Notwithstanding the strange judgments, fines, and punishments, made under
the civil law or without law in the colony of Massachusetts, there seems
to have been another sort of government, or perhaps one of the same kind,
in relation to spiritual or religious things, the administration of which
shows such a spirit and system of persecution, and such a degree of
fanaticism, as can hardly be paralleled in history. And it would seem also
that the two kinds of government, both in the hands of the same parties,
might occasionally be found in conflict. In 1655, Hutchinson says,
"However inconsistent it may seem with the professed ecclesiastical
constitution and the freedom of every church, the general court, in
several instances, interposed its authority. They laid a large fine upon
the church at Malden for choosing a minister without the consent and
approbation of the neighboring churches and allowance of the magistrates,
and there were other similar interferences, which, we suppose, were
acceded to, and that the church was, in fact, under the control of the
state." And the state, it may be added, was to some extent, subordinate to
the church.
The Episcopalians, Anabaptists, Baptists, and Quakers, were all treated,
or maltreated, with the same spirit, though not proceeded against with the
same degree of persistency and malice. The Episcopalians were mulcted in
heavy fines "for contemptuous and seditious language," but finally
overcame all difficulties, and became permanently established in 1686, and
built a church in 1688. The Baptists were persecuted in a similar way, but
finally got a meeting-house built in 1679, before the Episcopalians. The
Quakers were persecuted from the first landing of some of their number in
1656 to 1667, and even later; and four of them were hanged on Boston
Common.
In July, 1656, two Quakers, both women, arrived at the settlement from
Barbadoes, and soon after eight more came from England. In a few days they
were ordered before the Court of Assistants. Some books were found about
them or in their possession, amounting to a hundred volumes; and these
were burned in the market-place, and their owners sent to prison. They
were condemned as Quakers, kept in confinement several weeks, and then
sent away; and yet it is said there was no law at this time against
Quakers. After this, stringent laws were made to keep them out of the
colony. Masters of vessels were subjected to one hundred pounds fine if
they brought a Quaker into the colony, and required to give security to
take him away; and, if a Quaker came into the jurisdiction, he was sent to
the house of correction, and whipped twenty stripes. And the next year,
further laws were made against the Quakers, and against all who
befriended or entertained them: who were to be fined forty shillings an
hour; and, "if he persisted, the offender was to have one of his ears cut
off," and, if repeated, he was to lose his other ear. If this did not
answer, whipping and boring the tongue with a hot iron, were to be the
consequences.
Notwithstanding these severe proceedings against the Quakers, others came
into the colony, and some who had been banished returned to suffer more
severe punishments. One Myra Clark, wife of a merchant tailor of London,
came to Boston in 1657, to comply with what she conceived to be a
spiritual command, and was whipped in a cruel manner. About the same time,
two men, Christopher Holder and John Copeland, were seized in Salem, and,
after being roughly handled, were "had to Boston." Holder, it is said,
when he attempted to speak, had his head hauled back by the hair, and his
mouth stuffed with handkerchief and gloves. At Boston they were whipped
with a knotted whip, with all the strength of the hangman. A man named
Shattock was imprisoned and whipped for interfering when Holder was
gagged, and was afterwards banished.
In the next year, (September, 1658), Holder, Copeland, and another young
man named Rouse, had their right ears cut off in the prison. A number of
women were whipped and imprisoned; and one, Katharine Scott of Providence,
being in Boston, pronounced the above punishment in prison, "a work of
darkness," and was therefore shamefully treated and abused, although a
mother of children, and "a grave, sober, ancient woman." She was publicly
whipped, and threatened with hanging if found in Boston again.
Three persons known as Quakers, on their way from Salem to Rhode Island,
to provide a place for themselves and families, were arrested by the
constable at Dedham, and sent to Boston, where Gov. Endicott set them at
liberty, but fined them twelve shillings, as it would seem for the
stupidity of the constable. The constable, no doubt, arrested them for
fear of being fined for neglect of duty.
In 1658-59, persecutions continued fearfully, and numbers were arrested,
imprisoned, and punished. In the latter year, William Robinson, formerly a
London merchant, Marmaduke Stevenson, and Myra (or Mary) Dyar, having
returned after banishment, were sentenced to be hung; and the two men were
hung, Oct. 20. Myra Dyar was upon the ladder, her arms and legs tied, and
the rope about her neck, when, at the urgent solicitation of her son, she
was spared and sent out of the colony; but she returned again the next
year, impressed with the belief that her death was necessary to the cause
she had espoused,--as fanatical as were the Puritans themselves,--and was
hung in June. The bodies of the men, it is said, were shamefully stripped
and abused, after they were literally cut down, and were thrown into a
hole together.
In July, 1660, Margaret Brewster, from Barbadoes, and two or three other
women, made an incursion into the Old South Church; she appeared "in
sackcloth, with ashes on her head, barefoot and her face blackened," with
some purpose of warning the people against the black pox, "if they put in
practice a cruel law against swearing."
It is said also "that Deborah Wilson went through the streets of Salem
naked as she came into the world, for which she was well whipped." Thomas
Newhouse went into a meeting-house in Boston, and smashed two empty
bottles together, with a threat to the people; and, no doubt, other
provoking things were done.
In March, 1661, persecutions still prevailing, William Leddra, who came
from Barbadoes, was arrested, together with one William Brend; and Drake
says, "The cruelties perpetrated on these poor, misguided men are
altogether of a character too horrid to be related." It is said that
Leddra would not accept life on any terms, and was therefore hung on the
14th of March; and Capt. Johnson, who led him forth to the gallows, was
afterwards taken "with a distemper which deprived him of his reason and
understanding as a man."
These proceedings, outrageous as they certainly were, led to a movement in
England by the Quakers and their friends, which resulted in an order from
the King, Sept. 9, 1661, requiring that a stop should be put to all
capital or corporal punishments. The following are the words of this
remarkable document:--
"CHARLES R.
"Trusty and well beloved, we greet you well. Having been informed that
several of our subjects amongst you, called Quakers, have been and are
imprisoned by you, whereof some have been executed, and others (as
hath been represented unto us) are in danger to undergo the like: We
have thought fit to signify our pleasure in that behalf for the
future, and do hereby require, that if there be any of those people
now amongst you, now already condemned to suffer death or other
corporal punishment, or that are imprisoned, and obnoxious to the like
condemnation, you are to forbear to proceed any further therein, but
that you forthwith send the said persons, whether condemned or
imprisoned, over into this Our Kingdom of England, together with the
respective crimes or offenses laid to their charge, to the end such
course may be taken with them here as shall be agreeable to our laws
and their demerits; and for so doing these our letters shall be your
sufficient warrant and discharge.
"Given at Our Court at Whitehall the ninth day of Sept., 1661, in the
thirteenth year of Our Reign.
"To Our trusty and well-beloved John Endicott, Esquire, &c.
"By his Majesty's Command,
"WILLIAM MORRIS."
The bearer of this mandate from the King was one of the banished Quakers,
formerly of Salem; and when he appeared at Gov. Endicott's house, on
Pemberton Square, was admitted to the presence, and ordered to take his
hat off; and on receiving the mandamus the Governor took his own hat off
(which he probably put on to receive his callers). After reading the
document, he went out and bade the two Friends to follow him, and
proceeded to consult, as it appeared, with Lieut.-Gov. Willoughby (not
Bellingham, as some writers have it). His answer was, "We shall obey his
majesty's command." So far as hanging was forbidden, the command was
obeyed. The formality of sending Commissioners to England to defend and
justify the measures of the colony was adopted, but never amounted to any
thing.
The laws against the Quakers were afterwards revived to the extent of
whipping, limited to "through three towns only;" and perhaps they did not
choose to regard this display as "capital or corporal punishment."
In May, 1664, Edward Wharton, of Salem, being in Boston, a Quaker meeting
was held, when a warrant was issued for his arrest: but the meeting being
over, he was found at a friend's house; was arrested; the next day
whipped, and sent to the constable at Lynn, to be whipped there, and then
sent to Salem. In one instance, a girl, eleven years of age, allowing
herself to be a Quaker, whether she knew what the word meant or not, was
sent to prison, and afterwards brought before the great and dignified
Court. The Court speak of "the malice of Satan and his instruments," and
determine that as "Satan is put to his shifts to make use of such a child,
not being of the years of discretion, it is judged meet so far to slight
her as a Quaker, as only to admonish and instruct her according to her
capacity, and so discharge her." Hutchinson says, "It would have been
horrible, if there had been any further severity."
In 1665, additional laws were made, or orders passed, levying a fine of
ten shillings for attending a Quaker meeting, and five pounds for speaking
at one; and, in the same year, the penalty of death was revived against
all Quakers who should return to the colony after they had been banished.
Some persons ventured to express their dissent with regard to some of
these laws, and, probably owing to their respectability, escaped
punishment; but Nicholas Upsall, who had shown compassion to some Quakers
while in prison, in 1656-57, was fined and banished, and endured
incredible hardships. Three years later, in 1660, he returned, and was
again thrown into prison, and died in 1666.
The laws against Quakers and heretics were published in Boston "with beat
of drum through its streets." We presume they were read after the
town-crier fashion of later days.
In 1677, when the toleration of the Quakers was thought to be one of the
sins which brought on the Indian war, as a punishment, the Court ordered,
"That every person found at a Quaker's meeting shall be apprehended ex
officio, by the constable, and, by warrant from a magistrate or
commissioner, shall be committed to the House of Correction, and there
have the discipline of the house applied to them, and be kept to work,
with bread and water, for three days, and then released, or else shall pay
five pounds in money, as a fine to the country, for such offence, and all
constables neglecting their duty, in not faithfully executing this order,
shall incur the penalty of five pounds, upon conviction, one third thereof
to the informer."
Upon this remarkable order, Hutchinson declares, "I know of nothing which
can be urged as in anywise tending to excuse the severity of this law,
unless it be human infirmity," and, he adds, the practices of other
religious sects who are persuaded that the indulgence of any other "was a
toleration of impiety" and brought down the judgments of heaven. This law
cost the colony many friends.
Soon after this a party was arrested and "whipped at the cart's tail up
and down the town with twenty lashes." On the same day, fourteen Quakers
were arrested at a meeting, and twelve of them whipped: the other two had
their fines paid by their friends. At the next meeting, fourteen or
fifteen more, including some strangers, were arrested and whipped. And yet
the Quakers continued their meetings; and, finally, one of them was so
large, that, as it is said, "fearfulness surprised the hypocrites," and
the meeting was not molested.[6]
Hutchinson says, "Notwithstanding the great variety of sectaries in
England, there had been no divisions of any consequence in the
Massachusetts; but from 1637 to 1656, they enjoyed, in general, great
quietness in their ecclesiastical affairs, discords in particular churches
being healed and made up by a submission to the arbitrament of neighboring
churches, and sometimes the interposition of the civil power." But soon
after all this, commencing indeed in 1655, in New England, continues
Hutchinson, "it must be confessed, that bigotry and cruel zeal prevailed,
and to that degree that no opinions but their own could be tolerated. They
were sincere but mistaken in their principles; and absurd as it is, it is
too evident, they believed it to be for the glory of God to take away the
lives of his creatures for maintaining tenets contrary to what they
professed themselves." It is said, however, "that every religion which is
persecuted becomes itself persecuting; for as soon as, by some accidental
turn, it arises from persecution, it attacks the religion which persecuted
it." Perhaps the Puritans thought they had been persecuted!
It seems to be understood that the Quakers finally got a standing in
Boston, and a meeting-house, as, in 1667, mention is made of their
"ordinary place of meeting," though their numbers were small. The
Baptists, however, did not get their meeting-house until 1679; and then,
as a law had been passed against the building of meeting-houses without
permission of the county courts, theirs was built as a private house, and
afterwards purchased by them. But Drake says, "The times had become so
much changed that such a law could not be very well enforced." By this
time, also, the matter was again brought to the notice of the king,
Charles II.; and he wrote, on July 24, to the authorities of Boston,
"requiring them not to molest people in their worship, who were of the
Protestant faith, and directing that liberty of conscience should be
extended to all such." This letter, it is said, had some effect on the
rulers, although they regarded it as an interference with their chartered
rights; and, after all, it was rather a development of that common sense
which fanaticism and bigotry had so long obscured, possibly awakened by
the order of the king, rather than controlled by it, that brought about
the change in the spirit of persecution.
In 1737, a different Christian spirit was manifested towards the Quakers,
and they were exempted from taxes for the support of the clergy, provided
they attended their own meetings. A letter from a Quaker to the King gives
the following statement of the punishments and penalties received by his
brethren: "Twenty-two have been banished on pain of death, three have been
martyred, three have had their right ears cut, one hath been burned in the
hand with the letter H, thirty-one persons have received six hundred and
fifty stripes, ... one thousand and forty-four pounds worth of goods have
been taken from them, and one lieth now in fetters, condemned to die." The
letter H was probably intended for "heretic," which would certainly be
giving a judgment against the religion the Quakers professed.
In 1694, the Quakers owned a lot on Brattle Street, and it is thought
probable had some sort of a meeting-house upon it; but still the years
passed on, we hardly know how, until 1708, when they desired to build a
brick house, but could not get permission to do so. Afterwards they built
a small brick meeting-house in the rear of Congress Street on one side,
and in the rear of Water Street on the other. It ran back to what is now
the line of Exchange Place; in fact, was nearly in the centre of the
square formed by State, Congress, Water, and Devonshire Streets. This
building was partly destroyed by fire in 1760, having been standing more
than fifty years; was then repaired, and finally demolished in 1825,
having been unoccupied for nearly twenty years, the society, in 1808,
having voted to discontinue their meetings.
It is probably true that the treatment of the Quakers in the Massachusetts
Colony, in the years mentioned, from 1600 to 1666-67, is unparalleled in
the history of the human race; and although it may be true, as has been
said, that the people here exiled themselves in order that "they might
maintain and perpetuate what they conceived to be the principles of true
Christianity," they manifested but little of the spirit of the Saviour of
mankind or the religion he came to teach. Hutchinson concludes what he has
to say of the remarkable persecution of the Quakers and its severity, with
the remark, "May the time never come again, when the government shall
think that by killing men for their religion they do God good service."
However other denominations of Christians were persecuted by the Puritans,
only Quakers and witches were hung. "These transient persecutions," as
Bancroft calls them, with all the leniency possible, "begun in
self-defence, were yet no more than a train of mists hovering of an autumn
morning over the channel of a fine river, that diffused freshness and
fertility wherever it wound." Much of this condition of things, it must be
admitted, resulted from natural causes; namely, the character and
circumstances of the settlers, their peculiar religious belief, and
absolute fanaticism.
Finally, another writer says, "The Puritans _disclaimed_ the right to sit
in judgment on the opinions of others. They denied that they persecuted
for conscience sake." These and some other statements seem to show that
they did not practise as they preached, or gave an interpretation to that
practice not in accordance with the understanding and convictions of
mankind. To be sure, they had a law to punish any one who spoke
disrespectfully of the Scriptures, and at the same time fined, punished,
banished, and hung those who entertained and presumed to teach principles,
belief, or doctrines in relation to the Scriptures different from their
own; not, as they allege, because they had the right to sit in judgment
upon them, but because of the dangers of their teaching and practice: in
other words, for their own protection, "self-defence," as has been said.
Nevertheless, maiming, marring, and taking the lives of God's creatures,
the equals in every respect of themselves, as Hutchinson puts it, is only
to be apologized for or excused by the infirmities of humanity; indeed, we
should rather say, is not to be excused on any such ground, and their own
doctrine and belief teaches that it was a proceeding to be punished and
repented of. This, at any rate, was always the belief of the Quakers.
Drake says, "The persecuted Quakers were fully persuaded that a day of
wrath would overtake New England, and they did not fail to declare their
belief; and, indeed, it was not long before their predictions were
fulfilled: for the terrible war with the Indians, which followed in a few
years, was viewed by them as the vengeance of heaven for their cruelty to
the Quakers."