name and his Word, and to serve him truly all the days of my life.
Question. What is thy duty towards thy Neighbour?
Answer. My duty towards my Neighbour, is to love him as myself, and to do to all men, as I would they should do unto me: To love, honour, and succour my father and mother: To honour and obey the Queen, and all that are put in authority under her: To submit myself to all my governors, teachers, spiritual pastors and masters: To order myself lowly and reverently to all my betters: To hurt no body by word nor deed: To be true and just in all my dealing: To bear no malice nor hatred in my heart: To keep my hands from picking and stealing, and my tongue from evilspeaking, lying, and slandering: To keep my body in temperance, soberness, and chastity: Not to covet nor desire other men's goods; but to learn and labour truly to get mine own living, and to do my duty in that state of life, unto which it shall please God to call me.

Catechist
Y good Child, know this, that thou art not able to do these things of thyself, nor to walk in the Commandments of God, and to serve him, without his special grace; which thou must learn at all times to call for by diligent prayer. Let me hear therefore, if thou canst say the Lord's Prayer.

Answer.
UR Father, which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, As we forgive them that trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation; But deliver us from evil. Amen.
Question. What desirest thou of God in this Prayer?
Answer. I desire my Lord God our heavenly Father, who is the giver of all goodness, to send his grace unto me, and to all people: that we may worship him, serve him, and obey him, as we ought to do. And I pray unto God, that he will send us all things that be needful both for our souls and bodies; and that he will be merciful unto us, and forgive us our sins; and that it will please him to save and defend us in all dangers ghostly and bodily; and that he will keep us from all sin and wickedness, and from our ghostly enemy, and from everlasting death. And this I trust he will do of his mercy and goodness, through our Lord Jesus Christ. And therefore I say, Amen, So be it.

Question.
OW many Sacraments hath Christ ordained in his Church?
Answer. Two only, as generally necessary to salvation, that is to say, Baptism, and the Supper of the Lord.
Question. What meanest thou by this word Sacrament?
Answer. I mean an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace given unto us, ordained by Christ himself, as a means whereby we receive the same, and a pledge to assure us thereof.
Question. How many parts are there in a Sacrament?
Answer. Two: the outward visible sign, and the inward spiritual grace.
Question. What is the outward visible sign or form in Baptism?
Answer. Water: wherein the person is baptized In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
Question. What is the inward and spiritual grace?
Answer. A death unto sin, and a new birth unto righteousness: for being by nature born in sin, and the children of wrath, we are hereby made the children of grace.
Question. What is required of persons to be baptized?
Answer. Repentance, whereby they forsake sin: and Faith, whereby they stedfastly believe the promises of God made to them in that Sacrament.
Question. Why then are Infants baptized, when by reason of their tender age they cannot perform them?
Answer. Because they promise them both by their Sureties: which promise, when they come to age, themselves are bound to perform.
Question. Why was the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper ordained?
Answer. For the continual remembrance of the sacrifice of the death of Christ and of the benefits which we receive thereby.
Question. What is the outward part or sign of the Lord's Supper?
Answer. Bread and Wine, which the Lord hath commanded to be received.
Question. What is the inward part, or thing signified?
Answer. The Body and Blood of Christ, which are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper.
Question. What are the benefits whereof we are partakers thereby?
Answer. The strengthening and refreshing of our souls by the Body and Blood of Christ, as our bodies are by the Bread and Wine.
Question. What is required of them who come to the Lord's Supper?
Answer. To examine themselves, whether they repent them truly of their former sins, stedfastly purposing to lead a new life; have a lively faith in God's mercy through Christ, with a thankful remembrance of his death; and be in charity with all men.
The Curate of every Parish shall diligently upon Sundays and Holy-days, after the second Lesson at Evening Prayer, openly in the Church instruct and examine so many Children of his Parish sent unto him, as he shall think convenient, in some Part of this Catechism.

And all Fathers, Mothers, Masters, and Dames, shall cause their Children, Servants, and Prentices (which have not learned their Catechism,) to come to the Church at the time appointed, and obediently to hear, and be ordered by the Curate, until such time as they have learned all that is here appointed for them to learn.

So soon as children are come to a competent age, and can say, in their Mother Tongue, the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments; and also can answer to the other questions of this short Catechism; they shall be brought to the Bishop. And every one shall have a Godfather, or a Godmother, as a witness of their Confirmation.

And whensoever the Bishop shall give knowledge for Children to be brought unto him for their Confirmation, the Curate of every Parish shall either bring, or send in writing, with his hand subscribed thereunto, the names of all such persons within his Parish, as he shall think fit to be presented to the Bishop to be confirmed. And, if the Bishop approve of them, he shall confirm them in manner following.
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Recreating 17th-Century America

2011-05-25T22:54:00.008-04:00

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Historic Saint Mary's City, Maryland

1649 Maryland Act of Toleration

2011-05-25T22:45:00.003-04:00

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The Maryland Toleration Act (1649) An Act Concerning Religion.

The Maryland Toleration Act did not bring complete religious freedom. Nor did it come about because of a profound humanistic conviction on the part of Cecil (Cecilius) Calvert, Second Lord Baltimore (1605-1675) the Maryland proprietor, who remained in England instead of sailing to Maryland to live.

Lord Baltimore Cecilius Calvert

The act was a pragmatic solution to a serious problem. The Catholics in originally Catholic Maryland had become a minority of the population although still powerful politically. They were in great danger of being ill-treated by the Protestant majority.

The Toleration Act, it was believed, was a way of providing protection for Catholics while at the same time representing a nod in the direction of the English government, which in 1649, and for a dozen years thereafter was firmly under the control of the English Puritans.

Nonetheless, the document is important because it did provide modest although impermanent protection for Catholic Marylanders and set a precedent to which others could refer.

Despite Baltimore's Catholic background and his desire to use Maryland as a refuge for Catholics persecuted elsewhere, the Catholic Church never became the established church. In the eighteenth century this distinction was given to the Church of England.

Forasmuch as in a well governed and Christian Common Weath matters concerning Religion and the honor of God ought in the first place to bee taken, into serious consideracion and endeavoured to bee settled, Be it therefore ordered and enacted by the Right Honourable Cecilius Lord Baron of Baltemore absolute Lord and Proprietary of this Province with the advise and consent of this Generall Assembly:

That whatsoever person or persons within this Province and the Islands thereunto helonging shall from henceforth blaspheme God, that is Curse him, or deny our Saviour Jesus Christ to bee the sonne of God, or shall deny the holy Trinity the father sonne and holy Ghost, or the Godhead of any of the said Three persons of the Trinity or the Unity of the Godhead, or shall use or utter any reproachfull Speeches, words or language concerning the said Holy Trinity, or any of the said three persons thereof, shalbe punished with death and confiscation or forfeiture of all his or her lands and goods to the Lord Proprietary and his heires.

And bee it also Enacted by the Authority and with the advise and assent aforesaid, That whatsoever person or persons shall from henceforth use or utter any reproachfull words or Speeches concerning the blessed Virgin Mary the Mother of our Saviour or the holy Apostles or Evangelists or any of them shall in such case for the first offence forfeit to the said Lord Proprietary and his heirs Lords and Proprietaries of this Province the summe of five pound Sterling or the value thereof to be Levyed on the goods and chattells of every such person soe offending, but in case such Offender or Offenders, shall not then have goods and chattells sufficient for the satisfyeing of such forfeiture, or that the same bee not otherwise speedily satisfyed that then such Offender or Offenders shalbe publiquely whipt and bee imprisoned during the pleasure of the Lord Proprietary or the Lieutenant or cheife Governor of this Province for the time being. And that every such Offender or Offenders for every second offence shall forfeit tenne pound sterling or the value thereof to bee levyed as aforesaid, or in case such offender or Offenders shall not then have goods and chattells within this Province sufficient for that purpose then to bee publiquely and severely whipt and imprisoned as before is expressed. And that every person or persons before mentioned offending herein the third time, shall for such third Offence forfeit all his lands and Goods and bee for ever banished and expelled out of this Province.

And be it also further Enacted by the same authority advise and assent that whatsoever person or persons shall from henceforth uppon any occasion of Offence or otherwise in a reproachful manner or Way declare call or denominate any person or persons whatsoever inhabiting, residing, traffiqueing, trading or comerceing within this Province or within any the Ports, Harbors, Creeks or Havens to the same belonging an heritick, Scismatick, Idolator, puritan, Independant, Prespiterian popish prest, Jesuite, Jesuited papist, Lutheran, Calvenist, Anabaptist, Brownist, Antinomian, Barrowist, Roundhead, Separatist, or any other name or terme in a reproachfull manner relating to matter of Religion shall for every such Offence forfeit and loose the somme of tenne shillings sterling or the value thereof to bee levyed on the goods and chattells of every such Offender and Offenders, the one half thereof to be forfeited and paid unto the person and persons of whom such reproachfull words are or shalbe spoken or uttered, and the other half thereof to the Lord Proprietary and his heires Lords and Proprietaries of this Province. But if such person or persons who shall at any time utter or speake any such reproachfull words or Language shall not have Goods or Chattells sufficient and overt within this Province to bee taken to satisfie the penalty aforesaid or that the same bee not otherwise speedily satisfyed, that then the person or persons soe offending shalbe publickly whipt, and shall suffer imprisonment without baile or maineprise [bail] untill hee, shee or they respectively shall satisfy the party soe offended or greived by such reproachfull Language by asking him or her respectively forgivenes publiquely for such his Offence before the Magistrate of cheife Officer or Officers of the Towne or place where such Offence shalbe given.

And be it further likewise Enacted by the Authority and consent aforesaid That every person and persons within this Province that shall at any time hereafter prophane the Sabbath or Lords day called Sunday by frequent swearing, drunkennes or by any uncivill or disorderly recreacion, or by working on that day when absolute necessity doth not require it shall for every such first offence forfeit 2s 6d sterling or the value thereof, and for the second offence 5s sterling or the value thereof, and for the third offence and soe for every time he shall offend in like manner afterwards 10s sterling or the value thereof. And in case such offender and offenders shall not have sufficient goods or chattells within this Province to satisfy any of the said Penalties respectively hereby imposed for prophaning the Sabbath or Lords day called Sunday as aforesaid, That in Every such case the partie soe offending shall for the first and second offence in that kinde be imprisoned till hee or shee shall publickly in open Court before the cheife Commander Judge or Magistrate, of that County Towne or precinct where such offence shalbe committed acknowledg the Scandall and offence he hath in that respect given against God and the good and civill Governement of this Province, And for the third offence and for every time after shall also bee publickly whipt.

And whereas the inforceing of the conscience in matters of Religion hath frequently fallen out to be of dangerous Consequence in those commonwealthes where it hath been practised, And for the more quiett and peaceable governement of this Province, and the better to preserve mutuall Love and amity amongst the Inhabitants thereof, Be it Therefore also by the Lord Proprietary with the advise and consent of this Assembly Ordeyned and enacted (except as in this present Act is before Declared and sett forth) that noe person or persons whatsoever within this Province, or the Islands, Ports, Harbors, Creekes, or havens thereunto belonging professing to beleive in Jesus Christ, shall from henceforth bee any waies troubled, Molested or discountenanced for or in respect of his or her religion nor in the free exercise thereof within this Province or the Islands thereunto belonging nor any way compelled to the beleife or exercise of any other Religion against his or her consent, soe as they be not unfaithfull to the Lord Proprietary, or molest or conspire against the civill Governement established or to bee established in this Province under him or his heires. And that all and every person and persons that shall presume Contrary to this Act and the true intent and meaning thereof directly or indirectly either in person or estate willfully to wrong disturbe trouble or molest any person whatsoever within this Province professing to beleive in Jesus Christ for or in respect of his or her religion or the free exercise thereof within this Province other than is provided for in this Act that such person or persons soe offending, shalbe compelled to pay trebble damages to the party soe wronged or molested, and for every such offence shall also forfeit 20s sterling in money or the value thereof, half thereof for the use of the Lord Proprietary, and his heires Lords and Proprietaries of this Province, and the other half for the use of the party soe wronged or molested as aforesaid, Or if the partie soe offending as aforesaid shall refuse or bee unable to recompense the party soe wronged, or to satisfy such fyne or forfeiture, then such Offender shalbe severely punished by publick whipping and imprisonment during the pleasure of the Lord Proprietary, or his Lieutenant or cheife Governor of this Province for the tyme being without baile or maineprise.

And bee it further alsoe Enacted by the authority and consent aforesaid That the Sheriff or other Officer or Officers from time to time to bee appointed and authorized for that purpose, of the County Towne or precinct where every particular offence in this present Act conteyned shall happen at any time to bee committed and whereupon there is hereby a forfeiture fyne or penalty imposed shall from time to time distraine and seise the goods and estate of every such person soe offending as aforesaid against this present Act or any part thereof, and sell the same or any part thereof for the full satisfaccion of such forfeiture, fine, or penalty as aforesaid, Restoring unto the partie soe offending the Remainder or overplus of the said goods or estate after such satisfaccion soe made as aforesaid. The freemen have assented.
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Recreating 17th-Century America

2011-05-25T22:44:00.001-04:00

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Plimoth Plantation 1627 Massachusettes

1645 John Winthrop's Speech On Liberty

2011-05-25T22:00:00.005-04:00

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On Liberty by John Winthrop

John Winthrop

In 1645, while he was deputy-governor of Massachusetts, John Winthrop and his fellow-magistrates had interfered in a local election of a militia officer. When the dispute flared into a war of words, the magistrates bound over some of the dissidents to the next court and summoned others to appear. In this controversy the magistrates were accused of having exceeded their powers, and Winthrop was impeached. After a controversy of almost three months Winthrop was fully acquitted and some of his opponents fined. It was after this test and vindication that Winthrop made this famous "little speech."

I suppose something may be expected from me, upon this charge that is befallen me which moves me to speak now to you; yet I intend not to intermeddle in the proceedings of the court or with any of the persons concerned therein. Only I bless God that I see an issue of this troublesome business. I also acknowledge the justice of the court, and, for mine own part, I am well satisfied, I was publicly charged, and I am publicly and legally acquitted, which is all I did expect or desire.

And though this be sufficient for my justification before men, yet not so before the God, who hath seen so much amiss in my dispensations (and even in this affair) as calls me to be humble. For to be publicly and criminally charged in this court is matter of humiliation (and I desire to make a right use of it), notwithstanding I be thus acquitted. If her father had spit in her face (saith the Lord concerning Miriam), should she not have been ashamed seven days? Shame had lien upon her, whatever the occasion had been.

I am unwilling to stay you from your urgent affairs, yet give me leave (upon this special occasion) to speak a little more to this assembly. It may be of some good use, to inform and rectify the judgments of some of the people, and may prevent such distempers as have arisen amongst us.

The great questions that have troubled the country are about the authority of the magistrates and the liberty of the people.

It is yourselves who have called us to this office, and, being called by you, we have our authority from God, in way of an ordinance, such as hath the image of God eminently stamped upon it, the contempt and violation whereof hath been vindicated with examples of divine vengeance. I entreat you to consider that, when you choose magistrates, you take them from among yourselves, men subject to like passions as you are. Therefore, when you see infirmities in us, you should reflect upon your own, and that would make you bear the more with us, and not be severe censurers of the failings of your magistrates, when you have continual experience of the like infirmities in yourselves and others. We account him a good servant who breaks not his covenant.

The covenant between you and us is the oath you have taken of us, which is to this purpose: that we shall govern you and judge your causes by the rules of God's laws and our own, according to our best skill. When you agree with a workman to build you a ship or house, etc., he undertakes as well for his skill as for his faithfulness, for it is his profession, and you pay him for both.

But when you call one to be a magistrate, he doth not profess nor undertake to have sufficient skill for that office, nor can you furnish him with gifts, etc., therefore you must run the hazard of his skill and ability. But if he fail in faithfulness, which by his oath he is bound unto, that he must answer for. If it fall out that the case be clear to common apprehension, and the rule clear also, if he transgress here, the error is not in the skill, but in the evil of the will: it must be required of him. But if the case be doubtful, or the rule doubtful, to men of such understanding and parts as your magistrates are, if your magistrates should err here, yourselves must bear it.

For the other point concerning liberty, I observe a great mistake in the country about that. There is a twofold liberty, natural (I mean as our nature is now corrupt) and civil or federal. The first is common to man with beasts and other creatures. By this, man, as he stands in relation to man simply, hath liberty to do what he lists; it is a liberty to evil as well as to good.

This liberty is incompatible and inconsistent with authority and cannot endure the least restraint of the most just authority. The exercise and maintaining of this liberty makes men grow more evil and in time to be worse than brute beasts: omnes sumus licentia deteriores. This is that great enemy of truth and peace, that wild beast, which all of the ordinances of God are bent against, to restrain and subdue it.

The other kind of liberty I call civil or federal; it may also be termed moral, in reference to the covenant between God and man, in the moral law, and the politic covenants and constitutions amongst men themselves. This liberty is the proper end and object of authority and cannot subsist without it; and it is a liberty to that only which is good, just, and honest. This liberty you are to stand for, with the hazard (not only of your goods, but) of your lives, if need be. Whatsoever crosseth this is not authority but a distemper thereof.

This liberty is maintained and exercised in a way of subjection to authority; it is of the same kind of liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free. The women's own choice makes such a man her husband; yet, being so chosen, he is her lord, and she is to be subject to him, yet in a way of liberty, not of bondage; and a true wife accounts her subjection her honor and freedom and would not think her condition safe and free but in her subjection to her husband's authority.

Such is the liberty of the church under the authority of Christ, her king and husband; his yoke is so easy and sweet to her as a bride's ornaments; and if through forwardness or wantonness, etc., she shake it off, at any time, she is at no rest in her spirit, until she take it up again; and whether her lord smiles upon her and embraceth her in his arms, or whether he frowns, or rebukes, or smites her, she apprehends the sweetness of his love in all, and is refreshed, supported, and instructed by every such dispensation of his authority over her. On the other side, ye know who they are that complain of this yoke and say, Let us break their bands, etc.; we will not have this man to rule over us.

Even so, brethren, it will be between you and your magistrates. If you want to stand for your natural corrupt liberties, and will do what is good in your own eyes, you will not endure the least weight of authority, but will murmur, and oppose, and be always striving to shake off that yoke; but if you will be satisfied to enjoy such civil and lawful liberties, such as Christ allows you, then will you quietly and cheerfully submit unto that authority which is set over you, in all the administrations of it, for your good. Wherein, if we fail at any time, we hope we shall be willing (by God's assistance) to hearken to good advice from any of you, or in any other way of God; so shall your liberties be preserved in upholding the honor and power of authority amongst you.
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1644 Roger Williams' Plea for Religious Liberty

2011-05-25T21:47:00.005-04:00

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A PLEA FOR RELIGIOUS LIBERTY by Roger Williams

Roger Williams

Roger Williams (ca. 1603-83), religious leader and one of the founders of Rhode Island, was the son of a well-to-do London businessman. Educated at Cambridge (A.B., 1627) he became a clergyman and in 1630 sailed for Massachusetts. He refused a call to the church of Boston because it had not formally broken with the Church of England, but after two invitations he became the assistant pastor, later pastor, of the church at Salem. He questioned the right of the colonists to take the Indians' land from them merely on the legal basis of the royal charter and in other ways ran afoul of the oligarchy then ruling Massachusetts. In 1635 he was found guilty of spreading "new authority of magistrates" and was ordered to be banished from the colony. He lived briefly with friendly Indians and then, in 1636, founded Providence in what was to be the colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. His religious views led him to become briefly a Baptist, later a Seeker. In 1644, while he was in England getting a charter for his colony from Parliament, he wrote the work from which this dialogue is taken. During much of his later life he was engaged in polemics on political and religious questions. He was an important figure in the intellectual life of his time.

First, that the blood of so many hundred thousand souls of Protestants and Papists, spilt in the wars of present and former ages, for their respective consciences, is not required nor accepted by Jesus Christ the Prince of Peace.

Secondly, pregnant scriptures and arguments are throughout the work proposed against the doctrine of persecution for cause of conscience.

Thirdly, satisfactory answers are given to scriptures, and objections produced by Mr. Calvin, Beza, Mr. Cotton, and the ministers of the New English churches and others former and later, tending to prove the doctrine of persecution for cause of conscience.

Fourthly, the doctrine of persecution for cause of conscience is proved guilty of all the blood of the souls crying for vengeance under the altar.

Fifthly, all civil states with their officers of justice in their respective constitutions and administrations are proved essentially civil, and therefore not judges, governors, or defenders of the spiritual or Christian state and worship.

Sixthly, it is the will and command of God that (since the coming of his Son the Lord Jesus) a permission of the most paganish, Jewish, Turkish, or antichristian consciences and worships, be granted to all men in all nations and countries; and they are only to be fought against with that sword which is only (in soul matters) able to conquer, to wit, the sword of God's Spirit, the Word of God.

Seventhly, the state of the Land of Israel, the kings and people thereof in peace and war, is proved figurative and ceremonial, and no pattern nor president for any kingdom or civil state in the world to follow.

Eighthly, God requireth not a uniformity of religion to be enacted and enforced in any civil state; which enforced uniformity (sooner or later) is the greatest occasion of civil war, ravishing of conscience, persecution of Christ Jesus in his servants, and of the hypocrisy and destruction of millions of souls.

Ninthly, in holding an enforced uniformity of religion in a civil state, we must necessarily disclaim our desires and hopes of the Jew's conversion to Christ.

Tenthly, an enforced uniformity of religion throughout a nation or civil state, confounds the civil and religious, denies the principles of Christianity and civility, and that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.

Eleventhly, the permission of other consciences and worships than a state professeth only can (according to God) procure a firm and lasting peace (good assurance being taken according to the wisdom of the civil state for uniformity of civil obedience from all forts).

Twelfthly, lastly, true civility and Christianity may both flourish in a state or kingdom, notwithstanding the permission of divers and contrary consciences, either of Jew or Gentile....

TRUTH. I acknowledge that to molest any person, Jew or Gentile, for either professing doctrine, or practicing worship merely religious or spiritual, it is to persecute him, and such a person (whatever his doctrine or practice be, true or false) suffereth persecution for conscience.

But withal I desire it may be well observed that this distinction is not full and complete: for beside this that a man may be persecuted because he holds or practices what he believes in conscience to be a truth (as Daniel did, for which he was cast into the lions' den, Dan. 6), and many thousands of Christians, because they durst not cease to preach and practice what they believed was by God commanded, as the Apostles answered (Acts 4 & 5), I say besides this a man may also be persecuted, because he dares not be constrained to yield obedience to such doctrines and worships as are by men invented and appointed....

Dear TRUTH, I have two sad complaints:

First, the most sober of the witnesses, that dare to plead thy cause, how are they charged to be mine enemies, contentious, turbulent, seditious?

Secondly, shine enemies, though they speak and rail against thee, though they outrageously pursue, imprison, banish, kill thy faithful witnesses, yet how is all vermilion'd o'er for justice against the heretics? Yea, if they kindle coals, and blow the flames of devouring wars, that leave neither spiritual nor civil state, but burn up branch and root, yet how do all pretend an holy war? He that kills, and he that's killed, they both cry out: "It is for God, and for their conscience."

'Tis true, nor one nor other seldom dare to plead the mighty Prince Christ Jesus for their author, yet (both Protestant and Papist) pretend they have spoke with Moses and the Prophets who all, say they (before Christ came), allowed such holy persecutions, holy wars against the enemies of holy church.

TRUTH. Dear PEACE (to ease thy first complaint), 'tis true, thy dearest sons, most like their mother, peacekeeping, peacemaking sons of God, have borne and still must bear the blurs of troublers of Israel, and turners of the world upside down. And 'tis true again, what Solomon once spake: "The beginning of strife is as when one letteth out water, therefore (saith he) leave off contention before it be meddled with. This caveat should keep the banks and sluices firm and strong, that strife, like a breach of waters, break not in upon the sons of men."

Yet strife must be distinguished: It is necessary or unnecessary, godly or Ungodly, Christian or unchristian, etc.

It is unnecessary, unlawful, dishonorable, ungodly, unchristian, in most cases in the world, for there is a possibility of keeping sweet peace in most cases, and, if it be possible, it is the express command of God that peace be kept (Rom. 13).

Again, it is necessary, honorable, godly, etc., with civil and earthly weapons to defend the innocent and to rescue the oppressed from the violent paws and jaws of oppressing persecuting Nimrods 2 (Psal. 73; Job 29).

It is as necessary, yea more honorable, godly, and Christian, to fight the fight of faith, with religious and spiritual artillery, and to contend earnestly for the faith of Jesus, once delivered to the saints against all opposers, and the gates of earth and hell, men or devils, yea against Paul himself, or an angel from heaven, if he bring any other faith or doctrine....

PEACE. I add that a civil sword (as woeful experience in all ages has proved) is so far from bringing or helping forward an opposite in religion to repentance that magistrates sin grievously against the work of God and blood of souls by such proceedings. Because as (commonly) the sufferings of false and antichristian teachers harden their followers, who being blind, by this means are occasioned to tumble into the ditch of hell after their blind leaders, with more inflamed zeal of lying confidence. So, secondly, violence and a sword of steel begets such an impression in the sufferers that certainly they conclude (as indeed that religion cannot be true which needs such instruments of violence to uphold it so) that persecutors are far from soft and gentle commiseration of the blindness of others....

For (to keep to the similitude which the Spirit useth, for instance) to batter down a stronghold, high wall, fort, tower, or castle, men bring not a first and second admonition, and after obstinacy, excommunication, which are spiritual weapons concerning them that be in the church: nor exhortation to repent and be baptized, to believe in the Lord Jesus, etc., which are proper weapons to them that be without, etc. But to take a stronghold, men bring cannons, culverins, saker, bullets, powder, muskets, swords, pikes, etc., and these to this end are weapons effectual and proportionable.

On the other side, to batter down idolatry, false worship, heresy, schism, blindness, hardness, out of the soul and spirit, it is vain, improper, and unsuitable to bring those weapons which are used by persecutors, stocks, whips, prisons, swords, gibbets, stakes, etc. (where these seem to prevail with some cities or kingdoms, a stronger force sets up again, what a weaker pull'd down), but against these spiritual strongholds in the souls of men, spiritual artillery and weapons are proper, which are mighty through God to subdue and bring under the very thought to obedience, or else to bind fast the soul with chains of darkness, and lock it up in the prison of unbelief and hardness to eternity....

PEACE. I pray descend now to the second evil which you observe in the answerer's position, viz., that it would be evil to tolerate notorious evildoers, seducing teachers, etc.

TRUTH. I say the evil is that he most improperly and confusedly joins and couples seducing teachers with scandalous livers.

PEACE. But is it not true that the world is full of seducing teachers, and is it not true that seducing teachers are notorious evildoers?

TRUTH. I answer, far be it from me to deny either, and yet in two things I shall discover the great evil of this joining and coupling seducing teachers, and scandalous livers as one adequate or proper object of the magistrate's care and work to suppress and punish.

First, it is not an homogeneal (as we speak) but an hetergeneal 3 commixture or joining together of things most different in kinds and natures, as if they were both of one consideration....

TRUTH. I answer, in granting with Brentius 4 that man hath not power to make laws to bind conscience, he overthrows such his tenent and practice as restrain men from their worship, according to their conscience and belief, and constrain them to such worships (though it be out of a pretense that they are convinced) which their own souls tell them they have no satisfaction nor faith in.

Secondly, whereas he affirms that men may make laws to see the laws of God observed.

I answer, God needeth not the help of a material sword of steel to assist the sword of the Spirit in the affairs of conscience, to those men, those magistrates, yea that commonwealth which makes such magistrates, must needs have power and authority from Christ Jesus to fit judge and to determine in all the great controversies concerning doctrine, discipline, government, etc.

And then I ask whether upon this ground it must not evidently follow that:

Either there is no lawful commonw earth nor civil state of men in the world, which is not qualified with this spiritual discerning (and then also that the very commonweal hath more light concerning the church of Christ than the church itself).

Or, that the commonweal and magistrates thereof must judge and punish as they are persuaded in their own belief and conscience (be their conscience paganish, Turkish, or antichristian) what is this but to confound heaven and earth together, and not only to take away the being of Christianity out of the world, but to take away all civility, and the world out of the world, and to lay all upon heaps of confusion? . ..

PEACE. The fourth head is the proper means of both these powers to attain their ends.

First, the proper means whereby the civil power may and should attain its end are only political, and principally these five.

First, the erecting and establishing what form of civil government may seem in wisdom most meet, according to general rules of the world, and state of the people.

Secondly, the making, publishing, and establishing of wholesome civil laws, not only such as concern civil justice, but also the free passage of true religion; for outward civil peace ariseth and is maintained from them both, from the latter as well as from the former.

Civil peace cannot stand entire, where religion is corrupted (2 Chron. 15. 3. 5. 6; and Judges 8). And yet such laws, though conversant about religion, may still be counted civil laws, as, on the contrary, an oath cloth still remain religious though conversant about civil matters.

Thirdly, election and appointment of civil officers to see execution to those laws.

Fourthly, civil punishments and rewards of transgressors and observers of these laws.

Fifthly, taking up arms against the enemies of civil peace.

Secondly, the means whereby the church may and should attain her ends are only ecclesiastical, which are chiefly five.

First, setting up that form of church government only of which Christ hath given them a pattern in his Word.

Secondly, acknowledging and admitting of no lawgiver in the church but Christ and the publishing of His laws.

Thirdly, electing and ordaining of such officers only, as Christ hath appointed in his Word.

Fourthly, to receive into their fellowship them that are approved and inflicting spiritual censures against them that o end.

Fifthly, prayer and patience in suffering any evil from them that be without, who disturb their peace.

So that magistrates, as magistrates, have no power of setting up the form of church government, electing church officers, punishing with church censures, but to see that the church does her duty herein. And on the other side, the churches as churches, have no power (though as members of the commonweal they may have power) of erecting or altering forms of civil government, electing of civil officers, inflicting civil punishments (no not on persons excommunicate) as by deposing magistrates from their civil authority, or withdrawing the hearts of the people against them, to their laws, no more than to discharge wives, or children, or servants, from due obedience to their husbands, parents, or masters; or by taking up arms against their magistrates, though he persecute them for conscience: for though members of churches who are public officers also of the civil state may suppress by force the violence of usurpers, as Iehoiada did Athaliah, yet this they do not as members of the church but as officers of the civil state.

TRUTH. Here are divers considerable passages which I shall briefly examine, so far as concerns our controversy.

First, whereas they say that the civil power may erect and establish what form of civil government may seem in wisdom most meet, I acknowledge the proposition to be most true, both in itself and also considered with the end of it, that a civil government is an ordinance of God, to conserve the civil peace of people, so far as concerns their bodies and goods, as formerly hath been said.

But from this grant I infer (as before hath been touched) that the sovereign, original, and foundation of civil power lies in the people (whom they must needs mean by the civil power distinct from the government set up). And, if so, that a people may erect and establish what form of government seems to them most meet for their civil condition; it is evident that such governments as are by them erected and established have no more power, nor for no longer time, than the civil power or people consenting and agreeing shall betrust them with. This is clear not only in reason but in the experience of all commonweals, where the people are not deprived of their natural freedom by the power of tyrants.

And, if so, that the magistrates receive their power of governing the church from the people, undeniably it follows that a people, as a people, naturally consider (of what nature or nation soever in Europe, Asia, Africa, or America), have fundamentally and originally, as men, a power to govern the church, to see her do her duty, to correct her, to redress, reform, establish, etc. And if this be not to pull God and Christ and Spirit out of heaven, and subject them unto natural, sinful, inconstant men, and so consequently to Satan himself, by whom all peoples naturally are guided, let heaven and earth judge....

PEACE. Some will here ask: What may the magistrate then lawfully do with his civil horn or power in matters of religion?

TRUTH. His horn not being the horn of that unicorn or rhinoceros, the power of the Lord Jesus in spiritual cases, his sword not the two-edged sword of the spirit, the word of God (hanging not about the loins or side, but at the lips. and proceeding out of the mouth of his ministers) but of an humane and civil nature and constitution, it must consequently be of a humane and civil operation, for who knows not that operation follows constitution; And therefore I shall end this passage with this consideration:

The civil magistrate either respecteth that religion and worship which his conscience is persuaded is true, and upon which he ventures his soul; or else that and those which he is persuaded are false.

Concerning the first, if that which the magistrate believeth to be true, be true, I say he owes a threefold duty unto it:

First, approbation and countenance, a reverent esteem and honorable testimony, according to Isa. 49, and Revel. 21, with a tender respect of truth, and the professors of it.

Secondly, personal submission of his own soul to the power of the Lord Jesus in that spiritual government and kingdom, according to Matt. 18 and 1 Cor. 5.

Thirdly, protection of such true professors of Christ, whether apart, or met together, as also of their estates from violence and injury, according to Rom. 13.

Now, secondly, if it be a false religion (unto which the civil magistrate dare not adjoin, yet) he owes:

First, permission (for approbation he owes not what is evil) and this according to Matthew 13. 30 for public peace and quiet's sake.

Secondly, he owes protection to the persons of his subjects (though of a false worship), that no injury be offered either to the persons or goods of any....

...The God of Peace, the God of Truth will shortly seal this truth, and confirm this witness, and make it evident to the whole world, that the doctrine of persecution for cause of conscience, is most evidently and lamentably contrary to the doctrine of Christ Jesus the Prince of Peace. Amen.
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1640 Preface to the Bay Psalm Book

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Preface to the 1640 "Bay Psalm Book" Probably written by Richard Mather

Richard Mather Born in Lancashire, England, 1596. Died in Dorchester, Mass. 1669

The singing of Psalms, though it breath forth nothing but holy harmony, and melody: yet such is the subtlety of the enemy, and enmity of our nature against the Lord, and his ways, that our hearts can find matter of discord in this harmony, and crotchets [i.e., whimsical notions] of division in this holy melody.—for.—There have been three questions especially stirring concerning singing. First, what psalms are to be sung in churches? whether David’s and other scripture psalms, or the psalms invented by the gifts of godly men in every age of the church. Secondly, if scripture psalms, whether in their own words, or in such metre as English poetry is wont to run in? Thirdly, by whom are they to be sung? whether by the whole churches together with their voices? or by one man singing alone and the rest joining in silence, and in the close saying amen.

Touching the first, certainly the singing of David’s psalms was an acceptable worship of God, not only in his, but in succeeding times. as in Solomon’s time 2 Chron. 5:13. in Jehosaphat’s time 2 Chron. 20:21. in Ezra’s time Ezra 3:10,11. and the text is evident in Hezekiah’s time they are commanded to sing praise in the words of David and Asaph, 2 Chron. 29:30. which one place may serve to resolve two of the questions (the first and the last) at once, for this commandment was it ceremonial or moral? some things in it indeed were ceremonial, as their musical instruments, etc. but what ceremony was there in singing praise with the words of David and Asaph? what if David was a type of Christ, was Asaph also? was everything of David typical? are his words (which are of moral, universal, and perpetual authority in all nations and ages) are they typical? what type can be imagined in making use of his songs to praise the Lord? If they were typical because of the ceremony of musical instruments was joined to them, then their prayers were also typical, because they had that ceremony of incense admixt with them: but we know that prayer then was a moral duty, notwithstanding the incense; so singing those psalms notwithstanding their musical instruments. Beside, that which was typical (as that they were sung with musical instruments, by the twenty-four orders of Priests and Levites 1 Chron. 25:9) must have the moral and spiritual accomplishment in the New Testament, in all the Churches of the Saints principally, who are made kings and priests Rev. 1:6 and are the firstfruits unto God Rev. 14:4. as the Levites were Num. 3:45. with hearts and lips, instead of musical instruments, to praise the Lord; who are set forth (as some judiciously think) Rev. 4:4. by twenty-four Elders, in the ripe age of the Church, Gal. 4:1,2,3. answering to the twenty-four orders of Priests and Levites 1 Chron. 25:9. Therefore not some select members, but the whole Church is commanded to teach one another in all the several sorts of David’s psalms, some being called by himself MyrOmzm: psalms, some Myllyht: hymns, some Myryw: spiritual songs. So that if the singing of David’s psalms be a moral duty and therefore perpetual; then we under the New Testament are bound to sing them as well as they under the old: and if we are expressly commanded to sing Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs, then either we must sing David’s psalms, or else may affirm they are not spiritual songs: which being penned by an extraordinary gifts of the Spirit, for the sake especially of God’s spiritual Israel, not to be read and preached only (as other parts of holy writ) but to be sung also, they are therefore most spiritual, and still to be sung of all the Israel of God: and verily as their sin is exceeding great, who will allow David’s psalms (as other scriptures) to be read in churches (which is one end) but not to be preached also, which is another end so their sin is crying before God, who will allow them to be read and preached, but seek to deprive the Lord of the glory of the third end of them, which is to sing them in Christian churches.

Obj. 1. If it be said that the Saints in the primitive Church did compile spiritual songs of their own inditing [i.e., composition], and sing them before the Church. 1 Cor. 14:15,16.

Ans. We answer first, that those Saints compiled these spiritual songs by the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit (common in those days) whereby they were enabled to praise the Lord in strange tongues, wherein learned Paraeus proves those psalms were uttered, in his Comment[ary] on that place vers 14 which extraordinary gifts, if they were still in the Churches, we should allow them the like liberty now. Secondly, suppose those psalms were sung by an ordinary gift (which we suppose cannot be evicted [i.e., evidenced]) does it therefore follow that they did not, and that we ought not to sing David’s psalms, must the ordinary gifts of a private man quench the Spirit still speaking to us by the extraordinary gifts of his servant David. there is not the least foot-step of example, or precept, or color reason for such bold practice.

Obj. 2. Ministers are allowed to pray conceived prayers, and why not to sing conceived psalms? must we not sing in the Spirit as well as pray in the Spirit?

Ans. First because every good minister has not the gift of spiritual poetry to compose extemporaneous psalms as he has of prayer. Secondly, suppose he had, yet seeing psalms are to be sung by a joint consent and harmony of all the Church in heart and voice (as we shall prove) this cannot be done except he that composes a psalm, brings into the Church set forms of psalms of his own invention; for which we find no warrant or precedent in any ordinary officers of the Church throughout the scriptures. Thirdly, because the book of psalms is so complete a system of psalms, which the Holy Ghost himself in infinite wisdom has made to suit all conditions, necessities, temptations, affections, etc. of men in all ages; (as most of all interpreters on the psalms have fully and particularly cleared) therefore by this the Lord seems to stop all men’s mouths and minds ordinarily to compile or sing any other psalms (under color that the occasions and conditions of the Church are new) etc. for the public use of the Church, seeing, let our condition be what it will, the Lord himself has supplied us with far better; and therefore in Hezekiah’s time, though doubtless there were among them those which had extraordinary gifts to compile new songs on those new occasions, as Isaiah and Micah etc. yet we read that they are commanded to sing in the words of David and Asaph, which were ordinarily to be used in the public worship of God: and we doubt not but those that are wise will easily see; that those set forms of psalms of God’s own appointment not of man’s conceived gift or human imposition were sung in the Spirit by those holy Levites, as well as their prayers were in the Spirit which themselves conceived, the Lord not then binding them therein to any set forms; and shall set forms of psalms appointed of God not be sung in the Spirit now, which others did then?

Question. But why may not one compose a psalm and sing it alone with a loud voice and the rest join with him in silence and in the end say amen.

Ans. If such a practice was found in the Church of Corinth, when any had a psalm suggested by an extraordinary gift; yet in singing ordinary psalms the whole Church is to join together in heart and voice to praise the Lord.—for—

First, David’s psalms as has been shown, were sung in heart and voice together by the twenty-four orders of the musicians of the Temple, who typed out the twenty-four Elders all the members especially of Christian Churches Rev. 5:8. who are made Kings and Priests to God to praise him as they did: for if they were any other order of singing Choristers beside the body of the people to succeed those, the Lord would doubtless have given direction in the gospel for their qualification, election, maintenance etc. as he did for the musicians of the Temple, and as his faithfulness had done for all other church officers in the New Testament.

Secondly, others beside the Levites (the chief singers) in the Jewish Church did also sing the Lord’s songs; else why are they commanded frequently to sing: as in Ps. 100:1,2,3. Ps. 95:1,2,3. Ps. 102. title with verse 18. and Ex. 15:1. not only Moses but all Israel sang that song, they spake saying (as it is in the orig[inal language]) all as well as Moses, the women also as well as the men. v. 20,21. and Deut. 32. (whereto some think, John had reference as well as to Ex. 15:1. when he brings in the Protestant Churches getting the victory over the Beast with harps in their hands and singing the song of Moses. Rev. 15:3.) this song Moses is commanded not only to put it into their hearts but into their mouths also: Deut. 31:19. which argues, that they were with their mouths to sing together as well as with their hearts.

Thirdly, Isaiah foretells in the days of the New Testament that God’s watchmen and desolate lost souls, (signified by waste places) should with their voices sing together, Isa. 52:8,9. and Rev. 7:9,10. the song of the Lamb was by many together, and the Apostle expressly commands the singing of psalms, hymns, etc. not to any select Christians, but to the whole Church. Eph. 5:19. Col. 3:16. Paul and Silas sang together in private Acts 16:25 and must the public hear only one man sing? to all these we may add the practice of the primitive Churches; the testimony of ancient and holy Basil is instead of many Epist. 63 [letter 207; sec. 3]. When one of us (says he) has begun a psalm, the rest of us set in to sing with him, all of us with one heart and one voice; and this says he is the common practice of the Churches in Egypt, Libya, Thebes, Palestine, Syria, and those dwelling on Euphrates, and generally everywhere, where singing of psalms is of any account. To the same purpose also Eusebius gives witness. Eccles. Hist. Lib. 2 cap. 17. The objections made against this do most of them plead against joining to sing in heart as well as in voice, as that by this means others out of the Church will sing as also that we are not always in a suitable estate to the matter sung, and likewise that all cannot sing with understanding; shall not therefore all that have understanding join in heart and voice together? are not all the creatures in heaven, earth, seas: men, beasts, fishes, fowls, etc. commanded to praise the Lord, and yet none of these but men, and godly men too, can do it with spiritual understanding?

As for the scruple that some take at the translation of the Book of Psalms into metre, because David’s psalms were sung in his own words without metre: we answer—First, there are many verses together in several psalms of David which run in rhythms (as those that know Hebrew and as Buxtorf shows Thesau. pa. 629.) which shows at least the lawfulness of singing psalms in English rhythms.

Secondly, the psalms are penned in such verses as are suitable to the poetry of the Hebrew language, and not in the common style of such other books of the Old Testament as are not poetical; now no Protestant doubts but that all the books of scripture should by God’s ordinance be extant in the mother tongue of each nation, that they may be understood of all, hence the psalms are to be translated into our English tongue; and in it our English tongue we are to sing them, then as all our English songs (according to the course of our English poetry) do run in metre, so ought David’s psalms to be translated into metre, that so we may sing the Lord’s songs, as in our English tongue so in such verses as are familiar to an English ear which are commonly metrical: and as it can be no just offense to any good conscience to sing David’s Hebrew songs in English words, so neither to sing his poetical verses in English poetical metre: men might as well stumble at singing the Hebrew psalms in our English tunes (and not in the Hebrew tunes) as at singing them in English metre, (which are our verses) and not in such verses as are generally used by David according to the poetry of the Hebrew language: but the truth is, as the Lord has hid from us the Hebrew tunes, lest we should think ourselves bound to imitate them; so also the course and frame (for the most part) of their Hebrew poetry, that we might not think ourselves bound to imitate that, but that every nation without scruple might follow as the grave sort of tunes of their own country songs, so the graver sort of verses of their own country poetry.

Neither let any think, that for the metre sake we have taken liberty or poetical license to depart from the true and proper sense of David’s words in the Hebrew verses, no; but it has been one part of our religious care and faithful endeavour, to keep close to the original text.

As for other objections taken from the difficulty of Ainsworth’s tunes, and the corruptions in our common psalm books, we hope they are answered in this new edition of psalms; which we here present to God and his Churches. For although we have cause to bless God in many respects for the religious endeavours of the translators of the psalms into metre usually annexed to our Bibles, yet it is not unknown to the godly learned that they have rather presented a paraphrase than the words of David translated according to the rule 2 Chron. 29:30. and that their addition to the words, detractions from the words are not seldom and rare, but very frequent and many times needless, (which we suppose would not be approved of if the Psalms were so translated into prose) and that their variations of the sense, and alterations to the sacred text too frequently, may justly minister matter of offense to them that are able to compare the translation with the text; of which failings, some judicious have often complained, others have been grieved, whereupon it has been generally desired, that as we do enjoy other, so (if it were the Lord’s will) we might enjoy this ordinance also in its native purity: we have therefore done our endeavour to make a plain and familiar translation of the psalms and words of David into English metre, and have not so much as presumed to paraphrase to give the sense of his meaning in other words; we have therefore attended herein as our chief guide the original, shunning all additions, except such as even the best translators of them in prose supply, avoiding all material detractions from words or sense. The word v which we translate and as it is redundant sometimes in the Hebrew, so sometimes (though not very often) it has been left out and yet not then, if the sense were not fair without it.

As for our translations, we have with our English Bibles (to which next to the original we have had respect) used the idioms of our own tongue instead of hebraisms, lest they might seem English barbarisms.

Synonyms we use indifferently: as folk for people, and Lord for Jehovah, and sometimes (though seldom) God for Jehovah; for which (as for some other interpretations of places cited in the New Testament) we have the scripture’s authority Ps. 14 with 53. Heb. 1:6. with Psalm 97:7. Where a phrase is doubtful we have followed that which (in our own apprehension) is most genuine and edifying:

Sometime we have contracted, sometimes dilated the same Hebrew word, both for the verse and the verse sake: which dilation we conceive to be no paraphrastical addition no more than the contraction of a true and full translation to be any unfaithful detraction or diminution: as when we dilate who healeth and say he it is who healeth; so when we contract, those that stand in awe of God and say God fearers.

Lastly, because some Hebrew words have a more full and emphatic signification than any one English word can or does sometimes express, hence we have done that sometimes which faithful translators may do, viz. not only to translate the word but the emphasis of it; as lx mighty God, for God. jrb humbly bless for bless; rise to stand, Psalm 1. for stand. truth and faithfulness for truth. Howbeit, for the verse sake we do not always thus, yet we render the word truly though not fully; as when we sometimes say rejoice for shout for joy.

As for all other changes of numbers, tenses, and characters of speech, they are such as either the Hebrew will unforcedly bear, or our English forceably calls for, or in no way changes the sense; and such are printed usually in another character.

If therefore the verses are not always so smooth and elegant as some may desire or expect; let them consider that God’s altar needs not our polishings: Ex. 20. for we have respected rather a plain translation, than to smooth our verses with the sweetness of any paraphrases, and so have attended conscience rather than elegance, fidelity rather than poetry, in translating the Hebrew words into English language, and David’s poetry into English metre; that so we may sing in Sion the Lord’s songs of praise according to his own will; until he take us from hence, and wipe away all out tears, and bid us enter into our Master’s joy to sing eternal hallelujahs.
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Songs of the Puritans: The first book printed in America. Supervised by Richard Mather, Thomas Weld and John Eliot. The preface was written by Mather. Printed by Stephen Daye, at Cambridge, Mass., 1640

1629 The Charter of Massachsetts Bay

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The 1629 Charter Of Massachusetts Bay

Boston Harbor and adjacent settlements in 1667. Thought to be a specimen of the first engraving executed in America.

And further, That the said Governour and Companye, and their Successors, maie have forever one comon Seale, to be used in all Causes and Occasions of the said Company, and the same Seale may alter, chaunge, breake, and newe make, from tyme to tyme, at their pleasures. And our Will and Pleasure is, and Wee doe hereby for Us, our Heires and Successors, ordeyne and graunte, That from henceforth for ever, there shalbe one Governor, one Deputy Governor, and eighteene Assistants of the same Company, to be from tyme to tyme constituted, elected and chosen out of the Freemen of the saide Company, for the twyme being, in such Manner and Forme as hereafter in theis Presents is expressed, which said Officers shall applie themselves to take Care for the best disposeing and ordering of the generall buysines and Affaires of, for, and concerning the said Landes and Premisses hereby mentioned, to be graunted, and the Plantation thereof, and the Government of the People there. And for the better Execution of our Royall Pleasure and Graunte in this Behalf, Wee doe, by theis presents, for Us, our Heires and Successors, nominate, ordeyne, make, and constitute; our welbeloved the saide Mathewe Cradocke, to be the first and present Governor of the said Company, and the saide Thomas Goffe, to be Deputy Governor of the saide Company, and the saide Sir Richard Saltonstall, Isaack Johnson, Samuell Aldersey, John Ven, John Humfrey, John Endecott, Simon Whetcombe, Increase Noell, Richard Pery, Nathaniell Wright, Samuell Vassall, Theophilus Eaton, Thomas Adams, Thomas Hutchins, John Browne, George Foxcrofte, William Vassall, and William Pinchion, to be the present Assistants of the saide Company, to continue in the saide several Offices respectivelie for such tyme, and in such manner, as in and by theis Presents is hereafter declared and appointed.

And further, Wee will, and by theis Presents, for Us, our Heires and Successors, doe ordeyne and graunte, That the Governor of the saide Company for the tyme being, or in his Absence by Occasion of Sicknes or otherwise, the Deputie Governor for the tyme being, shall have Authoritie from tyme to tyme upon all Occasions, to give order for the assembling of the saide Company, and calling them together to consult and advise of the Bussinesses and Affaires of the saide Company, and that the said Governor, Deputie Governor, and Assistants of the saide Company, for the tyme being, shall or maie once every Moneth, or oftener at their Pleasures, assemble and houlde and keepe a Courte or Assemblie of themselves, for the better ordering and directing of their Affaires, and that any seaven or more persons of the Assistants, togither with the Governor, or Deputie Governor soe assembled, shalbe saide, taken, held, and reputed to be, and shalbe a full and sufficient Courte or Assemblie of the said Company, for the handling, ordering, and dispatching of all such Buysinesses and Occurrents as shall from tyme to tyme happen, touching or concerning the. said Company or Plantation; and that there shall or maie be held and kept by the Governor, or Deputie Governor of the said Company, and seaven or more of the said Assistants for the tyme being, upon every last Wednesday in Hillary, Easter, Trinity, and Michas Termes respectivelie forever, one greate generall and solemne assemblie, which foure generall assemblies shalbe stiled and called the foure greate and generall Courts of the saide Company.

In all and every, or any of which saide greate and generall Courts soe assembled, Wee doe for Us, our Heires and Successors, give and graunte to the said Governor and Company, and their Successors, That the Governor, or in his absence, the Deputie Governor of the saide Company for the tyme being, and such of the Assistants and Freeman of the saide Company as shalbe present, or the greater nomber of them so assembled, whereof the Governor or Deputie Governor and six of the Assistants at the least to be seaven, shall have full Power and authoritie to choose, nominate, and appointe, such and soe many others as they shall thinke fitt, and that shall be willing to accept the same, to be free of the said Company and Body, and them into the same to admitt; and to elect and constitute such officers as they shall thinke fill and requisite, for the ordering, mannaging, and dispatching of the Affaires of the saide Governor and Company, and their Successors; And to make Lawes and Ordinances for the Good and Welfare of the saide Company, and for the Government and ordering of the saide Landes and Plantation, and the People inhabiting and to inhabite the same, as to them from tyme to tyme shalbe thought meete, soe as such Lawes and Ordinances be not contrarie or repugnant to the Lawes and Statuts of this our Realme of England.

And, our Will and Pleasure is, and Wee doe hereby for Us, our Heires and Successors, establish and ordeyne, That yearely once in the yeare, for ever hereafter, namely, the last Wednesday in Easter Tearme, yearely, the Governor, Deputy-Governor, and Assistants of the saide Company and all other officers of the saide Company shalbe in the Generall Court or Assembly to be held for that Day or Tyme, newly chosen for the Yeare ensueing by such greater parte of the said Company, for the Tyme being, then and there present, as is aforesaide. And, if it shall happen the present governor, Deputy Governor, and assistants, by theis presents appointed, or such as shall hereafter be newly chosen into their Roomes, or any of them, or any other of the officers to be appointed for the said Company, to dye, or to be removed from his or their severall Offices or Places before the saide generall Day of Election (whome Wee doe hereby declare for any Misdemeanor or Defect to be removeable by the Governor, Deputie Governor, Assistants, and Company, or such greater Parte of them in any of the publique Courts to be assembled as is aforesaid) That then, and in every such Case, it shall and maie be lawfull, to and for the Governor, Deputie Governor, Assistants, and Company aforesaide, or such greater Parte of them soe to be assembled as is aforesaide, in any of their Assemblies, to proceade to a new Election of one or more others of their Company in the Roome or Place, Roomes or Places of such Officer or Officers soe dyeing or removed according to their Discretions, And, immediately upon and after such Election and Elections made of such Governor, Deputie Governor, Assistant or Assistants, or any other officer of the saide Company, in Manner and Forme aforesaid, the Authoritie, Office, and Power, before given to the former Governor, Deputie Governor, or other Officer and Officers soe removed, in whose Steade and Place newe shalbe soe chosen, shall as to him and them, and everie of them, cease and determine

Provided alsoe, and our Will and Pleasure is, That aswell such as are by theis Presents appointed to be the present Governor, Deputie Governor, and Assistants of the said Company, as those that shall succeed them, and all other Officers to be appointed and chosen as aforesaid, shall, before they undertake the Execution of their saide Offices and Places respectivelie, take their Corporal Oathes for the due and faithfull Performance of their Duties in their severall Offices and Places, before such Person or Persons as are by theis Presents hereunder appointed to take and receive the same. . . .

And, further our Will and Pleasure is, and Wee doe hereby for Us, our Heires and Successors, ordeyne and declare, and graunte to the saide Governor and Company and their Successors, That all and every the Subjects of Us, our Heires or Successors, which shall goe to and inhabite within the saide Landes and Premisses hereby mentioned to be graunted, and every of their Children which shall happen to be borne there, or on the Seas in goeing thither, or retorning from thence, shall have and enjoy all liberties and Immunities of free and naturall Subjects within any of the Domynions of Us, our Heires or Successors, to all Intents, Constructions, and Purposes whatsoever, as if they and everie of them were borne within the Realme of England. And that the Governor and Deputie Governor of the said Company for the Tyme being, or either of them, and any two or more of such of the saide Assistants as shalbe thereunto appointed by the saide Governor and Company at any of their Courts or Assemblies to be held as aforesaide, shall and maie at all Tymes, and from tyme to tyme hereafter, have full Power and Authoritie to minister and give the Oathe and Oathes of Supremacie and Allegiance, or either of them, to all and everie Person and Persons, which shall at any Tyme or Tymes hereafter goe or passe to the Landes and Premisses hereby mentioned to be graunted to inhabite in the same.

And, Wee doe of our further Grace, certen Knowledg and meere Motion, give and graunte to the saide Governor and Company, and their Successors, That it shall and maie be lawfull, to and for the Governor or Deputie Governor, and such of the Assistants and Freemen of the said Company for the Tyme being as shalbe assembled in any of their generall Courts aforesaide, or in any other Courtes to be specially sumoned and assembled for that Purpose, or the greater Parte of them (whereof the Governor or Deputie Governor, and six of the Assistants to be alwaies seaven) from tyme to tyme, to make, ordeine, and establishe all Manner of wholesome and reasonable Orders, Lawes, Statutes, and Ordinances, Directions, and Instructions, not contrairie to the Lawes of this our Realme of England, aswell for setling of the Formes and Ceremonies of Government and Magistracy, fitt and necessary for the said Plantation, and the Inhabitants there, and for nameing and setting of all sorts of Officers, both superior and inferior, which they shall finde needefull for that Governement and Plantation, and the distinguishing and setting forth of the severall duties, Powers, and Lymytts of every such Office and Place, and the Formes of such Oathes warrantable by the Lawes and Statutes of this our Realme of England, as shalbe respectivelie ministred unto them for the Execution of the said severall Offices and Places; as also, for the disposing and ordering of the Elections of such of the said Officers as shalbe annuall, and of such others as shalbe to succeede in Case of Death or Removeall, and ministring the said Oathes to the newe elected Officers, and for Impositions of lawfull Fynes, Mulcts, Imprisonment, or other lawfull Correction, according to the Course of other Corporations in this our Realme of England, and for the directing, ruling, and disposeing of all other Matters and Thinges, whereby our said People, Inhabitants there, may be soe religiously, peaceablie, and civilly governed, as their good Life and orderlie Conversation, maie wynn and incite the Natives of Country, to the Knowledg and Obedience of the onlie true God and Savior of Mankinde, and the Christian Fayth, which in our Royall Intention, and the Adventurers free Profession, is the principall Ende of this Plantation.

Willing, commaunding, and requiring, and by theis Presents for Us, our Heires, and Successors, ordeyning and appointing, that all such Orders, Lawes, Statuts and Ordinances, Instructions and Directions, as shalbe soe made by the Governor, or Deputie Governor of the said Company, and such of the Assistants and Freemen as aforesaide, and published in Writing, under their common Seale, shalbe carefullie and dulie observed, kept, performed, and putt in Execution, according to the true Intent and Meaning of the same; and theis our Letters- patents, or the Duplicate or exemplification thereof, shalbe to all and everie such Officers, superior and inferior, from Tyme to Tyme, for the putting of the same Orders, Lawes, Statutes, and Ordinances, Instructions, and Directions, in due Execution against Us, our Heires and Successors, a sufficient Warrant and Discharge.

And Wee doe further, for Us, our Heires and Successors, give and graunt to the said Governor and Company, and their Successors by theis Presents, that all and everie such Chiefe Comaunders, Captaines, Governors, and other Officers and Ministers, as by the said Orders, Lawes, Statuts, Ordinances, Instructions, or Directions of the said Governor and Company for the Tyme being, shalbe from Tyme to Tyme hereafter imploied either in the Government of the saide Inhabitants and Plantation, or in the Waye by Sea thither, or from thence, according to the Natures and Lymitts of their Offices and Places respectively, shall from Tyme to Tyme hereafter for ever, within the Precincts and Partes of Newe England hereby mentioned to be graunted and confirmed, or in the Waie by Sea thither, or from thence, have full and Absolute Power and Authoritie to correct, punishe, pardon, governe, and rule all such the Subjects of Us, our Heires and Successors, as shall from Tyme to Tyme adventure themselves in any Voyadge thither or from thence, or that shall at any Tyme hereafter, inhabite within the Precincts and Partes of Newe England aforasaid, according to the Orders, Lawes, Ordinances, Instructions, and Directions aforesaid, not being repugnant to the Lawes and Statutes of our Realme of England as aforesaid. . . .
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1607 The Settlement of Jamestown by Captain John Smith

2011-05-25T16:40:00.004-04:00

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The Settlement Of Jamestown - 1607 by Captain John Smith

This narrative is taken from the 3rd book of the fifth volume "The Generall Historie of Virginia, New England & the Summer Isles: Together with The True Travels, Adventures and Observations, and a Sea Grammar" (London, 1624).

It might well be thought, a country so faire (as Virginia is) and a people so tractable, would long ere this have been quietly possessed, to the satisfaction of the adventurers, and the eternizing of the memory of those that effected it. But because all the world do see a failure; this following treatise shall give satisfaction to all indifferent readers, how the business has been carried: where no doubt they will easily understand and answer to their question, how it came to passe there was no better speed and success in those proceedings.

Captain Bartholomew Gosnold, one of the first movers of this plantation, having many years solicited many of his friends, but found small assistance; at last prevailed with some gentlemen, as Captain John Smith, Master Edward-maria Wingfield, Master Robert Hunt, and divers others, who depended a year upon his projects, but nothing could be effected, till by their great charge and industry, it came to be apprehended by certain of the nobility, gentry, and merchants, so that his Majesty by his letters patents, gave commission for establishing councils, to direct here; and to govern, and to execute there. To effect this, was spent another year, and by that, three ships were provided, one of 100 tons, another of 40 and a pinnace of 20. The transportation of the company was committed to Captain Christopher Newport, a mariner well practiced for the western parts of America. But their orders for government were put in a box, not to be opened, nor the governors known until they arrived in Virginia.

On the 19 of December, 1606, we set sail from Blackwall, but by unprosperous winds, were kept six weeks in the sight of England; all which time, Master Hunt our preacher, was so weak and sick, that few expected his recovery. Yet although he were but twenty miles from his habitation (the time we were in the Downes) and notwithstanding the stormy weather, nor the scandalous imputations (of some few, little better than atheists, of the greatest rank among us) suggested against him, all this could never force from him so much as a seeming desire to leave the business, but preferred the service of God, in so good a voyage, before any affection to contest with his godless foes whose disastrous designs (could they have prevailed) had even then overthrown the business, so many discontents did then arise, had he not with the water of patience, and his godly exhortations (but chiefly by his true devoted examples) quenched those flames of envy, and dissension...

The first land they made they called Cape Henry; where thirty of them recreating themselves on shore, were assaulted by five savages, who hurt two of the English very dangerously.

That night was the box opened, and the orders read, in which Bartholomew Gosnol, John Smith, Edward Wingfield, Christopher Newport, John Ratliff, John Martin, and George Kendall, were named to be the council, and to choose a president among them for a year, who with the council should govern. Matters of moment were to be examined by a jury, but determined by the major part of the council, in which the president had two voices.

Until the 13 of May they sought a place to plant in; then the council was sworn, Master Wingfield was chosen president, and an oration made, why Captain Smith was not admitted of the council as the rest.

Now falleth every man to work, the council contrive the fort, the rest cut down trees to make place to pitch their tents; some provide clapboard to relade the ships, some make gardens, some nets, etc. The savages often visited us kindly. The president's overweening jealousy would admit no exercise at arms, or fortification but the boughs of trees cast together in the form of a half moon by the extraordinary pains and diligence of Captain Kendall.

Newport, Smith, and twenty others, were sent to discover the head of the river: by divers small habitations they passed, in six days they arrived at a town called Powhatan, consisting of some twelve houses, pleasantly seated on a hill; before it three fertile isles, about it many of their cornfields, the place is very pleasant, and strong by nature, of this place the Prince is called Powhatan, and his people Powhatans. To this place the river is navigable: but higher within a mile, by reason of the rocks and isles, there is not passage for a small boat, this they call the falls. The people in all parts kindly entreated them, till being returned within twenty miles of Jamestown, they gave just cause of jealousy: but had God not blessed the discoverers otherwise than those at the fort, there had then been an end of that plantation; for at the fort, where they arrived the next day, they found 17 men hurt, and a boy slain by the savages, and had it not chanced a cross bar shot from the ships struck down a bough from a tree among them, that caused them to retire, our men had all been slain, being securely all at work, and their arms in dry fats.

Hereupon the president was contented the fort should be pallisaded, the ordnance mounted, his men armed and exercised: for many were the assaults, and ambuscades of the savages, and our men by their disorderly straggling were often hurt, when the savages by the nimbleness of their heels well escaped.

What toil we had, with so small a power to guard our workmen by day, watch all night, resist our enemies, and effect our business, to relade the ships, cut down trees, and prepare the ground to plant our corn, etc., I refer to the reader's consideration.

Six weeks being spent in this manner, Captain Newport (who was hired only for our transportation) was to return with the ships.

Now Captain Smith, who all this time from their departure from the Canaries was restrained as a prisoner upon the scandalous suggestions of some of the chiefs (envying his repute) who fained he intended to usurp the government, murder the council, and make himself king, that his confederates were dispersed in all the three ships, and that divers of his confederates that revealed it, would affirm it; for this he was committed as a prisoner.

Thirteen weeks he remained thus suspected, and by that time the ships should return they pretended out of their commiserations, to refer him to the council in England to receive a check, rather than by particulating his designs make him so odious to the world, as to touch his life, or utterly overthrow his reputation. But he so much scorned their charity, and publicly defied the uttermost of their cruelty; he wisely prevented their policies, though he could not suppress their envy; yet so well he demeaned himself in this business, as all the company did see his innocency, and his adversaries' malice, and those suborned to accuse him, accused his accusers of subornation; many untruths were alleged against him; but being so apparently disproved, begat a general hatred in the hearts of the company against such unjust commanders, that the president was adjudged to give him 2001; so that all he had was seized upon, in part of satisfaction, which Smith presently returned to the store for the general use of the colony.

Many were the mischiefs that daily sprung from their ignorant (yet ambitious) spirits; but the good doctrine and exhortation of our preacher Master Hunt reconciled them, and caused Captain Smith to be admitted of the council.

The next day all received the communion, the day following the savages voluntarily desired peace, and Captain Newport returned for England with news; leaving in Virginia 100 the 15 of June 1607.

Being thus left to our fortunes, it fortuned that within ten days scarce ten among us could either go, or well stand, such extreme weakness and sickness oppressed us. And thereat none need marvel, if they consider the cause and reason, which was this.

While the ships stayed, our allowance was somewhat bettered, by a daily proportion of biscuit, which the sailors would pilfer to sell, give, or exchange with us, for money, sassafras, furs, or love. But when they departed, there remained neither tavern, beer house, nor place of relief, but the common kettle. Had we been as free from all sins as gluttony, and drunkenness, we might have been canonized for Saints; but our president would never have been admitted, for ingrossing to his private, oatmeal, sack, oil, aquavitse, beef, eggs, or what not, but the kettle; that indeed he allowed equally to be distributed, and that was half a pint of wheat, and as much barley boiled with water for a man a day, and this having fried some 26 weeks in the ship's hold, contained as many worms as grains; so that we might truly call it rather so much bran than corn, our drink was water, our lodgings castles in the air.

With this lodging and diet, our extreme toil in bearing and planting pallisades, so strained and bruised us, and our continual labor in the extremity of the heat had so weakened us, as were cause sufficient to have made us as miserable in our native country, or any other place in the world.

From May, to September, those that escaped, lived upon sturgeon, and sea-crabs, fifty in this time we buried, the rest seeing the president's projects to escape these miseries in our pinnace by flight (who all this time had neither felt want nor sickness) so moved our dead spirits, as we deposed him; and established Ratcliff in his place, (Gosnol being dead) Kendall deposed. Smith newly recovered, Martin and Ratcliff was by his care preserved and relieved, and the most of the soldiers recovered with the skillful diligence of Master Thomas Wotton our surgeon general.

But now was all our provision spent, the sturgeon gone, all helps abandoned, each hour expecting the fury of the savages; when God the patron of all good endeavors, in that desperate extremity so changed the hearts of the savages, that they brought such plenty of their fruits, and provision, as no man wanted...

But our comedies never endured long without a tragedy; some idle exceptions being muttered against Captain Smith, for not discovering the head of Chickahamania river, and taxed by the council, to be too slow in so worthy an attempt. The next voyage he proceeded so far that with much labor by cutting of trees insunder he made his passage; but when his barge could pass no farther, he left her in a broad bay out of danger of shot, commanding none should go ashore till his return: himself with two English and two savages went up higher in a canoe; but he was not long absent, but his men went ashore, whose want of government gave both occasion and opportunity to the savages to surprise one George Cassen, whom they slew, and much failed not to have cut off the boat and all the rest.

Smith little dreaming of that accident, being got to the marshes at the river's head, twenty miles in the desert, had his two men slain (as is supposed) sleeping by the canoe, while himself by fowling sought them victual: who finding he was beset with 200 savages, two of them he slew, still defending himself with the aid of a savage his guide whom he bound to his arm with his garters, and used him as a buckler, yet he was shot in his thigh a little, and had many arrows that stuck in his clothes but no great hurt, till at last they took him prisoner.

When this news came to Jamestown, much was their sorrow for his loss, few expecting what ensued.

Six or seven weeks those Barbarians kept him prisoner, many strange triumphs and conjurations they made of him, yet he so demeaned himself among them, as he not only diverted them from surprising the fort, but procured his own liberty, and got himself and his company such estimation among them, that those savages admired him more than their own Quiyouckosucks...

At last they brought him to Meronocomoco, where was Powhatan their emperor. Here more than two hundred of those grim courtiers stood wondering at him, as he had been a monster; till Powhatan and his train had put themselves in their greatest braveries. Before a fire upon a seat like a bedstead, he sat covered with a great robe, made of Rarowcun (raccoon?) skins, and all the tails hanging by. On either hand did sit a young wench of 16 or 18 years, and along on each side the house, two rows of men, and behind them as many women, with all their heads and shoulders painted red: many of their heads bedecked with the white down of birds; but every one with something: and a great chain of white beads about their necks.

At his entrance before the king, all the people gave a great shout. The queen of Appamatuck was appointed to bring him water to wash his hands, and another brought him a bunch of feathers, instead of a towel to dry them: having feasted him after their best barbarous manner they could, a long consultation was held, but the conclusion was, two great stones were brought before Powhatan: then as many as could laid hands on him, dragged him to them, and thereon laid his head, and being ready with their clubs, to beat out his brains, Pocahontas the king's dearest daughter, when no entreaty could prevail, got his head in her arms, and laid her own upon his to save him from death: whereat the Emperor was contented he should live to make him hatchets, and her bells, beads, and copper; for they thought him as well of all occupations as themselves. For the king himself will make his own robes, shoes, bowes, arrows, pots; plant, hunt, or do anything so well as the rest.

They say he bore a pleasant show,
But sure his heart was sad.
For who can pleasant be, and rest,
That lives in fear and dread:
And having life suspected, doth
It still suspected lead.

Two days after, Powhatan having disguised himself in the most fearful manner he could, caused Captain Smith to be brought forth to a great house in the woods, and thereupon a mat by the fire to be left alone. Not long after from behind a mat that divided the house, was made the most doleful noise he ever heard; then Powhatan more like a devil than a man, with some two hundred more as black as himself, came unto him and told him now they were friends, and presently he should go to Jamestown, to send him two great guns, and a grindstone, for which he would give him the country of Capahowosick, and forever esteem him as his son Nantaquoud.

So to Jamestown with 12 guides Powhatan sent him. That night they quartered in the woods, he still expecting (as he had done all this long time of his imprisonment) every hour to be put to one death or other: for all their feasting. But almighty God (by his divine providence) had mollified the hearts of those stern barbarians with compassion. The next morning betimes they came to the fort, where Smith having used the savages with what kindness he could, he showed Rawhunt, Powhatan's trusty servant, two demi-culverins and a millstone to carry Powhatan: they found them somewhat too heavy; but when they did see him discharge them, being loaded with stones, among the boughs of a great tree loaded with icicles the ice and branches came so tumbling down, that the poor savages ran away half dead with fear. But at last we regained some conference with them, and gave them such toys; and sent to Powhatan, his women, and children such presents, as gave them in general full content.

Now in Jamestown they were all in combustion, the strongest preparing once more to run away with the pinnace; which with the hazard of his life, with Sakre falcon and musket shot, Smith forced now the third time to stay or sink.

Some no better than they should be, had plotted with the president, the next day to have put him to death by the Levitical law, for the lives of Robinson and Emry; pretending the fault was his that had led them to their ends: but he quickly took such order with such lawyers, that he laid them by the heels till he sent some of them prisoners for England.

Now every once in four or five days, Pocahontas with her attendants, brought him so much provision, that saved many of their lives, that else for all this had starved with hunger.

Thus from numb death our good God sent relief,

The sweet assuager of all other grief.

His relation of the plenty he had seen, especially at Werawocomoco, and of the state and bounty of Powhatan, (which till that time was unknown) so revived their dead spirits (especially the love of Pocahontas) as all men's fear was abandoned.

Thus you may see what difficulties still crossed any good endeavor; and the good success of the business being thus often brought to the very period of destruction; yet you see by what strange means God has still delivered it.

As for the insufficiency of them admitted in commission, that error could not be prevented by the electors; there being no other choice, and all strangers to each other's education, qualities, or disposition.

And if any deem it a shame to our Nation to have any mention made of those enormities, let him peruse the Histories of the Spaniard's Discoveries and Plantations, where they may see how many mutinies, disorders, and dissensions have accompanied them, and crossed their attempts: which being known to be particular men's offenses; does take away the general scorn and contempt, which malice, presumption, coveteousness, or ignorance might produce; to the scandal and reproach of those, whose actions and valiant resolutions deserve a more worthy respect.

Now whether it had been better for Captain Smith, to have concluded with any of those several projects, to have abandoned the country, with some ten or twelve of them, who were called the better sort, and have left Master Hunt our preacher, Master Anthony Gosnol, a most honest, worthy, and industrious gentleman, Master Thomas Wotton, and some 27 others of his countrymen to the fury of the savages, famine, and all manner of mischiefs, and inconveniences, (for they were but forty in all to keep possession of this large country;) or starve himself with them for company, for want of lodging: or but adventuring abroad to make them provision, or by his opposition to preserve the action, and save all their lives; I leave to the censure of all honest men to consider....
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1606 Instructions for the Virginia Colony

2011-05-25T16:26:00.002-04:00

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Instructions for the Virginia Colony (1606)

Captain Smith and his adventurers

In the first decade of the seventeenth century England began a second round of colonizing attempts. This time jointstock companies were used as the vehicle to plant settlements rather than giving extensive grants to a landed proprietor such as Gilbert or Raleigh, whose attempts at colonization in the 1570s and 1580s had failed.

The founding of Virginia marked the beginning of a twenty-five year period in which every colony in the New World was established by means of a joint-stock company. A variety of motives intensified the colonizing impulse - international rivalry, propagation of religion, enlarged opportunity for individual men - but none exceeded that of trade and profit. The companies were created to make a profit; their in vestments in the colonies were based on this assumption. Early in the 1630's merchants and investors discovered that they could employ their money in other more rewarding enterprises. After 1631, therefore, no colony was founded by mercantile enterprise, but by that date the enterprisers had left a legacy of colonization that was to endure.

In these instructions for the Virginia Company, the power of Spain and the fear derived from past failures invade every line. The detail and precision of the instructions reflect the work of experienced men; Richard Hakluyt, the younger, for example, probably had a hand in writing them.

Richard Hakluyt wrote The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation between 1598 and 1600. Hakluyt was an unashamed propagandist for England's maritime expansion. He detailed shipwrecks, privations, discoveries, encounters with different peoples across the globe, imprisonments, escapes - these are the staples that drive the stories along. In many ways, Hakluyt was the founder of the popular travel writing genre. What's firmly missing from Hakluyt is the 'here there be dragons' school of writing, which many people today expect to see in such early maritime adventures, for the Elizabethan mariners were largely practical people engaged on commercial ventures and recording as honestly as they could (with due allowance for exaggeration and wonder) extraordinary sights and experiences. Hakluyt left a unique record of a hugely important period in the history of England and its emerging colonies in the Atlantic. His accounts are regarded as important scholarly sources.

1606 Instructions

As we doubt not but you will have especial care to observe the ordinances set down by the King's Majesty and delivered unto you under the Privy Seal; so for your better directions upon your first landing we have thought good to recommend unto your care these instructions and articles following.

When it shall please God to send you on the coast of Virginia, you shall do your best endeavour to find out a safe port in the entrance of some navigable river, making choice of such a one as runneth farthest into the land, and if you happen to discover divers portable rivers, and amongst them any one that hath two main branches, if the difference be not great, make choice of that which bendeth most toward the North-West for that way you shall soonest find the other sea.

When you have made choice of the river on which you mean to settle, be not hasty in landing your victuals and munitions; but first let Captain Newport discover how far that river may be found navigable, that you make election of the strongest, most wholesome and fertile place; for if you make many removes, besides the loss of time, you shall greatly spoil your victuals and your caske, and with great pain transport it in small boats.

But if you choose your place so far up as a bark of fifty tuns will float, then you may lay all your provisions ashore with ease, and the better receive the trade of all the countries about you in the land; and such a place you may perchance find a hundred miles from the river's mouth, and the further up the better. For if you sit down near the entrance, except it be in some island that is strong by nature, an enemy that may approach you on even ground, may easily pull you out; and if he be driven to seek you a hundred miles [in] the land in boats, you shall from both sides of the river where it is narrowest, so beat them with your muskets as they shall never be able to prevail against you.

And to the end that you be not surprised as the French were in Florida by Melindus, and the Spaniard in the same place by the French, you shall do well to make this double provision. First, erect a little stoure at the mouth of the river that may lodge some ten men; with whom you shall leave a light boat, that when any fleet shall be in sight, they may come with speed to give you warning. Secondly, you must in no case suffer any of the native people of the country to inhabit between you and the sea coast; for you cannot carry yourselves so towards them, but they will grow discontented with your habitation, and be ready to guide and assist any nation that shall come to invade you; and if you neglect this, you neglect your safety.

When you have discovered as far up the river as you mean to plant yourselves, and landed your victuals and munitions; to the end that every man may know his charge, you shall do well to divide your six score men into three parts; whereof one party of them you may appoint to fortifie and build, of which your first work must be your storehouse for victuals; the other you may imploy in preparing your ground and sowing your corn and roots; the other ten of these forty you must leave as centinel at the haven's mouth. The other forty you may imploy for two months in discovery of the river above you, and on the country about you; which charge Captain Newport and Captain Gosnold may undertake of these forty discoverers. When they do espie any high lands or hills, Captain Gosnold may take twenty of the company to cross over the lands, and carrying a half dozen pickaxes to try if they can find any minerals. The other twenty may go on by river, and pitch up boughs upon the bank's side, by which the other boats shall follow them by the same turnings. You may also take with them a wherry, such as is used here in the Thames; by which you may send back to the President for supply of munition or any other want, that you may not be driven to return for every small defect.

You must observe if you can, whether the river on which you plant doth spring out of mountains or out of lakes. If it be out of any lake, the passage to the other sea will be more easy, and [it] is like enough, that out of the same lake you shall find some spring which run[s] the contrary way towards the East India Sea; for the great and famous rivers of Volga, Tan[a]is and Dwina have three heads near joynd; and yet the one falleth into the Caspian Sea, the other into the Euxine Sea, and the third into the Paelonian Sea.

In all your passages you must have great care not to offend the naturals [natives], if you can eschew it; and imploy some few of your company to trade with them for corn and all other . . . victuals if you have any; and this you must do before that they perceive you mean to plant among them; for not being sure how your own seed corn will prosper the first year, to avoid the danger of famine, use and endeavour to store yourselves of the country corn.

Your discoverers that pass over land with hired guides, must look well to them that they slip not from them: and for more assurance, let them take a compass with them, and write down how far they go upon every point of the compass; for that country having no way nor path, if that your guides run from you in the great woods or desert, you shall hardly ever find a passage back.

And how weary soever your soldiers be, let them never trust the country people with the carriage of their weapons; for if they run from you with your shott, which they only fear, they will easily kill them all with their arrows. And whensoever any of yours shoots before them, be sure they may be chosen out of your best marksmen; for if they see your learners miss what they aim at, they will think the weapon not so terrible, and thereby will be bould to assault you.

Above all things, do not advertize the killing of any of your men, that the country people may know it; if they perceive that they are but common men, and that with the loss of many of theirs they diminish any part of yours, they will make many adventures upon you. If the country be populous, you shall do well also, not to let them see or know of your sick men, if you have any; which may also encourage them to many enterprizes.

You must take especial care that you choose a seat for habitation that shall not be over burthened with woods near your town; for all the men you have, shall not be able to cleanse twenty acres a year; besides that it may serve for a covert for your enemies round about.

Neither must you plant in a low or moist place, because it will prove unhealthfull. You shall judge of the good air by the people; for some part of that coast where the lands are low, have their people blear eyed, and with swollen bellies and legs; but if the naturals be strong and clean made, it is a true sign of a wholesome soil.

You must take order to draw up the pinnace that is left with you, under the fort: and take her sails and anchors ashore, all but a small kedge to ride by; least some ill-dispositioned persons slip away with her.

You must take care that your marriners that go for wages, do not mar your trade; for those that mind not to inhabite, for a little gain will debase the estimation of exchange, and hinder the trade for ever after; and therefore you shall not admit or suffer any person whatsoever, other than such as shall be appointed by the President and Counsel there, to buy any merchandizes or other things whatsoever.

It were necessary that all your carpenters and other such like workmen about building do first build your storehouse and those other rooms of publick and necessary use before any house be set up for any private person: and though the workman may belong to any private persons yet let them all work together first for the company and then for private men.

And seeing order is at the same price with confusion, it shall be adviseably done to set your houses even and by a line, that your street may have a good breadth, and be carried square about your market place and every street's end opening into it; that from thence, with a few field pieces, you may command every street throughout; which market place you may also fortify if you think it needfull.

You shall do well to send a perfect relation by Captaine Newport of all that is done, what height you are seated, how far into the land, what commodities you find, what soil, woods and their several kinds, and so of all other things else to advertise particularly; and to suffer no man to return but by pasport from the President and Counsel, nor to write any letter of anything that may discourage others.

Lastly and chiefly the way to prosper and achieve good success is to make yourselves all of one mind for the good of your country and your own, and to serve and fear God the Giver of all Goodness, for every plantation which our Heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted out.
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