Woman's Life in Colonial Days by Carl Holliday

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Though woman might not speak or hold office in the Church, yet she was
not by any means denied the ordinary privileges and comforts of
religious worship, but rather was encouraged to gather with her sisters
in informal seasons of prayer and meditation. The good wives are
commended in many of the writings of the day for general charity work
connected with the church, and are mentioned frequently as being present
at the evening assemblies similar to our modern prayer meetings. Cotton
Mather makes this notation in his _Essays to do Good_, published in
1710: "It is proposed, That about twelve families agree to meet (the men
and their wives) at each other's houses, in rotation, once in a
fortnight or a month, as shall be thought most proper, and spend a
suitable time together in religious exercises." Even when women ventured
to hold formal religious meetings there was at first little or no
protest. According to Hutchinson's _History of Massachusetts Bay_, when
Anne Hutchinson, that creator of religious strife and thorn in the side
of the Elders, conducted assemblies for women only, there was even
praise for the innovation. It was only when this leader criticised the
clergy that silence was demanded. "Mrs. Hutchinson thought fit to set up
a meeting for the sisters, also, where she repeated the sermons preached
the Lord's day before, adding her remarks and expositions. Her lectures
made much noise, and fifty or eighty principal women attended them. At
first they were generally approved of."

Only when the decency and the decorum of the colony was threatened did
the stern laws of the church descend upon Mistress Hutchinson and her
followers. It was doubtless the riotous conduct of these radicals that
caused the resolution to be passed by the assembly in 1637, which
stated, according to Winthrop: "That though women might meet (some few
together) to pray and edify one another; yet such a set assembly, (as
was then in practice at Boston), where sixty or more did meet every
week, and one woman (in a prophetical way, by resolving questions of
doctrine, and expounding scripture) took upon her the whole exercise,
was agreed to be disorderly, and without rule."

Among the Quakers women's meetings were common; for equality of the
sexes was one of their teachings. In the _Journal_ of George Fox
(1672) we come across this statement: "We had a Mens-Meeting and a
Womens-Meeting.... On the First of these Days the Men and Women had
their Meetings for Business, wherein the Affairs of the Church of God
were taken care of." Moreover, what must have seemed an abomination to
the Puritan Fathers, these Quakers allowed their wives and mothers to
serve in official capacities in the church, and permitted them to take
part in the quarterly business sessions. Thus, John Woolman in his
_Diary_ says: "We attended the Quarterly meeting with Ann Gaunt and
Mercy Redman." "After the quarterly meeting of worship ended I felt
drawings to go to the Women's meeting of business which was very
full." What was especially shocking to their Puritan neighbors was the
fact that these Quakers allowed their women to go forth as missionary
speakers, and, as in the case of Mary Dyer, to invade the sacred
precincts of the Massachusetts Bay Colony to proselyte to Quakerism.

_VII. Female Rebellion_

But those Puritan colonists had far greater troubles to harass them than
the few quiet Quaker women who were moved by Inner Light to speak in the
village streets. One of these troubles we have touched upon--the Rise of
the Antinomians, or the disturbance caused by Anne Hutchinson. The other
was the Salem Witchcraft proceedings. In both of these women were
directly concerned, and indeed were at the root of the disturbances. Let
us examine in some detail the influence of Puritan womanhood in these
social upheavals that shook the foundations of church rule in New
England.

While most of the women of the Puritan colonies seem to have been too
busy with their household duties and their numerous children to concern
themselves extensively with public affairs, there was this one woman,
Anne Hutchinson, who has gained lasting fame as the cause of the
greatest religious and political disturbance occurring in Massachusetts
before the days of the Revolution. Many are the references in the early
writers to this radical leader and her followers. Some of the most
prominent men and women in the colony were inclined to follow her, and
for a time it appeared that hers was to be the real power of the day;
great was the excitement. Thomas Hutchinson in his _History of
Massachusetts Bay Colony_, told of her trial and banishment:
"Countenanced and encouraged by Mr. Vane and Mr. Cotton, she advanced
doctrines and opinions which involved the colony in disputes and
contensions; and being improved to civil as well as religious purposes,
had like to have produced ruin both to church and state."

Anne Hutchinson was the daughter of Francis Marbury, a prominent
clergyman of Lincolnshire, England. Intensely religious as a child, she
was deeply influenced when a young woman by the preaching of John
Cotton. The latter, not being able to worship as he wished in England,
moved to the Puritan colony in the New World, and Anne Hutchinson, upon
her arrival at Boston, frankly confessed that she had crossed the sea
solely to be under his preaching in his new home.

Many of the prominent men of the community soon became her followers:
Sir Harry Vane, Governor of the colony; her brother-in-law, the Rev.
John Wheelwright; William Coddington, a magistrate of Boston; and even
Cotton himself, leader of the church and supposedly orthodox of the
orthodox. That this was enough to turn the head of any woman may well be
surmised, especially when we remember that she was presumed to be the
silent and weaker vessel,--to find suddenly learned men and even the
greatest clergymen of the community sitting at her feet and hearing her
doctrines. It is difficult to determine the real state of affairs
concerning this woman and her teachings. Nothing unless, possibly the
witchcraft delusion at Salem, excited the colony as did this
disturbance in both church and state. While much has been written, so
much of partisanship is displayed in all the statements that it is with
great difficulty that we are able really to separate the facts from
jealousy and bitterness. During the first few months of her stay she
seems to have been commended for her faithful attendance at church, her
care of the sick, and her benevolent attitude toward the community. Even
her meetings for the sisters were praised by the pastors. But, not
content with holding meetings for her neighbors, she criticised the
preachers and their teachings. This was especially irritating to the
good Elders, because woman was supposed to be the silent member in the
household and meeting-house, and not capable of offering worthy
criticism. But even then the matter might have been passed in silence if
the church and state had not been one, and the pastors politicians.
Hutchinson, a kinsman of the rebellious leader, says in his _History of
Massachusetts Bay_:

"It is highly probable that if Mr. Vane had remained in England, or had
not craftily made use of the party which maintained these peculiar
opinions in religion, to bring him into civil power and authority and
draw the affections of the people from those who were their leaders into
the wilderness, these, like many other errors, might have prevailed a
short time without any disturbance to the state, and as the absurdity of
them appeared, silently subsided, and posterity would not have known that
such a woman as Mrs. Hutchinson ever existed.... It is difficult to
discover, from Mr. Cotton's own account of his principles published ten
years afterwards, in his answer to Bailey, wherein he differed from
her.... He seems to have been in danger when she was upon trial. The ...
ministers treated him coldly, but Mr. Winthrop, whose influence was now
greater than ever, protected him."

Just what were Anne Hutchinson's doctrines no one has ever been able to
determine; even Winthrop, a very able, clear-headed man who was well
versed in Puritan theology, and who was one of her most powerful
opponents, said he was unable to define them. "The two capital errors
with which she was charged were these: That the Holy Ghost dwells
personally in a justified person; and that nothing of sanctification can
help to evidence to believers their justification."[16]

Her teachings were not unlike those of the Quietists and that of the
"Inner Light," set forth by the Quakers--a doctrine that has always held
a charm for people who enjoy the mystical. But it was not so much the
doctrines probably as the fact that she and her followers were a
disturbing element that caused her expulsion from a colony where it was
vital and necessary to the existence of the settlement that harmony
should prevail. There had been great hardships and sacrifices; even yet
the colony was merely a handful of people surrounded by thousands of
active enemies. If these colonists were to live there must be uniformity
and conformity. "When the Pequots threatened Massachusetts colony a few
men in Boston refused to serve. These were Antinomians, followers of
Anne Hutchinson, who suspected their chaplain of being under a 'Covenant
of works,' whereas their doctrine was one should live under a 'Covenant
of grace.' This is one of the great reasons why they were banished. It
was the very life of the colony that they should have conformity, and
all of them as one man could scarcely withstand the Indians. Therefore
this religious doctrine was working rebellion and sedition, and
endangering the very existence of the state."[17]

Mistress Hutchinson was given a church trial, and after long days of
discussion was banished. Her sentence as recorded stands as follows:
"Mrs. Hutchinson, the wife of Mr. William Hutchinson, being convented
for traducing the ministers and their ministry in the country, she
declared voluntarily her revelation, and that she should be delivered,
and the court ruined with her posterity, and thereupon was
banished."[18] The facts prove that she must have been a woman of
shrewdness, force, personality, intelligence, and endowed with the
ability to lead. At her trial she was certainly the equal of the
ministers in her sharp and puzzling replies. The theological discussion
was exciting and many were the fine-spun, hair-splitting doctrines
brought forward on either side; but to-day the mere reading of them is a
weariness to the flesh.

Anne Hutchinson's efforts, according to some viewpoints, may have been a
failure, but they revealed in unmistakable manner the emotional
starvation of Puritan womanhood. Women, saddened by their hardships,
depressed by their religion, denied an open love for beauty, with none
of the usual food for imagination or the common outlets for emotions,
such as the modern woman has in her magazines, books, theatre and social
functions, flocked with eagerness to hear this feminine radical. They
seemed to realize that their souls were starving for something--they may
not have known exactly what. At first they may have gone to the
assemblies simply because such an unusual occurrence offered at least a
change or a diversion; but a very little listening seems to have
convinced them that this woman understood the female heart far better
than did John Cotton or any other male pastor of the settlements.
Moreover, the theory of "inner light" or the "covenant of grace"
undoubtedly appealed as something novel and refreshing after the
prolonged soul fast under the harshness and intolerance of the
Calvinistic creed. The women told their women friends of the new
theories, and wives and mothers talked of the matter to husbands and
fathers until gradually a great number of men became interested. The
churches of Massachusetts Bay Colony were in imminent danger of losing
their grasp upon the people and the government. It is evident that in
the home at least the Puritan woman was not entirely the silent, meek
creature she was supposed to be; her opinions were not only heard by
husband and father but heeded with considerable respect.

And what became of this first woman leader in America? Whether the fate
of this woman was typical of what was in store for all female speakers
and women outside their place is not stated by the elders; but they were
firm in their belief that her death was an appropriate punishment. She
removed to Rhode Island and later to New York, where she and all her
family, with the exception of one person, were killed by the Indians. As
Thomas Welde says in the preface of _A Short Story of the Rise, Wane
and Ruin of the Antinomians_ (1644): "I never heard that the Indians in
these parts did ever before commit the like outrage upon any one family,
or families; and therefore God's hand is the more apparently seen
herein, to pick out this woful woman, to make her and those belonging to
her an unheard of heavy example of their cruelty above others."

_VIII. Woman and Witchcraft_

It was at staid Boston that Anne Hutchinson marshalled her forces; it
was at peace-loving Salem that the Devil marshalled his witches in a
last despairing onslaught against the saints. To many readers there may
seem to be little or no connection between witchcraft and religion; but
an examination of the facts leading to the execution of the various
martyrs to superstition at Salem will convince the skeptical that there
was a most intimate relationship between the Puritan creed and the
theory of witchcraft.

Looking back after the passing of more than two hundred years, we cannot
but deem it strange that such an enlightened, educated and thoroughly
intelligent folk as the Puritans could have believed in the possession
of this malignant power. Especially does it appear incredible when we
remember that here was a people that came to this country for the
exercise of religious freedom, a citizenship that was descended from men
trained in the universities of England, a stalwart band that under
extreme privation had founded a college within sixteen years after the
settlement of a wilderness. It must be borne in mind, however, that the
Massachusetts colonies were not alone in this belief in witchcraft. It
was common throughout the world, and was as aged as humanity. Deprived
of the aid of modern science in explaining peculiar processes and
happenings, man had long been accustomed to fall back upon devils,
witches, and evil spirits as premises for his arguments. While the
execution of the witch was not so common an event elsewhere in the
world, during the Salem period, yet it was not unknown among so-called
enlightened people. As late as 1712 a woman was burned near London for
witchcraft, and several city clergymen were among the prosecutors.

A few extracts from colonial writings should make clear the attitude of
the Puritan leaders toward these unfortunates accused of being in league
with the devil. Winthrop thus records a case in 1648: "At the court one
Margaret Jones of Charlestown was indicted and found guilty of
witchcraft, and hanged for it. The evidence against her was, that she
was found to have such a malignant touch, as many persons, (men, women,
and children), whom she stroked or touched with any affection or
displeasure, etc., were taken with deafness ... or other violent pains
or sickness.... Some things which she foretold came to pass.... Her
behaviour at her trial was very intemperate, lying notoriously, and
railing upon the jury and witnesses, etc., and in the like distemper she
died. The same day and hour, she was executed, there was a very great
tempest at Connecticut, which blew down many trees, etc."[19]

Whether in North or in South, whether among Protestants or Catholics,
this belief in witchcraft existed. In one of the annual letters of the
"English Province of the Society of Jesus," written in 1656, we find
the following comment concerning the belief among emigrants to Maryland:
"The tempest lasted two months in all, whence the opinion arose, that it
was not raised by the violence of the sea or atmosphere, but was
occasioned by the malevolence of witches. Forthwith they seize a little
old woman suspected of sorcery; and after examining her with the
strictest scrutiny, guilty or not guilty, they slay her, suspected of
this very heinous sin. The corpse, and whatever belonged to her, they
cast into the sea. But the winds did not thus remit their violence, or
the raging sea its threatenings...."[20]

Even in Virginia, where less rigid religious authority existed, it was
not uncommon to hear accusations of sorcery and witchcraft. The form of
hysteria at length reached at Salem was the result of no sudden burst of
terror, but of a long evolution of ideas dealing with the power of
Satan. As early as 1638 Josselyn, a traveler in New England, wrote in
_New England's Rareties Discovered_: "There are none that beg in the
country, but there be witches too many ... that produce many strange
apparitions if you will believe report, of a shallop at sea manned with
women; of a ship and a great red horse standing by the main-mast, the
ship being in a small cove to the eastward vanished of a sudden. Of a
witch that appeared aboard of a ship twenty leagues to sea to a mariner
who took up the carpenter's broad axe and cleft her head with it, the
witch dying of the wound at home."

The religion of Salem and Boston was well fitted for developing this
very theory of malignant power in "possessed" persons. The teachings
that there was a personal devil, that God allowed him to tempt mankind,
that there were myriads of devils under Satan's control at all times,
ever watchful to entrap the unwary, that these devils were rulers over
certain territory and certain types of people--these teachings naturally
led to the assumption that the imps chose certain persons as their very
own. Moreover, the constant reminders of the danger of straying from the
strait and narrow way, and of the tortures of the afterworld led to
self-consciousness, introspection, and morbidness. The idea that Satan
was at all times seeking to undermine the Puritan church also made it
easy to believe that anyone living outside of, or contrary to, that
church was an agent of the devil, in short, bewitched. As it is only the
useful that survives, it was essential that the army of devils be given
a work to do, and this work was evident in the spirit of those who dared
to act and think in non-conformity to the rule of the church. The
devil's ways, too, were beyond the comprehension of man, cunning,
smooth, sly; the most godly might fall a victim, with the terrible
consequence that one might become bewitched and know it not. At this
stage it was the bounden duty of the unfortunate being's church brethren
to help him by inducing him to confess the indwelling of an evil spirit
and thus free himself from the great impostor. And if he did not confess
then it were better that he be killed, lest the devil through him
contaminate all. Why, says Mather, in his _Wonders of the Invisible
World_: "If the devils now can strike the minds of men with any poisons
of so fine a composition and operation, that scores of innocent people
shall unite in confessions of a crime which we see actually committed,
it is a thing prodigious, beyond the wonders of the former ages, and it
threatens no less than a sort of dissolution upon the world."

To avoid or counteract this desolation was the purpose of the legal
proceedings at Salem. It was believed by fairly intelligent people that
Satan carried with him a black book in which he induced his victims to
write their names with their own blood, signifying thereby that they had
given their souls into his keeping, and were henceforth his liegemen.
The rendezvous of these lost and damned was deep in the forest; the time
of meeting, midnight. In such a place and at such an hour the assembly
of witches and wizards plotted against the saints of God, namely, the
Puritans. According to Cotton Mather's _Wonders of the Invisible World_,
at the trial of one of these martyrs to superstition, George Burroughs,
he was accused by eight of the confessing witches "as being the head
actor at some of their hellish rendezvouzes, and one who had the promise
of being a king in Satan's kingdom, now going to be erected. One of them
falling into a kind of trance affirmed that G.B. had carried her away
into a very high mountain, where he shewed her mighty and glorious
kingdoms, and said, 'he would give them all to her, if she would write
in his book.'"

In such an era, of course, the attempt was too often made to explain
events, not in the light of common reason but as visitations of God to
try the faith of the folk, or as devices of Satan to tempt them from the
narrow Path. Such an affliction as "nerves" was not readily
acknowledged, and anyone subject to fits or nervous disorders, or any
child irritable or tempestuous might easily be the victim of witchcraft.
Note what Increase Mather has to say on the matter when explaining the
case of the children of John Goodwin of Boston: "...In the day time
they were handled with so many sorts of Ails, that it would require of
us almost as much time to Relate them all, as it did of them to Endure
them. Sometimes they would be Deaf, sometimes Dumb, and sometimes Blind,
and often, all this at once.... 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...."[21]

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
attitude toward physical and mental ailments. The usual safety vents of
modern society, the common functions we may class 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 hellish is the Crime of Witchcraft, that were
Gods Thoughts as our thoughts, or Gods Wayes as our wayes, it could be
no other, but Unpardonable. But that Grace of God may be admired, and
that the worst of Sinners may be encouraged, Behold, Witchcraft also has
found a Pardon.... From the Hell 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 superstition 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, Mass. brought about by a
negro woman and a company of girls. The negress, Tituba, was a slave,
whom Rev. Samuel Parris, one of the ministers of Salem, had purchased in
Barbadoes. We may think of Tituba 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 Tituba'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. Tituba 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 Osbum, and
Tituba, 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]

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