Woman's Life in Colonial Days Part 3

As we have noted in previous pages, the morbidness and super-sensitive spiritual condition of the colonists brought on by the peculiar social environment had for many years prepared the way for just such a tragic att.i.tude toward physical and mental ailments. The usual safety vents of modern society, the common functions we may cla.s.s as general "good times," were denied the soul, and it turned back to feed upon itself.

The following hint by Sewall, written a few years before the witchcraft craze, is significant: "Thorsday, Novr. 12. After the Ministers of this Town Come to the Court and complain against a Dancing Master, who seeks to set up here, and hath mixt Dances, and his time of Meeting is Lecture-Day; and 'tis reported he should say that by one Play he could teach more Divinity than Mr. Willard or the Old Testament. Mr. Moodey said 'twas not a time for N.E. to dance. Mr. Mather struck at the Root, speaking against mixt Dances."[22] And again in the records by another colonist, Prince, we note: "1631. March 22. First Court at Boston.

Ordered That all who have cards, dice, or 'tables' in their houses shall make way with them before the next court."[23]

But the lack of social safety valves seemingly did not suggest itself to the Puritan fathers; not the causes, but the religious effect of the matter was what those stern churchmen sought to destroy. Says Cotton Mather: "So horrid and h.e.l.lish is the Crime of Witchcraft, that were G.o.ds Thoughts as our thoughts, or G.o.ds Wayes as our wayes, it could be no other, but Unpardonable. But that Grace of G.o.d may be admired, and that the worst of Sinners may be encouraged, Behold, Witchcraft also has found a Pardon.... From the h.e.l.l of Witchcraft our merciful Jesus can fetch a guilty Creature to the Glory of Heaven. Our Lord hath sometimes Recovered those who have in the most horrid manner given themselves away to the Destroyer of their souls."[24]

Where did this mania, this riot of superst.i.tion and fanaticism that resulted in so much sorrow and so many deaths have its beginning and origin? Coffin in his _Old Times in the Colonies_ has summed up the matters briefly and vividly: "The saddest story in the history of our country is that of the witch craze at Salem, Ma.s.s. brought about by a negro woman and a company of girls. The negress, t.i.tuba, was a slave, whom Rev. Samuel Parris, one of the ministers of Salem, had purchased in Barbadoes. We may think of t.i.tuba as seated in the old kitchen of Mr.

Parris's house during the long winter evenings, telling witchcraft stories to the minister's niece, Elizabeth, nine years old. She draws a circle in the ashes on the hearth, burns a lock of hair, and mutters gibberish. They are incantations to call up the devil and his imps. The girls of the village gather in the old kitchen to hear t.i.tuba's stories, and to mutter words that have no meaning. The girls are Abigail Williams, who is eleven; Anne Putnam, twelve; Mary Walcot; and Mary Lewis, seventeen; Elizabeth Hubbard, Elizabeth Booth, and Susannah Sheldon, eighteen; and two servant girls, Mary Warren, and Sarah Churchill. t.i.tuba taught them to bark like dogs, mew like cats, grunt like hogs, to creep through chairs and under tables on their hands and feet, and pretend to have spasms.... Mr. Parris had read the books and pamphlets published in England ... and he came to the conclusion that they were bewitched. He sent for Doctor Griggs who said that the girls were not sick, and without doubt were bewitched.... The town was on fire. Who bewitches you? they were asked. Sarah Good, Sarah Osb.u.m, and t.i.tuba, said the girls. Sarah Good was a poor, old woman, who begged her bread from door to door. Sarah Osburn was old, wrinkled, and sickly."[25]

The news of the peculiar actions of the girls spread throughout the settlement; people flocked to see their antics. By this time the children had carried the "fun" so far that they dared not confess, lest the punishment be terrific, and, therefore, to escape the consequences, they accused various old women of bewitching them. Undoubtedly the little ones had no idea that the delusion would seize so firmly upon the superst.i.tious nature of the people; but the settlers, especially the clergymen and the doctors, took the matter seriously and brought the accused to trial. The craze spread; neighbor accused neighbor; enemies apparently tried to pay old scores by the same method; and those who did not confess were put to death. It is a fact worth noting that the large majority of the witnesses and the greater number of the victims were women. The men who conducted the trials and pa.s.sed the verdict of "guilty" cannot, of course, stand blameless; but it was the long pent-up but now abnormally awakened imagination of the women that wrought havoc through their testimony to incredible things and their descriptions of unbelievable actions. No doubt many a personal grievance, petty jealousy, ancient spite, and neighborhood quarrel entered into the conflict; but the results were out of all proportion to such causes, and remain to-day among the blackest and most sorrowful records on the pages of American history.

As stated above, some of the testimony was incredible and would be ridiculous if the outcome had not been so tragic. Let us read some bits from the record of those solemn trials. Increase Mather in his _Remarkable Providences_ related the following concerning the persecution of William Morse and wife at Newberry, Ma.s.sachusetts: "On December 8, in the Morning, there were five great Stones and Bricks by an invisible hand thrown in at the west end of the house while the Mans Wife was making the Bed, the Bedstead was lifted up from the floor, and the Bedstaff flung out of the Window, and a Cat was hurled at her....

The man's Wife going to the Cellar ... the door shut down upon her, and the Table came and lay upon the door, and the man was forced to remove it e're his Wife could be released from where she was."[26a]

Again, see the remarkable vision beheld by Goodman Hortado and his wife in 1683: "The said Mary and her Husband going in a Cannoo over the River they saw like the head of a man new-shorn, and the tail of a white Cat about two or three foot distance from each other, swimming over before the Cannoo, but no body appeared to joyn head and tail together."[26b]

Cotton Mather in his _Wonders of the Invisible World_ gives us some insight into the mental and physical condition of many of the witnesses called upon to testify to the works of Satan. Some of them undoubtedly were far more in need of an expert on nervous diseases than of the ministrations of either jurist or clergyman. "It cost the Court a wonderful deal of Trouble, to hear the Testimonies of the Sufferers; for when they were going to give in their Depositions, they would for a long time be taken with fitts, that made them uncapable of saying anything.

The Chief Judge asked the prisoner who he thought hindered these witnesses from giving their testimonies? and he answered, He supposed it was the Devil."

It must have been a reign of terror for the Puritan mother and wife.

What woman could tell whether she or her daughter might not be the next victim of the b.l.o.o.d.y harvest? Note the ancient records again. Here are the words of the colonist, Robert Calef, in his _More Wonders of the Invisible World_: "September 9. Six more were tried, and received Sentence of Death; viz., Martha Cory af Salem Village, Mary Easty of Topsfield, Alice Parker and Ann Pudeater of Salem, Dorcas h.o.a.r of Beverly, and Mary Bradberry of Salisbury. September 1st, Giles Gory was prest to Death." And Sewall in his _Diary_ thus speaks of the same barbarous execution just mentioned: "Monday, Sept. 19, 1692. About noon, at Salem, Giles Gory was press'd to death for standing Mute; much pains was used with him two days, one after another, by the Court and Capt.

Gardner of Nantucket who had been of his acquaintance, but all in vain."[27a]

Those were harsh times, and many a man or woman showed heroic qualities under the strain. The editor of Sewall's _Diary_ makes this comment upon the silent heroism of the martyr, Giles Cory: "At first, apparently, a firm believer in the witchcraft delusion, even to the extent of mistrusting his saintly wife, who was executed three days after his torturous death, his was the most tragic of all the fearful offerings.

He had made a will, while confined in Ipswich jail, conveying his property, according to his own preferences, among his heirs; and, in the belief that his will would be invalidated and his estate confiscated, if he were condemned by a jury after pleading to the indictment, he resolutely preserved silence, knowing that an acqittance was an impossibility."[27b]

In the case of Cory doubtless the majority of the people thought the manner of death, like that of Anne Hutchinson, was a fitting judgment of G.o.d; for Sewall records in his ever-helpful Diary: "Sept. 20. Now I hear from Salem that about 18 years agoe, he [Giles Cory] was suspected to have stamp'd and press'd a man to death, but was cleared. Twas not remembered till Ann Putnam was told of it by said Cory's Spectre the Sabbath day night before the Execution."[28]

The Corys, Eastys, and Putnams were families exceedingly prominent during the entire course of the mania; Ann Putnam's name appears again and again. She evidently was a woman of unusual force and impressive personality, and many were her revelations concerning suspected persons and even totally innocent neighbors. Such workers brought distressing results, and how often the helpless victims were women! Hear these echoes from the gloomy court rooms: "September 17: Nine more received Sentence of Death, viz., Margaret Scot of Rowly, Goodwife Reed of Marblehead, Samuel Wardwell, and Mary Parker of Andover, also Abigail Falkner of Andover ... Rebecka Eames of Boxford, Mary Lacy and Ann Foster of Andover, and Abigail Hobbs of Topsfield. Of these Eight were Executed."[29] And Cotton Mather in a letter to a friend: "Our Good G.o.d is working of Miracles. Five Witches were lately Executed, impudently demanding of G.o.d a Miraculous Vindication of their Innocency."[30]

And yet how absurd was much of the testimony that led to such wholesale murder. We have seen some of it already. Note these words by a witness against Martha Carrier, as presented in Cotton Mather's _Wonders of the Invisible World_: "The devil carry'd them on a pole to a witch-meeting; but the pole broke, and she hanging about Carrier's neck, they both fell down, and she then received an hurt by the fall whereof she was not at this very time recovered.... This rampant hag, Martha Carrier, was the person, of whom the confessions of the witches, and of her own children among the rest, agreed, that the devil had promised her she should be Queen of h.e.l.l."

Here and there a few brave souls dared to protest against the outrage; but they were exceedingly few. Lady Phipps, wife of the governor, risked her life by signing a paper for the discharge of a prisoner condemned for witchcraft. The jailor reluctantly obeyed and lost his position for allowing the prisoner to go; but in after years the act must have been a source of genuine consolation to him. Only fear must have restrained the more thoughtful citizens from similar acts of mercy. Even children were imprisoned, and so cruelly treated that some lost their reason. In the _New England History and General Register_ (XXV, 253) is found this pathetic note: "Dorcas Good, thus sent to prison 'as hale and well as other children,' lay there seven or eight months, and 'being chain'd in the dungeon was so hardly used and terrifyed' that eighteen years later her father alleged 'that she hath ever since been very, chargeable, haveing little or no reason to govern herself.'"[31]

How many extracts from those old writings might be presented to make a graphic picture of that era of horror and bloodshed. No one, no matter what his family, his manner of living, his standing in the community, was safe. Women feared to do the least thing unconventional; for it was an easy task to obtain witnesses, and the most paltry evidence might cause most unfounded charges. And the only way to escape death, be it remembered, was through confession. Otherwise the witch or wizard was still in the possession of the devil, and, since Satan was plotting the destruction of the Puritan church, anything and anybody in the power of Satan must be destroyed. Those who met death were martyrs who would not confess a lie, and such died as a protest against common liberty of conscience. No monument has been erected to their memory, but their names remain in the old annals as a warning against bigotry and fanaticism. Though some suffered the agonies of a horrible death, there were innumerable women who lived and yet probably suffered a thousand deaths in fear and foreboding. Hear once more the words of Robert Calef's ancient book, _More Wonders of the Invisible World_: "It was the latter end of February, 1691, when divers young persons belonging to Mr.

Parris's family, and one or more of the neighbourhood, began to act after a strange and unusual manner, viz., by getting into holes, and creeping under chairs and stools, and to use sundry odd postures and antick gestures, uttering foolish, ridiculous speeches.... The physicians that were called could a.s.sign no reason for this; but it seems one of them ... told them he was afraid they were bewitched....

March the 11th, Mr. Parris invited several neighbouring ministers to join with him in keeping a solemn day of prayer at his own house....

Those ill affected ... first complained of ... the said Indian woman, named t.i.tuba; she confessed that the devil urged her to sign a book ...

and also to work mischief to the children, etc."

"A child of Sarah Good's was likewise apprehended, being between 4 and 5 years old. The accusers said this child bit them, and would shew such like marks, as those of a small set of teeth, upon their arms...."

"March 31, 1692, was set apart as a day of solemn humiliation at Salem ... on which day Abigail Williams said, 'that she saw a great number of persons in the village at the administration of a mock sacrament, where they had bread as red as raw flesh, and red drink.'"

The husband of Mrs. Cary, who afterwards escaped, tells this: "Having been there [in prison] one night, next morning the jailer put irons on her legs (having received such a command); the weight of them was about eight pounds: these with her other afflictions soon brought her into convulsion fits, so that I thought she would have died that night. I sent to entreat that the irons might be taken off; but all entreaties were in vain...."

"John Proctor and his wife being in prison, the sheriff came to his house and seized all the goods, provisions and cattle ... and left nothing in the house for the support of the children...."

"Old Jacobs being condemned, the sheriff and officers came and seized all he had; his wife had her wedding ring taken from her ... and the neighbours in charity relieved her."

"The family of the Putnams ... were chief prosecutors in this business."

"And now nineteen persons having been hanged, and one pressed to death, and eight more condemned, in all twenty and eight ... about fifty having confessed ... above an hundred and fifty in prison, and above two hundred more accused; the special commission of oyer and terminer comes to a period...."

During the summer of 1692 the disastrous material and financial results of the reign of terror became so evident that the shrewd business sense of the colonist became alarmed. Harvests were ungathered, fields and cattle were neglected, numerous people sold their farms and moved southward; some did not await the sale but abandoned their property. The thirst for blood could not last, especially when it threatened commercial ruin. Moreover, the accusers at length aimed too high; accusations were made against persons of rank, members of the governor's family, and even the relatives of the pastors themselves. "The killing time lasted about four months, from the first of June to the end of September, 1692, and then a reaction came because the informers began to strike at important persons, and named the wife of the governor. Twenty persons had been put to death ... and if the delusion had lasted much longer under the rules of evidence that were adopted everybody in the colony except the magistrates and ministers would have been either hung or would have stood charged with witchcraft."[32]

The Puritan clergymen have been severely blamed for this strange wave of fanaticism, and no doubt, as leaders in the movement, they were largely responsible; but even their power and authority could never have caused such wide-spread terror, had not the women of the day given such active aid. The feminine soul, with its long pent emotions, craved excitement, and this was an opportunity eagerly seized upon. As Fisher says, "As their religion taught them to see in human nature only depravity and corruption, so in the outward nature by which they were surrounded, they saw forewarnings and signs of doom and dread. Where the modern mind now refreshes itself in New England with the beauties of the seash.o.r.e, the forest, and the sunset, the Puritan saw only threatenings of terror."[33]

We cannot doubt in most instances the sincerity of these men and women, and in later days, when confessions of rash and hasty charges of action were made, their repentance was apparently just as sincere. Judge Sewall, for instance, read before the a.s.sembled congregation his pet.i.tion to G.o.d for forgiveness. "In a short time all the people recovered from their madness, [and] admitted their error.... In 1697 the General Court ordered a day of fasting and prayer for what had been done amiss in the 'late tragedy raised among us by Satan.' Satan was the scapegoat, and nothing was said about the designs and motives of the ministers."[34] Possibly it was just as well that Satan was blamed; for the responsibility is thus s.h.i.+fted for one of the most hideous pages in American history.

_IX. Religion Outside of New England_

Apparently it was only under Puritanism that the colonial woman really suffered through the requirements of her religion. In other colonies there may have been those who felt hampered and restrained; but certainly in New York, Pennsylvania, and the Southern provinces, there was no creed that made life an existence of dread and fear. In most parts of the South the Established Church of England was the authorized, or popular, religious inst.i.tution, and it would seem that the women who followed its teachings were as reverent and pious, if not so full of the fear of judgment, as their sisters to the North. The earliest settlers of Virginia dutifully observed the customs and ceremonies of the established church, and it was the dominant form of religion in Virginia and the Carolinas throughout the colonial era. John Smith has left the record of the first place and manner of divine wors.h.i.+p in Virginia: "Wee did hang an awning, which is an old saile, to three or four trees to shadow us from the Sunne; our walls were railes of Wood; our seats unhewed trees till we cut plankes; our Pulpit a bar of wood nailed to two neighbouring trees. In foul weather we s.h.i.+fted into an old rotten tent; this came by way of adventure for new. This was our Church till we built a homely thing like a barne set upon Cratchets, covered with rafts, sedge, and earth; so also was the walls; the best of our houses were of like curiosity.... Yet we had daily Common Prayer morning and evening; every Sunday two sermons; and every three months a holy Communion till our Minister died: but our Prayers daily with an Homily on Sundays wee continued two or three years after, till more Preachers came."

According to Bruce's _Inst.i.tutional History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century_[35] it would seem that the early Virginians were as strict as the New Englanders about the matter of church attendance and Sabbath observance. When we come across the notation that "Sarah Purdy was indicted 1682 for sh.e.l.ling corn on Sunday," we may feel rather sure that during at least the first eighty years of life about Jamestown Sunday must have been indeed a day of rest. Says Bruce: "The first General a.s.sembly to meet in Virginia pa.s.sed a law requiring of every citizen attendance at divine services on Sunday. The penalty imposed was a fine, if one failed to be present. If the delinquent was a freeman he was to be compelled to pay three s.h.i.+llings for each offense, to be devoted to the church, and should he be a slave he was to be sentenced to be whipped."[36]

In Georgia and the Carolinas of the later eighteenth century the influence of Methodism--especially after the coming of Wesley and Whitefield--was marked, while the Scotch Presbyterian and the French Huguenots exercised a wholesome effect through their strict honesty and upright lives. Among these two latter sects women seem to have been very much in the back-ground, but among the Methodists, especially in Georgia, the influence of woman in the church was certainly noticeable.

There was often in the words and deeds of Southern women in general a note of confident trust in G.o.d's love and in a joyous future life, rather lacking in the writings of New England. Eliza Pinckney, for instance, when but seventeen years old, wrote to her brother George a long letter of advice, containing such tender, yet almost exultant language as the following: "To be conscious we have an Almighty friend to bless our Endeavours, and to a.s.sist us in all Difficulties, gives rapture beyond all the boasted Enjoyments of the world, allowing them their utmost Extent & fulness of joy. Let us then, my dear Brother, set out right and keep the sacred page always in view.... G.o.d is Truth itself and can't reveal naturally or supernaturally contrarieties."[37a]

There is a sweet reasonableness about this, very refres.h.i.+ng after an investigation of witches or myriads of devils, and, on the whole, we find much more sanity in the Southern relations.h.i.+p between religion and life than in the Northern. While there was some bickering and quarreling, especially after the arrival of Whitefield; yet such disputes do not seem to have left the bitterness and suspicion that followed in the trail of the church trials in Ma.s.sachusetts. Indeed, various creeds must have lived peacefully side by side; for the colonial surveyor, de Brahm, speaks of nine different sects in a town of twelve thousand inhabitants, and makes this further comment: "Yet are (they) far from being incouraged or even inclined to that disorder which is so common among men of contrary religious sentiments in other parts of the world.... (The) inhabitants (were) from the beginning renound for concord, compleasance, courteousness and tenderness towards each other, and more so towards foreigners, without regard or respect of nature and religion."[37b]

Perhaps, however, by the middle of the eighteenth century religious sanity had become the rule both North and South; for there are many evidences at that later period of a trust in the mercy of G.o.d and comfort in His authority. We find Abigail Adams, whose letters cover the last twenty-five years of the eighteenth century, saying, "That we rest under the shadow of the Almighty is the consolation to which I resort and find that comfort which the world cannot give."[38] And Martha Was.h.i.+ngton, writing to Governor Trumbull, after the death of her husband, says: "For myself I have only to bow with humble submission to the will of that G.o.d who giveth and who taketh away, looking forward with faith and hope to the moment when I shall be again united with the partner of my life."[39] In the hour when the long struggle for independence was opening, Mercy Warren could write in all confidence to her husband, "I somehow or other feel as if all these things were for the best--as if good would come out of evil--we may be brought low that our faith may not be in the wisdom of men, but in the protecting providence of G.o.d."[40] Among the Dutch of New York religion, like eating, drinking and other common things of life, was taken in a rather matter-of-fact way. Seldom indeed did these citizens of New Amsterdam become so excited about doctrine as to quarrel over it; they were too well contented with life as it was to contend over the life to be. Mrs.

Grant in _Memoirs of an American Lady_ has left us many intimate pictures of the life in the Dutch colony. She and her mother joined her father in New York in 1758, and through her residence at Claverach, Albany, and Oswego gained thorough knowledge of the people, their customs, social life and community ideas and ideals. Of their relation to church and creed she remarks: "Their religion, then, like their original national character, had in it little of fervor or enthusiasm; their manner of performing religious duties regular and decent, but calm, and to more ardent imaginations might appear mechanical.... If their piety, however, was without enthusiasm it was also without bigotry; they wished others to think as they did, without showing rancor or contempt toward those who did not.... That monster in nature, an impious woman, was never heard of among them."[41]

Unlike the New England clergyman, the New York parson was almost without power of any sort, and was at no time considered an authority in politics, sickness, witchcraft, or domestic affairs. Mrs. Grant was surprised at his lack of influence, and declared: "The dominees, as these people call their ministers, contented themselves with preaching in a sober and moderate strain to the people; and living quietly in the retirement of their families, were little heard of but in the pulpit; and they seemed to consider a studious privacy as one of their chief duties."[42] However, it was only in New England and possibly in Virginia for a short time, that church and state were one, and this may account for much of the difference in the att.i.tudes of the preachers. In New York the church was absolutely separate from the government, and unless the pastor was a man of exceedingly strong personality, his influence was never felt outside his congregation.

In conclusion, what may we say as to the general status of the colonial woman in the church? Only in the Quaker congregation and possibly among the Methodists in the South did colonial womanhood successfully a.s.sert itself, and take part in the official activities of the inst.i.tution. In the Episcopal church of Virginia and the Carolinas, the Catholic Church of Maryland and Louisiana, and the Dutch church of New York, women were quiet onlookers, pious, reverent, and meek, freely acknowledging G.o.d in their lives, content to be seen and not heard. In the Puritan a.s.sembly, likewise, they were, on the surface at least, meek, silent, docile; but their silence was deceiving, and, as shown in the witchcraft catastrophe, was but the silence of a smouldering volcano. In the eighteenth century, the womanhood of the land became more a.s.sertive, in religion as in other affairs, and there is no doubt that Mercy Warren, Eliza Pinckney, Abigail Adams, and others mentioned in these pages were thinkers whose opinions were respected by both clergy and laymen. The Puritan preacher did indeed declare against speech by women in the church, and demanded that if they had any questions, they should ask their husbands; but there came a time, and that quickly, when the voice of woman was heard in the blood of Salem's dead.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Reprinted in _English Garner_, Vol. II, p. 429.

[2] Vol. I, p. 101.

[3] Sewall's _Diary_, Vol. I, p. 40.

[4] _Ibid._, Vol. I, p. 111.

[5] _Ibid._, Vol. I, p. 167.

[6] _Diary_, Vol. I, p. 116.

[7] _Diary_, Vol. III, p. 71.

[8] Original Narratives of Early Am. Hist., Narratives of the Witchcraft Cases. p. 96, 97.

[9] Winthrop: _Hist. of N.E._, Vol. II, p. 36.