THE COLONIAL AMERICAN ERA: NO COUNTRY
1607-1776
Many ideas (true, false, a mixture) float around concerning the beginning / founding of our country.
Basics:
There was no country before 1776
169~ years of colonies!
The colonies were independent of one another
There was little contact between many of them
They had different cultures, outlooks, beliefs and languages to some degree.
They were grouped into 3 groups:
New England: Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Rhode Island
Middle Colonies: Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Delaware
Southern Colonies: North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Virginia, Maryland
The colonies were started for various reasons:
Usually religious freedom (for them!)
Almost always economic concerns
Always somewhat of a mixture
The colonies primary unifying factor was an economic relationship with England.
Remember: this was rather loose until 1760
The populations were quite small, with few roads, and very difficult transportation. Most
transportation was by water
Jamestown, Virginia 1607
Called Virginia by Sir Walter Raleigh for the Virgin Queen – Elizabeth
Called Jamestown for King James I
The Church of England was the established church
Commerce & not Religious freedom was the primary purpose of this colony
Church and state were partners in maintaining safety, stability and moral order in society
No other churches were allowed / tolerated
There were morning and evening prayers even in Jamestown
Willful absence was severally punished!
1 : lose a day’s provision of rations
2nd: whipped
3rd: 6 months on an oceangoing vessel, as a slave
st
Later in 1617, Governor Argall:
1 : slave to colony for one week
2nd: slave to colony for one month
3rd: slave to colony for one year and one day
st
Religion in the colony of Virginia established, maintained and visually portrayed
The state religion served many functions:
Supervised education
Distributed charity
Kept birth, “baptism”, 1st communion, marriage, and death records.
Plus collected taxes /tithes to maintain property and the “pastors.”
Massachusetts Bay Colony
1620 (1620-1640 the Great Puritan Migration)
Founded as a city on a hill
Founded for matters of religion
Founded by the Puritans a godly group!
Founded for religious freedom for them
Founded as a New England to be a light to the Old England
There was no Anglican Church / via media / Elizabethan Settlement!
Established the Congregational Church
Maybe the most successful blended state in history
The MBC tolerated no dissent / opposition
1636 Roger Williams was banished in December / January during a blizzard!
John Cotton later said in The Bloody Tenant, washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb, “Roger
Williams was not banished, Roger Williams banished himself!” So – don’t blame us, blame yourself!
Roger Williams: “The Christian Church does not persecute. Therefore, the church that persecutes is not
Christian.
Anne Hutchinson: Mother, midwife, Quaker and theologian (?)
She was a rabid antinomian who believed salvation is of grace and therefore it does not necessarily result in a
moral life.
As a Quaker she also believed that every man / woman had an inner light – the voice of God speaking directly
to and through him / her!
Anne and her family were exiled to Rhode Island and migrated later to Long Island. In 1643, the Hutchinsons
were killed by Indians (except one small daughter).
The Quakers endured in New England what they had in Old England – jail, cropping of ears, burning of tongues
and worse.
1659-1661 4 Quakers were hanged on the Boston Commons.
There was a law against Baptists since 1644 – no Baptist church could exist within the borders of M.B.C.
July 16, 1651
3 Newporters journeyed to Lynn, Massachusetts. There they preached, prayed, baptized new believers, and
served communion.
On July 20, 1651, as John Clarke was expounding the gospel, 2 constables interrupted the meeting.
They were tried in the morning, sentenced in the afternoon without producing either accuser, witnesses, jury, or
law of God or man!
Charges: Seducing the subjects of the commonwealth from the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ and daring to
baptize those who as infants had been baptized before.
They were to be fined and banished or whipped!
Obadiah Holmes wouldn’t pay the fine or let others pay it.
September 5, 1651 He was brought to Boston marketplace, tied to a post, stripped to the waste to receive 30
lashes with a 3-pronged whip on his bare back.
Homes said “I am now come to be baptized in afflictions by your hands.”
Mary Dyer: Mary and her husband William accompanied Anne Hutchinson to Rhode Island in 1652. Mary
Dyer returned to New England to spread the word of the Quakers. She was jailed, expelled and then warned she
would be put to death if she returned to Boston. She did return in May 1660 and on June 1, 1660 she was
hanged!
The Salem Witch Trials: The Rock on which the Theocracy shattered
February 1692 – May 1693
Hearings held in at least: Salem Village (now Danvers), Ipswich, Andover, Salem Town
Much more common in Europe and more common in England
For many reasons the Salem Witch trials have captivated the USA
Religious extremism / fanaticism
A witch hunt
False accusations
Poor judicial process
And the even worse idea of equating this with Christianity
Most of those arrested, tried, & executed were women
At least 12 people were executed before 1692
Historian Clarence F. Jewett included a list of other people executed in New England in The Memorial History
of Boston: Including Suffolk County, Massachusetts 1630–1880 (Ticknor and Company, 1881). He wrote, The
following is the list of the 12 persons who were executed for witchcraft in New England before 1692, when 24
other persons were executed at Salem, whose names are well known. It is possible that the list is not complete;
but I have included all of which I have any knowledge, and with such details as to names and dates as could be
ascertained : —
1647, — "Woman of Windsor," Connecticut (name unknown) [later identified as Alice Young], at Hartford.
1648, — Margaret Jones, of Charlestown, at Boston. 1648,— Mary Johnson, at Hartford. 1650? — Henry
Lake's wife, of Dorchester. 1650?—Mrs. Kendall, of Cambridge. 1651, — Mary Parsons, of Springfield, at
Boston. 1651, — Goodwife Bassett, at Fairfield, Conn. 1653,—Goodwife Knap, at Hartford. 1656, — Ann
Hibbins, at Boston. 1662, — Goodman Greensmith, at Hartford. 1662,— Goodwife Greensmith, at Hartford.
1688,— Goody Glover, at Boston.
Salem Village (Danvers) was well known for its many internal disputes as well as external disputes
with Salem Town (Salem)
It has been long suspected this was about much more than witches! Property, power, grazing rights, social
status, family feuds….
This started with a 9 year old and an 11 year old – they began to have “fits.”
Screaming, throwing things, making strange noises, hiding under furniture, undergoing contortions…. Other
young girls began to exhibit similar phenomena.
3 “outcast” women were arrested – what some have called “the usual suspects.”
A major escalation followed
This was certainly a form of mass hysteria for some and a way of getting attention for others. It was probably a
way of getting back / getting even for some (remember that property was confiscated!).
Evidence was mainly accusations, superstitious beliefs and spectral evidence claiming to see the
apparition / shape of the person afflicting them. This was based on the belief that the devil couldn’t use a
person’s shape without him / her allowing it!
At least 20 executed in Salem Village
June 10, 1692: 1
July 19, 1692: 5
August 19, 1692: 5
September 22, 1692: 8
Plus some died in prison
The Case of Giles Corey
Peine forte et dure
The executed were mistreated even after death!
A few stood against the trials – but at great danger! You could be arrested.
Rev. William Milbourne, A Baptist minister in Boston spent a ton of money.
Major Nathaniel Saltonstall Esquire
Increase Mather: It were better that ten suspected witches should escape, than that one innocent person should
be condemned.
1695 Tomas Maule, A noted Quaker
“It were better that one hundred witches should live, than that one person be put to death for a witch, which is
not a witch.”
The trials fell apart after this with recantations, requests for forgiveness, & reparations for the families.