On several occasions, onlookers pelted the pilloried prisoner so enthusiastically with heavy missiles that death resulted. Martha Corey also spelled Cory and Rebecca Nurse. They had also been accused by Ann Putnam, Jr. Both women were upstanding members of the community, yet they were also outspoken in their opposition to the witch-hunts. Corey, who was sixty-five years old, was the fourth person and the first church member to be named as a witch.
Nurse was seventy-one, deaf, and bedridden. They were arrested and eventually executed on the basis of the Putnams' charges against them. Medicine was based on the thought that everything consists of earth, water, air and fire. Later this notion was applied to the four body fluids, or humors : phlegm, blood, yellow bile, and black bile.
Because of the influences the humors had on each other, a certain balance would be created. This was called the temperament, unique for each individual. The treatment of the patient was completely based on his temperament.
These ideas would stay essential to medicine throughout the 18 th century. Doctors: There were many folk practitioners and quacks among the colonists.
The need for medical care was high and academic medicine often could not prevent or cure diseases, so people turned to anyone who claimed to be qualified. The difference between a charlatan and a qualified practitioner had more to do with motivation and fees than with the outcome of the cure.
Cures: In a time were people could or would not always turn to a qualified practitioner, many relied on home remedies. Housewives, as well as other practitioners, often had herb gardens that provided medicinal ingredients.
Everyone in the 17 th century, regardless of sex, class, or status, would have some form of working knowledge of herbal medicine and how to use it. See here for details. Details here. University of Houston Dramaturgy Wiki Explore. Wiki Content. Explore Wikis Community Central. Register Don't have an account? Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free! Log in Sign Up.
More Words At Play. Merriam-Webster's Words of the Week - Oct. Merriam-Webster's Words of the Week - Nov. Time Traveler. Love words? Need even more definitions? The punishment for wearing a disguise for lascivious ends was a public whipping or a fine of fifty shillings for the first offence.
A second offence increased the fine to five pounds, and, if the Bench thought it necessary, a "bound to the behauior. The curious thing about this legislation is that no case of disguises being worn by masked lovers appears in the court records.
The absence of such data indicates that some degree of detail is missing from the written account of the court cases. In June of , the General Court passed the final piece of legislation concerning sexual misconduct. It stated "that whosoeuer haueing comitted vncleanes in another Collonie and shall come hither and haue not satisfyed the law where the fact was comitted they shalbe sent backe or heer punished according to the Nature of the crime as if the acte had bine heer done" PCR The motivation for the development of this law suggests to me that one or several persons from neighboring colonies may have fled to Plymouth upon conviction of a sexual offence elsewhere.
Regardless, this enactment clearly indicates that Plymouth Colony was not about to be a safe harbor to those it deemed moral deviants.
In the sections below, I examine the actual court cases of sexual misconduct in Plymouth Colony between and I have grouped the cases into eight categories of capital and criminal offences. The categories roughly include: sodomy, rape, buggery, adultery, fornication, attempts and propositions, lascivious and suspicious conduct, and miscellaneous sexual offences.
I recognize that these categories are not clearly distinct -- some cases fall into more than one category and, in others, the wording of the case is vague. Only one clear case of sodomy appears in the court records of Plymouth colony. The third, John Keene, was propositioned by Edward Preston, but "he resisted the temptacion, and vsed meanes to discouer it. Both men were sentenced to a double whipping, once at Plymouth and a second time at Barnestable. John Keene, since he resisted the temptation and apparently brought the crime to the knowledge of the court, was "appoynted to stand by" while the other two men received their punishment.
Upon first reading, this seems like a strange ruling on the part of the Court. Why did they particularly want Keene to be present? The answer may lie in the final phrase of John Keene's ruling -- "though in some thing he was faulty" PCR Perhaps the means used to discover the crime involved a lesser degree of immoral behavior, and the Court's ruling was a punishment.
While the Court recognized Keene's desire to bring this crime to justice, they did not disregard his actions. While not directly labeled in the records as a case of sodomy, it is clearly an act of homosexual behavior.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines sodomy as "an unnatural form of sexual intercourse, esp. The said John Allexander was therefore censured by the Court to be seuerely whipped, and burnt in the shoulder w[ith] a hot iron, and to be perpetually banished the gouernment of New Plymouth, and if he be at any tyme found w[ith]in the same, to bee whipped out againe by the appoyntment of the next justice, et cetera, and so as oft as he shall be found w[ith]in this gouernment.
W[hich] penalty was accordingly inflicted. Thomas Roberts was censured to be severely whipt, and to returne to his m[aster], Mr. Atwood, and to serue out his tyme w[ith] him, but to be disabled hereby to enjoy any lands w[ith]in this gouernment, except hee manefest better desert. PCR The punishment inflicted on John Allexander -- severe whipping, branding, and banishment -- speaks to the severity of his crime in the eyes of the Court.
However, he was not put to death. Roberts' punishment resembles that of Michell and Preston. While he was not whipped a second time, his prospects for owning land after his time of indenture were placed in jeopardy. David Hackett Fischer traces the Puritan disdain for sodomy and all forms of "unnatural sex" to a passage in the book of Genesis, "where Onan 'spilled his seed upon the ground' in an effort to prevent conception and the Lord slew him.
The story from the book of Genesis explains why both sodomy and buggery might have been listed as crimes punishable by death. The ruling for John Allexander seems to rank very high on the list of criminal punishments. I have encountered only one criminal punishment that was more severe, that being for buggery see below. The punishment inflicted on Edward Michell and Edward Preston was severe, but nowhere close to a death sentence. As I will show below, some cases of adultery -- a crime "to be punished" -- were punished more severely than this particular instance of sodomy.
Two rape cases survive in the court records of Plymouth Colony. Rape is the second of the three crimes listed as punishable by death, but neither case resulted in capital punishment. The first case was presented before the Court of Assistants on October 30, Ambrose Fish was indicted "for that hee, haueing not the feare of God before his eyes, did wickedly, and contrary to the order of nature,.
Eugene Aubrey Stratton, while not reliable on all matters concerning Plymouth, suggests that Ambrose Fish may have been Lydia's brother Nevertheless, his sentence was based on the Court's requirement of two witnesses for capital crimes. Since Lydia was the only witness, Ambrose was sentenced to a whipping at the post instead of capital punishment.
The second case raises some interesting issues. The jury found Sam "guilty by his owne confession, in wickedly abusing the body of Sarah Freeman by laying her downe vpon her backe, and entering her body with his. However, the ruling reads as follows, "although in an ordinary consideration hee deseued death, yett considering hee was but an Indian, and therfore in an incapasity to know the horiblenes of the wickednes of this abominable act, with other cercomstances considered, hee was centanced by the Court to be seuerly whipt att the post and sent out of country" PCR Stratton sees this case as evidence of differential treatment of Native Americans and colonists in the upholding of the law , but one case does not make a pattern.
Two things must be kept in mind. From my scanning of the records, Native Americans were treated as equals in all other matters of the court. Furthermore, only one person was ever put to death for a sexual crime in the history of the colony -- the buggery case of Thomas Graunger.
I have to wonder if the case would have turned out any differently if the man had been white. Since there are so few cases in the records, reaching a conclusion is difficult. Another concern arises from the case of Sam. Colonial historians agree that rape was not a cultural practice of Native Americans. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich writes that this fact astonished the Puritans of New England: they were "amazed at the sexual restraint of Indian men, who never raped their captives" , Is Sam's case the only recorded Native American rape of an English woman, or was the "rape" contrived by Sarah?
The court records indicate that Sam confessed to sexual intercourse with Sarah, but, if rape was unknown to him, how did he know what he was confessing to?
Was Sam fluent in English, or did the translator do a little of his own interpreting? Since no other witnesses spoke to the truth of the occurrence, we must not dismiss the possibility that Sam, while he may be guilty of fornication, was not guilty of rape. Perhaps the best known sexual offence in the history of Plymouth Colony is the case of young Thomas Graunger who was found guilty of "buggery with a mare, a cowe, two goats, diuers sheepe, two calues, and a turkey" and sentenced to death by hanging PCR The actual court account of this case is very brief, but William Bradford describes it at length in Plymouth Plantation: He [Thomas Granger] was this year detected of buggery, and indicted for the same, with a mare, a cow, two goats, five sheep, two calves and a turkey.
Horrible it is to mention, but the truth of the history requires it. He was first discovered by one that accidentally saw his lewd practice towards the mare. I forbear particulars. Being upon it examined and committed, in the end he not only confessed the fact with that beast at that time, but sundry times before and at several times with all the rest of the forenamed in his indictment.
And this his free confession was not only in private to the magistrates though at first he strived to deny it but to sundry, both ministers and others; and afterwards, upon his indictment, to the whole Court and jury; and confirmed it at his execution. And whereas some of the sheep could not so well be known by his description of them, others with them were brought before him and he declared which were they and which were not.
And accordingly he was cast by the jury and condemned, and after executed about the 8th of September, A very sad spectacle it was. For first the mare and then the cow and the rest of the lesser cattle were killed before his face, according to the law, Leviticus xx. The cattle were all cast into a great and large pit that was digged of purpose for them, and no use made of any part of them. Leviticus of the King James Bible reads, "and if a man lie with a beast, he shall surely be put to death: and ye shall slay the beast.
God's law dictated that a buggerer must be put to death, and the unfortunate animal must be slain. In the first case of buggery to be heard before the court, the ruling was based on this law. However, the tone of Bradford's rendition of the execution is not one of a man who rejoices in the playing out of justice.
Rather, he is sad that such a case ever came before the Court. Bradford follows the story by questioning "how came it to pass" that such wickedness appears in the colony I cannot determine whether the bitch in question was a female dog or a lewd woman.
The Oxford English Dictionary lists both definitions as appropriate for the period. In either case, no mention is ever made about this case in a future court. The final case of bestiality to appear before the court concerned Thomas Saddeler, who was arraigned for buggering a mare in October of Thomas Saddeler, thou art indited.
PCR Not surprisingly, considering what happened to Granger, Saddeler pleaded not guilty and the case went before a jury of twelve men. The jury found him guilty "of vile, abominable, and presumtuous attempts to buggery with a mare in the highest nature. He was "to be seuerly whipt att the post, and to sitt on the galloss with a rope about his necke during the pleasure of the Court, and to be branded in the forehead with a Roman P to signify his abominable pollution, and soe to depart this gouernment" PCR Saddeler's sentence resembles the punishment inflicted on John Allexander for "spilling his seed," but, in two notable ways, it was more severe.
Saddeler's brand was on his forehead rather than his shoulder, and he was forced to sit in the gallows with a rope around his neck. The later speaks to the severity of his crime. He was not sentenced to death, but he was not to forget that his crime was punishable by death. The explanation for the "lighter" sentence is that Saddeler was found guilty of "attempts to buggery," not a committed act of buggery. In a letter from William Bradford to Richard Bellingham, Bradford offered his opinion that although an attempted crime may be equal in the eyes of God, he does not believe that a magistrate should have the power to sentence the individual to death In this passage, I see a distinction between the ideal law of God and the law of the Court.
Leviticus reads, "the man that committeth adultery with another man's wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.
However, why was the law qualified with the phrase "to be punished? I believe that the following verses may explain the confusion reflected in the codification of laws. If a man be found lying with a woman married to an husband, then they shall both of them die, both the man that lay with the woman, and the woman: so shalt thou put away evil from Israel.
If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her; Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city; and the man, because he hath humbled his neighbour's wife: so thou shalt put away evil from among you.
But if a man find a betrothed damsel in the field, and the man force her, and lie with her: then the man only that lay with her shall die: But unto the damsel thou shalt do nothing; there is in the damsel no sin worthy of death: for as when a man riseth against his neighbour, and slayeth him, even so is this matter: For he found her in the field, and the betrothed damsel cried, and there was none to save her. According to the Bible, betrothed women who were raped and protested could not be put to death for an act of adultery.
The passage does not specify what should happen to a married woman if she cries out. Like Hebrew law, seventeenth century Puritans defined adultery as any act of fornication with a married or betrothed woman. The definition has serious implications not only for the people living under the law, but also for the interpretation of the Plymouth court data.
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