UNIT 1 - AP US READER

Mayflower Compact (I\lovember 11, 1620)...... 1

"Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress," Howard Zinn...... 2-5

Sample FRQs...... 6 (pkt)

f. FRQ rubric c;;;.c'..:...... 7 ,.~ . ....:.",! Slavery in Colonial America ·...... 8-13 ..t

A Midwife's Tale excerpt (the diary of Martha Ballard)...... 14 (pkt)

Salem WitEh Trials documents ::: -...... 15 (pkt)

Colonial Map Analysis...... 16-21

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, Jonathan Edwards (1741)...... 22-23 ~33 D~~ aq Plantation Covenants ients, 1584-1660: Legal Foundations

and Rhode Island were more elaborate. s cifying the details of the organi arts and Parcels of the Premises, to any erson or Persons tion of government as well as the distri tion and limitations of power I ch in ase the same, as they shall think conv nient, to have and the manner of modern constituti s. The first of these-reputed the first me Person or Persons willing to tak r purchase the same, written constitution to create government-was the Fundame al Orders of eir Heirs and Assigns, in Fee-s' pIe, or Fee-tail, or for Connecticut, adopted by th reemen of the Connecticui tow on January 14, ives or Years; to hold of the af esaid now Baron of Balti­ 1639. On the nature and:e ignificance of these early cOllen ts, see the provoca­ l and Assigns, by so many, uch, and so great Services, tive comments in H nah Arendt. On Revolution 963). Also helpful is ents of this Kind, as to the arne now Baron of Baltimore, Benjamin F. Wri t. Jr .. "The Eorly History 0 Written Constitutions in .ssigns, shall seem fit and greeable.... America," in C I Wittke (ed.), Essays in Hi ory and Political Theory in do give and grant Lice e to the same Baron of Baltimore, Honor of Ch es Howard McIlwain (1936) 'ges 344-371. s, to erect any Parce of Land within the Province afore­ ors, and in every 0 those Manors, to have and to hold a nd all Things whi to a Court Baron do belong; and t ~ A 0 MAY FL OWERe 0 M PAC T (N 0 V. 1 1 I 1 6 2 0) ep View of Fran -Pledge, for the Conservation of the Pe e ernment of tho e Parts, by themselves and their Stew. rds, IN THE NAME OF GOD, AMEN. We, 'whose names are underwritten, the ds, for the me being to be deputed, of other those LOyal SUtljMis or our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of they shall constituted, and in the same to e rcise all God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, De~of the Fqith,/ 'iew of Fran Pledge belong.... &c. Havin undertaken for the Glor and Advancement of the We will, and do, by these Presents, for Us, Christian Faith, an the Honour of our King and Country, a oyage to 'enant and grant to, and with the aforesai now Baron of pfant the first Colony in the northern Parts of Virginia; Do by these Heirs and Assigns, that We, our Heirs and Successors, Presents, solemnly and mutually, in the Presence of God and one another, drafter, will impose, or make or cause 0 be imposed any covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for our ustoms, or other Taxations, Quotas, 0 Contributions what­ better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance of the Ends aforesaid: oon the Residents or Inhabitants of e Province aforesaid And by Virtue hereof do enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal l, Lands, or Tenements within the same Province, or upon Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions, and Officers, from time to time, as l, Lands, Goods or Chattels wit n the Province aforesaid, shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general Good of the my Goods or Merchandizes wi in the Province aforesaid, Colony; unto which we promise all due S~missiQrj and Qbe~e. IN Ports or Harbors of the said rovince, to be laden or un­ WITNESS whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape.Cod the eleventh of November, in the Reign of our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland, the fifty­ fourth, Anno Domini, 1620. MR. JOHN CARVER, MR. SAMUEL FULLER, EDWARD TILLY, MR. WILLIAM BRADFORD, MR. CHRISTOPHER MARTIN, JOHN TILLY, MR. EDWARD WINSLOW, MR. WILLIAM MULLINS, FRANCIS COOKE, MR. WILLIAM BREWSTER, MR. WILLIAM WHITE, THOMAS ROGERS, ISAAC ALLERTON, MR. RICHARD WARREN, THOMAS TINKER, MYLES STANDISH, JOHN HOWLAND, JOHN RIDGDALE, • ,.. JOHN ALDEN, MR. STEVEN HOPKINS, EDWARD FULLER, venants JOHN TURNER, DIGERY PRIEST, RICHARD CLARK, FRANCIS EATON, THOMAS WILLIAMS, RICHARD GARDINER, ements were made. however, by colonists wh either, like the JAMESCHILTON, GILBERT WINSLOW, MR. JOHN ALLERTON, ied and failed to obtain a charter or, like t e settlers of Can­ JOHN CRAXTON, EDMUND MARGESSON, THOMAS ENGLISH, hode Island, had ventured out on their own from an older JOHN BILLINGTON, PETER BROWN, EDWARD DOTEN, legitimacy to their proceedings and to e ablish sufficient order JOSES FLETCHER, RICHARD BRITTERIDGE, EDWARD LIESTER. to live together in peace until they co ld obtain charters, they JOHN GOODMAN, GEORGE SOULE, -enants among themselves in which ey agreed to bind them­ iy politic and mutually promised 0 obey Its laws. The first of '" Reprinted in full from Francis Newton Thorpe (ed.) , Federal and State .n covenants" was the Mayflow. I' Compact, adopted by the Constitutions. Colonial Charters, and Other Organic Laws (7 vols., 1909), vol. III, p, 1841. nouthe on November 11, 1620. ater covenants in Conn.ecticut ., "Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress"

excerpted from A People's History ofthe United States by Howard Zinn

Aralilu men and women, naked, tawny, and full ofwonder, emerged from their villages onto the island's beaches and swam out to get a closer look at the strange big boat. When Columbus and his sailors came ashore, carrying swords, speaking oddly, the Arawaks ran to greet them, brought them food, water, gifts. He later wrote ofthis in his log:

--"-'fhey... brought us parrots and balls ofcotton and .spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass-beads and hawks' bells. They willingly traded everything they owned.... They were well-built, with good .bcdies.and handsome.features' ... They do n-ot bear arms, and do not.know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge 'and cut themselves out ofignorance. They have no iron. Their spears"are made of PfJp~.... Th~y wqW1 make fine servants.... With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want: ...

These Arawaks ofthe BahamaIslands were much like Indians on the mainland, who were remarkable (European observers were to say again and again) for their hospitality, their belief in sharing. These traits did not stand out in the Europ~ ofthe Renaissance, dominated as it was by the religion ofpopes, the government of kings, the frenzy for money that marked Western civilization and its first messenger to the Americas, Christopher Columbus.

Columbus wrote:

"As soon as I arrived in the Indies, on the first Island which I found, I took some ofthe natives by force in order that they might learn and might give me information ofwhatever there is in these parts."

The information that Columbus wanted most was: Where is the gold? ****

The Indians, Columbus reported, "are so naive and so free with their possessions that no one who has not witnessed them would believe it. When you ask for something they have, they never say no. To the contrary,

they offer to share with anyone.... II He concluded his report by asking for a little help from their Majesties, and in return he would bring them from his next voyage lias much gold as they need ... and as many slaves as they ask." He was full ofreligious talk: "Thus the eternal God, our Lord, gives victory to those who follow His way over apparent impossibilities. "

Because ofColumbus's exaggerated report and promises, his second expedition was given seventeen ships and more than twelve hundred men. The aim was clear: slaves and gold. They went from island to island in the Caribbean, taking Indians as captives. But as word spread ofthe Europeans' intent they found more and more empty villages. On Haiti, they found that the sailors left behind at Fort Navidad had been killed in a battle with the Indians, after they had roamed the island in gangs looking for gold, taking women and children as slaves for sex and labor.

Now, from his base on Haiti, Columbus sent expedition after expedition into the interior. They found no gold fields, but had to fill up the ships returning to Spain with some kind ofdividend. In the year 1495, they went on a great slave raid, rounded up fifteen hundred Arawak men, women, and children, put them in pens guarded by Spaniards and dogs, then picked the five hundred best specimens to load onto ships. Ofthose five hundred, two hundred died en route. The rest arrived alive in Spain and were put up for sale by the archdeacon ofthe town, who reported that, although the slaves were "naked as the day they were born," they showed "no more em~IfJ"'lment than animals." Columbus later wrote: "Let us in the name ofthe Holy Trinity go on sending all the 81aves that can be sold. "

But too many ofthe slaves died in captivity. And so Columbus, desperate to pay back dividends to those who had invested, had to make good his promise to fill the ships with gold. In the province of Cicao on Haiti, where he and his men imagined huge gold fields to exist, they ordered all persons fourteen years or older to collect a certain quantity ofgold every three months. When they brought it, they were given copper tokens to hang around their necks. Indians found without a copper token had their hands cut off and bled to death.

The Indians had been given an impossible task. The only gold around was bits ofdust garnered from the streams. So they fled, were hunted down with dogs, and were killed. ~,,:

Trying to put together an army ofresistance, the Arawaks faced Spaniards who had armor, muskets, swords, horses. When the Spaniards took prisoners they hanged them or burned them to death. Among the Arawaks, mass suicides began, with cassava poison. Infants were killed to save them from the Spaniards. In two years, through murder, mutilation, or suicide, half ofthe 250,000 Indians on Haiti were dead.

When it became clear that there was no gold left, the Indians were taken as slave labor on huge estates, known later as encomiendas. They were worked at a ferocious pace, and died by the thousands. By the year 1515, there were perhaps fifty thousand Indians left. By 1550, there were five hundred. A report ofthe year 1650 shows none of the original Arawaks or their descendants left on the island.

The chief source-and, on many matters the only source-of in formation about what happened on the islands after Columbus came is Bartolome de las Casas, who, as a young priest, participated in the conquest of Cuba. For a time he owned a plantation on which Indian slaves worked, but he gave that up and became a vehement critic of Spanish cruelty. *****

In Book Two ofhis History ofthe Indies, Las Casas (who at first urged replacing Indians by black slaves, thinking they were stronger and would survive, but later relented when he saw the effects on blacks) tells about the treatment ofthe Indians by the Spaniards. It is a unique account and deserves to be quoted at length:

"Endless testimonies ... prove the mild and pacific temperament of the natives.... But our work was to exasperate, ravage, kill, mangle and destroy; small wonder, then, ifthey tried to kill one ofus now and then.... The admiral, it is true, was blind as those who came after him, and he was so anxious to please the King that he committed irreparable crimes against the Indians ..."

Las Casas tells how the Spaniards "grew more conceited every day" and after a while refused to walk any distance. They "rode the backs ofIndians ifthey were in a hurry" or were carried on hammocks by Indians running in relays. "In this case they also had Indians carry large leaves to shade them from the sun and others to fan them with goose wings. "

Total controlled to total cruelty. The Spaniards "thought nothing of knifing Indians by tens and twenties and of cutting slices offthem to test the sharpness oftheir blades." Las Casas tells how "two ofthese so-called Christians met two Indian boys one day, each carrying a parrot; they took the parrots and for fun beheaded the boys."

The Indians' attempts to defend themselves failed. And when they ran off into the hills they were found and killed. So, Las Casas reports. "they suffered and died in the mines and other labors in desperate silence, knowing not a soul in the world to whom they could tun for help." He describes their work in the mines: "... mountains are stripped from top to bottom and bottom to top a thousand times; they dig, split rocks, move stones, and carry dirt on their backs to wash it in the rivers, while those who wash gold stay in the water all the time with their backs bent so constantly it breaks them; and when water invades the mines, the most arduous task ofall is to dry the mines by scooping up pansful ofwater and throwing it up outside....

After each six or eight months' work in the mines, which was the time required of each crew to dig enough gold for melting, up to a third ofthe men died. While the men.were sent many miles away to the mines, the wives remained to work the soil, forced into the excruciating job of digging and making thousands of hills for cassava plants.

Thus husbands and wives were together only once every eight or ten months and when they met they w.ere so exhausted and depressed on both sides ... they ceased to procreate. As for the newly born, they died early because their mothers, overworked and famished, had no milk to nurse them, and for this reason, while I was in Cuba, 7000 children died in three months. Some mothers even drowned their babies from sheer desperation. ... In this way, husbands died in the mines, wives died at work, 'and children died from lack of milk ... and in a short time this land which was so great, so powerfulandfertile ... was depopulated .... My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature, and now l tremble as I write...."

When he arrived on Hispaniola in 1508, Las Casas says, "there were 60,000 people living on this island, including the Indians; so that from 1494 to 1508, over three million people had perished from war, slavery, and the mines. Who in future generations will believe this? I myself writing it as a knowledgeable eyewitness can hardly believe it...."

Thus began the history, five hundred years ago, ofthe European invasion ofthe Indian settlements in the Americas. That beginning, when you read Las Casas-even ifhis figures are exaggerations (were there 3 million Indians to begin with, as he says, or less than a million, as some historians have calculated, or 8 million as others now believe?) is conquest, slavery, death. When we read the history books given to children in the United States, it all starts with heroic adventure-there is no bloodshed-and Columbus Day is a celebration.

*****

The treatment ofheroes (Columbus) and their victims (the Arawaks) the quiet acceptance of conquest and murder in the name ofprogress-is only one aspect ofa certain approach to history, in which the past is told from the point ofview ofgovernments, conquerors, diplomats, leaders. It is as ifthey, like Columbus, deserve universal acceptance, as ifthey-the Founding Fathers, Jackson, Lincoln, Wilson, Roosevelt, Kennedy, the leading members ofCongress, the famous Justices ofthe Supreme Court-represent the nation as a whole. The pretense is that there really is such a thing as "the United States," subject to occasional conflicts and quarrels, but fundamentally a community of people with common interests. It is as if there really is a "national interest" represented in the Constitution, in territorial expansion, in the laws passed by Congress, the decisions ofthe courts, the development ofcapitalism, the culture ofeducation and the mass media.

"History is the memory of states," wrote Henry Kissinger in his first book, A World Restored, in which he proceeded to tell the history ofnineteenth-century Europe from the viewpoint ofthe leaders ofAustria and England, ignoring the millions who suffered from those states men's policies. From his standpoint, the "peace" that Europe had before the French Revolution was "restored" by the diplomacy ofa few national leaders.

But for factory workers in England, farmers in France, colored people in Asia and Africa, women and children everywhere except in the upper classes, it was a world ofconquest, violence, hunger, exploitation-a world not restored but disintegrated.

***** When the Pilgrims came to New England they too were coming not to vacant land but to territory inhabited by tribes ofIndians. The governor ofthe Massachusetts Bay Colony, John Winthrop, created the excuse to take Indian land by declaring the area legally a "vacuum." The Indians, he said, had not "subdued" the land, and therefore had only a "natural" right to it, but not a "civil right." A "natural right" did not have legal standing.

The Puritans also appealed to the Bible, Psalms 2:8: "Ask of me, and I shall give thee, the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts ofthe earth for thy possession." And to justify their use offorce to take the land, they cited Romans 13:2: "Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. " *****

The Indian population of 10 million that lived north ofMexico when Columbus came would ultimately be reduced to less than a million. Huge numbers ofIndians would die from diseases introduced by the whites. A Dutch traveler in New Netherland wrote in 1656 that "the Indians ... affirm, that before the arrival ofthe Christians, and before the smallpox broke out amongst them, they were ten times as numerous as they now are, and that their population had been melted down by this disease, whereof nine-tenths ofthem have died." When the English first settled Martha's Vineyard in 1642, the Wampanoags there numbered perhaps three thousand. There were no wars on that island, but by 1764, only 313 Indians were left there. Similarly, Block Island Indians numbered perhaps 1,200 to 1,500 in 1662, and by 1774 were reduced to fifty-one.

Behind the English invasion ofNorth America, behind their massacre ofIndians, their deception, their brutality, was that special powerful drive born in civilizations based on private property. It was a morally ambiguous drive; the need for space, for land, was a real human need. But in conditions of scarcity, in a barbarous epoch of history ruled by competition, this human need was transformed into the murder of whole peoples. Question:

During the past four decades, historians consistently have rated Washington, Lincoln, and Franklin D. Roosevelt as the greatest Presidents. Assess the greatness of any TWO of these three chief executives, making clear the criteria on which you base your judgment.

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2-4 Essay -7 Contains a thesis which may be underdeveloped or contains no thesis. -7 Knowledge of two Presidents. -7 Provides little or no analysis or mostly generalizations. -7 Answer may contain major factual errors.

0-1 Essay Some knowledge of two Presidents. Vague criteria, with little application to the assessment of greatness. Lists or summaries of events. May have major errors.

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Readex Archive of Americana Sample. Readex Archive of Americana Sample. ~ity of New-York, fl. A For Regulating Negroes and Slaves in the Njght Time.

.. . E It OrdtJi1lti by the MaJor, R,ecorder, Aldermm imtl AjJiftants oftht Glty of New- York, c01nJtnrd in Common-Countil, and ,t is htrebJ B Ordainedby theAuthority ~f thefame, That from hence-forth no Negro, M~a~oor Indian Slave, above the Age of F ourteen Years, do prefume to be or appear inanY.of the Streets of this City, on the South-fide of the Frelh­ Water, in the Night time, above an hour after Sun-fet, And .that if any luch N~ro) Mulatto or Indian Slave or Slaves, 'as aforefaid, fhall be found in any of the Streets of this City, or in any other Place, on the South fide of the Frefh-Water, in the Night-time, above one hour after Sun-fer, without a Lanthorn and lighted Candle in ir, fa as the light thereof may be plainly feen (and not in company, with his, her or their Maller or M iftrefs, or fome White Perron or White Servant belonging to the Family whofe Slave he or Jhe is, or in where Service he or Ihe then are) That then and in fuch cafe it lhaU and may be lawful for any of his Majefty'sSubjefrs within the faid .Cit\, to apprehend fuch Slave or Slaves, not having fuch Lanthorn and Candle, 3nd" rorrh-with carry him, her or them before the Mayor or Recorder, or anyone of the Aldermen of the raid City (if at a feafonable hour) and if at an unfeafonable hour, to the Watch-houf,;" thereto be confined until the next Morning) who are hereby authorized, upon Proof of the Offence, to com­ mit fuch. Slave or Slaves to the common Goal, for fuch his,. her or their Contempt, and there to remain ulltil the Maller, Miftrefs or Owner of every {uch Slave or Slaves, .11'1111 pay to the Perfon or Perfons whoapprehended and c9II\IBluetl every fuch Slave or Slaves, the Sum of Fot" Shzltin{s current Money of Nt"~··Torlt, for his, her or their pains and Trouble therein, with ReafonabIe Clurgcsof Profecution,

:AnJ bt it ,further brdaintd by the A11thority 4jort{aid, That every Slave or Slaves tbat 'fuall be convictedot the Offenceaforefaid, before he, {he or they be dirchargcd out of Cuftody, {hall be Whipped at the Publick Whipping­ PaR: (not 'exceeding Fort) Lasbes) ifdefired by the Mall:er or Owner of fuch Slaveor SlaYes. PrfIVitled .~1~'aJs, tma it is the intent hereOfi That if tWO or m()r~ S!aveg (Not exceeding the Number of Three) be together In ~ny lawful Employ or Labour for the Service of their A/after or 1vfiftrefs (and hot otherwife) and only one of them have and carry fuch Lanrhorn with a lighted Candle therein, the other Slaves in firch Compay not carryiilg a Lanrhoro and lighted Candle, Ihall not be ccnflrued and intended [0 be wirhin the meaning and Penalty of this Law, any 'rhing in this Law contained to die contrary hereof in any wife norwirhfianding, Dated at theCIty-Hall this Two and r:-.t-'entinIJ Day of April, In the flUl'th ]etlr of His lvlttjtftls Reign, Annoq) Domin; i 73 I. . By Order of Common Council, will. Sharpas, ci Readex Archive of Americana Sample. Rcadex Archive of Americana Sample. CHARLES-TOWN, 1\ TaB E SOL 1. On WEDNESDAY the 29th Infianr, A CAR GO of ~\UO I)unb~rb and jlintt} SLA VE~ REMARKABL Y HEALTHy. UST arrived in the Ship Sally, Capt. George Evans, from CAPE MOUNT . J ~ A RICE COUNTRY .cI on the WINDWARD COAST, after a liHO~T Pajfage of Five Weeks. .. Thomas-Loughton & Roger Smith.

CHARLES-TOWN, March 18, 1769. TO BE SOLD, On WEDNESDAr the 29th InfJant, A CARGO of fi)nc jiunbrrb and 'Qtbirtp:(fi;igbt SLA VES~ REMARKABLr 1.IEALTHr: UST .arrhed in ~/;e Brigantine Shelburne, Copt. jOll1u Clark, after a SHORT J Pql!pge qf 'Ihtrty-tw(/ Days from SEN EGA L, Pili Efl..,UAL to aTlJ NEGROES ;lnp9rted• .Tbomas-Lougbton & Roger Smith.

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. ' 'i'·. , ,';,,'J<, ',"". ,,",;1 ", tli v " • ',1,', ;",';:i:, ';;, ,.' . Venture Smith, Narrative of a Slave's Capture (1798)[ Venture Smith was born in 1729, and captured and enslaved when not yet seven years old. The following is an excerpt from his narrative, although it is not certain whether Smith wrote this account himself or dictated it to someone else.]

CHAPTER I. CONTAINING AN ACCOUNT OF HIS LIFE, FROM HIS BIRTH TO THE TIME OF HIS LEAVING HIS NATIVE COUNTRY I was born at Dukandarra, in Guinea, about the year 1729. My father's name was Saungin Furro, Prince of the tribe of Dukandarra. My father had three wives. Polygamy was not uncommon in that country, especially among the rich, as every man was allowed to keep as many wives as he could maintain. By his first wife he had three children. The eldest of them was myself, named by my father, Broteer. The other two were named Cundazo and Soozaduka. My father had two children by his second wife, and one by his third. I descended from a very large, tall and stout race of beings, much larger than the generality of people in other parts of the globe, being commonly considerable above six feet in height, and every way well proportioned.

. . . Not more than six weeks had passed after my return, before a message was brought by an inhabitant of the place where I lived the preceding year to my father, that that place had been invaded by a numerous army, from a nation not far distant, furnished with musical instruments, and all kinds of arms then in use; that they were instigated by some white nation who equipped and sent them to subdue and possess the country; that his nation had made no preparation for war, having been for a long time in profound peace; that they could not defend themselves against such a formidable train of invaders, and must, therefore, necessarily evacuate their lands to the fierce enemy, and fly to the protection of some chief; and that if he would permit them they would come under his rule and protection when they had to retreat from their own possessions. He was a kind and merciful prince, and therefore consented to these proposals.

He had scarcely returned to his nation with the message before the whole of his people were obliged to retreat from their country and come to my father's. He gave them every privilege and all the protection his government could afford. But they had not been there longer than four days before news came to them that the invaders had laid waste their country, and were coming speedily to destroy them in my father's territories. This affrighted them, and therefore they immediately pushed off to the southward, into the unknown countries there, and were never more heard of.

Two days after their retreat, the report turned out to be but too true. A detachment from the enemy came to my father and informed him that the whole army was encamped not far from his dominions, and would invade the territory and deprive his people of their liberties and rights, if he did not comply with the following terms. These were, to pay them a large sum of money, three hundred fat cattle, and a great number of goats, sheep, asses, etc.

My father told the messenger he would comply rather than that his Subjects should be deprived of their rights and privileges, which he was not then in circumstances to defend from so sudden an invasion. Upon turning out those articles, the enemy pledged their faith and honor that they would not attack him. On these he relied, and therefore thought it unnecessary to be on his guard against the enemy. But their pledges of faith and honor proved no better than those of other unprincipled hostile nations, for a few days after, a certain relation of the king came and informed him that the enemy who sent terms of accommodation to him, and received tribute to their satisfaction, yet meditated an attack upon his subjects by surprise, and that probably they would commence their attack in lessthan one day, and concluded with advising him, as he was not prepared for war, to order a speedy retreat of his family and subjects. He complied with this advice.

The same night which was fixed upon to retreat, my father and his family set off about the break of day. The king and his two younger wives went in one company, and my mother and her children in another. We left our dwellings in succession, and my father's company went on first. We directed our course for a large shrub plain, some distance off, where we intended to conceal ourselves from the approaching enemy, until we could refresh ourselves a little. But we presently found that our retreat was not secure. For having struck up a little fire for the purpose of cooking victuals, the enemy, who happened to be encamped a little distance off, had sent out a scouting party who discovered us by the smoke of the fire, just as we were extinguish ing it and about to eat. As soon as we had finished eating, my father discovered the party and immediately began to discharge arrows at them. This was what I first saw, and it alarmed both me and the women, who, being unable to make any resistance, immediately betook ourselves to the tall, thick reeds not far off, and left the old king to fight alone. For some time I beheld him from the reeds defending himself with great courage and firmness, till at last he was obliged to surrender himself into their hands. They then came to us in the reeds, and the very first salute I had from them was a violent blow on the head with the fore part of a gun, and at the same time a grasp round the neck. I then had a rope put about my neck, as had all the women in the thicket with me, and were immediately led to my father, who was likewise pinioned and haltered for leading. In this condition we were allied to the camp. The women and myself, being submissive, had tolerable treatment from the enemy, while my father was closely interrogated respecting his money, which they knew he must have. But as he gave them no account of it, he was instantly cut and pounded on his body with great inhumanity, that he might be induced by the torture he suffered to make the discovery. All this availed not in the least to make him give up his money, but he despised all the tortures which they inflicted, until the continued exercise and increase of torment obliged him to sink and expire. He thus died without informing his enemies where his money lay. I saw him while he was thus tortured to death. The shocking scene is to this day fresh in my memory, and I have often been overcome while thinking on it. He was a man of remarkable stature. I should judge as much as six feet and six or seven inches high, two feet across the shoulders, and every way well proportioned. He was a man of remarkable strength and resolution, affable, kind and gentle, ruling with equity and moderation.

The army of the enemy was large, I should suppose consisting of about six thousand men. Their leader was called Baukurre. After destroying the old prince, they decamped and immediately marched towards the sea, lying to the west, taking with them myself and the women prisoners. In the march, a scouting party was detached from the main army. To the leader of this party I was made waiter, having to carry his gun, etc. As we were a-scouting, we came across a herd of fat cattle consisting of about thirty in number. These we set upon and immediately wrested from their keepers, and afterwards converted them into food for the army. The enemy had remarkable success in destroying the country wherever they went. For as far as they had penetrated they laid the habitations waste and captured the people. The distance they had now brought me was about four hundred miles. All the march I had very hard tasks imposed on me, which I must perform on pain of punishment. I was obliged to carryon my head a large flat stone used for grinding our corn, weighing, as I should suppose, as much as twenty-five pounds; besides victuals, mat and cooking utensils. Though I was pretty large and stout of my age, yet these burdens were very grievous to me, being only six years and a half old ....

The invaders then pinioned the prisoners of all ages and sexes indiscriminately, took their flocks and all their effects, and moved on their way towards the sea. On the march, the prisoners were treated with clemency, on account of their being submissive and humble. Having come to the next tribe, the enemy laid siege and immediately took men, women, children, flocks, and all their valuable effects. They then went on to the next district, which was contiguous to the sea, called in Africa, Anamaboo. The enemies' provisions were then almost spent, as well as their strength. The inhabitants, knowing what conduct they had pursued, and what were their present intentions, improved the favorable opportunity, attacked them, and took enemy, prisoners, flocks and all their effects. I was then taken a second time. All of us were then put into the castle and kept for market. On a certain time, I and other prisoners were put on board a canoe, under our master, and rowed away to a vessel belonging to Rhode Island, commanded by Captain Collingwood, and the mate, Thomas Mumford. While we were going to the vessel, our master told us to appear to the best possible advantage for sale. I was bought on board by one Robertson Mumford, steward of said vessel, for four gallons of rum and a piece of calico, and called VENTURE, on account of his having purchased me with his own private venture. Thus I came by my name. All the slaves that were bought for that vessel's cargo were two hundred and sixty.

Venture Smith, A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture, A Native ofAfrica, But Resident Above Sixty Years in the United States ofAmerica. (Middletown, CT I. S. Stewart, Printer and Bookbinder, 1897.

Source: http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/bdorsey1/41docs/26-ven.htmI

@ Venture Smith, Narrative of a Slave's Capture (1798) Page 4 of 4

CHAPTER"

The first of the time of living at my master's own place, I was pretty much employed in the house, carding wool and other household business. In this situation I continued for some years, after which my master put me to work out of doors. After many proofs of my faithfulness and honesty, my master began to put great confidence in me. My behavior had as yet been submissive and obedient. I then began to have hard tasks imposed on me. Some of these were to pound four bushels of ears of corn every night in a barrel for the poultry,or be rigorously punished. At other seasons of the year, I had to card wool until a very late hour. These tasks I had to perform when only about nine years old. Some time after, I had another difficulty and oppression which was greater than any I had ever experienced since I came into this country. This was to serve two masters. James Mumford, my master's son, when his father had gone from home in the morning and given me a stint to perform that day, would order me to do this and that business different from what my master had directed me. One day in particular, the authority which my master's son had set up had like to have produced melancholy effects. For my master having set me off my business to perform that day and then left me to perform it, his son came up to me in the course of the day, big with authority, and commanded me very arrogantly to quit my present business and go directly about what he should order me. I replied to him that my master had given me so much to perform that day, and that I must faithfully complete it in that time. He then broke out into a great rage, snatched a pitchfork and went to lay me over the head therewith, but I as soon got another and defended myself with it, or otherwise he might have murdered me in his outrage. He immediately called some people who were within hearing at work for him, and ordered them to take his hair rope and come and bind me with it. They all tried to bind me, but in vain, though there were three assistants in number. My upstart master then desisted, put his pocket handkerchief before his eyes and went home with a design to tell his mother of the struggle with young VENTURE. He told that their young VENTURE had become so stubborn that he could not control him, and asked her what he should do with him. In the meantime I recovered my temper, voluntarily caused myself to be bound by the same men who tried in vain before, and carried before my young master, that he might do what he pleased with me. He took me to a gallows made for the purpose of hanging cattle on, and suspended me on it. Afterwards he ordered one of his hands to go to the peach orchard and cut him three dozen of whips to punish me with. These were brought to him, and that was all that was done with them, as I was released and went to work after hanging on the gallows about an hour.

Venture Smith, A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture, A Native ofAfrica, But Resident Above Sixty Years in the United States ofAmerica. (Middletown, CT I. S. Stewart, Printer and Bookbinder, 1897. QV http://www.swarthmore.eduiSocScilbdorsey1/41docs/26-ven.html 9/11/2007 Virginia Slave Laws, 16605.

VIRGINIA SLAVE LAWS

December 1662

Whereas some doubts have arisen whether children got by any Englishman upon a Negro woman should be slave or free, be it therefore enacted and declared by this present Grand Assembly, that all children born in this country shall be held bond or free only according to the condition of the mother; and that if any Christian shall commit fornication with a Negro man or woman, he or she so offending shall pay double the fines imposed by the former act.

September 1667

Whereas some doubts have risen whether children that are slaves by birth, and by the charity and piety of their owners made partakers of the blessed sacrament of baptism, should by virtue of their baptism be made free, it is enacted and declared by this Grand Assembly, and the auhority thereof that the conferring of baptism does not alter the condition of the person as to his bondage or freedom; that diverse masters, freed from this doubt may more carefully endeavor the propagation of Christianity by permitting children, though slaves, or chose of greater growth if capable, to be admitted to that sacrament.

September 1668

Whereas it has been questioned whether servants running away may be punished with corporal punishment by their master or magistrate, since the act already made gives the master satisfaction by prolonging their time by service, it is declared and enacted by this Assembly that moderate corporal punishment inflicted by master or magistrate upon a runaway servant shall not deprive the master of the satisfaction allowed by the law, the one being as necessary to reclaim them from persisting in that idle course as the other is just to repair the damages sustained by the master.

October 1669

Whereas the only law in force for the punishment of refractory servants resisting their master, mistress, or overseer cannot be inflicted upon l\Iegroes, nor the obstinacy of many of them be suppressed by other than violent means, be it enacted and declared by this Grand Assembly if any slave resists his master (or other by his master's order correcting him) and by the extremity of the correction should chance to die, that his death shall not be accounted a felony, but the master (or that other person appointed by the master to punish him) be acquitted from molestation, since it cannot be presumed that premeditated malice (which alone makes murder a felony) should induce any man to destroy his own estate.

Source: William Waller Hening, Statutes at Large; Being a Collection of all the Laws of Virginia (Richmond, Va, 1809-23), Vol. 11, pp. 170, 260, 266, 270.

Source: http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/bdorsey1/41docs/24-sla.html LL irich) LO.JJ(eI Thafch if A MitXWffe IJ Tale.- Uqq I) August 1787 37 here when I came home. Hannah Cool gott Mrs Norths web NtW ~orK; Books CHAPTER ONE VmtaqL .. out at the Loome. Mr Ballard complains of a soar throat this night. He has been to take Mr gardners hors home. AlJ.GUST 1787 7 3 Clear. I was Calld to Mrs Howards this morning for to Do see her son. Find him very low. Went froffill,Mrs Howards to see Mrs Williams. Find her very unwell.. Hannah Cool is there. ~'Exceeding Dangerously iZr-' From thence to Joseph Fosters to see her sick Children. Find Saray & Daniel very ill. Came home went to the field & got some Cold water root. Then Calld to Mr Kenydays to see Polly. Very ill with the Canker. Gave her some of the root. I gargled her throat which gave her great Ease. Returned home after dark. Mr Ballard been to Cabesy. His throat is very soar. He gargled it with my tincture. Find relief & went to bed comfortably.

3 6* Clear & very hot. I have been pulling flax. Mr Ballard Been to Savages about some hay. 8 4 Clear. I have been to see Mary Kenida. Find her much as shee was yesterday. Was at Mr McMasters. Their Children two of them very ill. The other 2 recovering. At Mr Williams 4 7 Clear morn. I pulld flax till noon. A very severe shower also. Shee is some better. Hear James Howard is mending. Han­ of hail with thunder and Lirning began at half after one continud nah Cool came home. near I hour. I hear it broke 130 pains of glass in fort western. Colonel Howard made me a present of I gallon white Rhum & 9 5 Clear. I workd about house forenoon. Was Calld to Mrs 2 Ib sugar on acount of my atendance of his family in sickness. Howards to see James. Found him seemingly Expireing. Mrs Peter Kenny has wounded his Legg & Bled Excesivily. Pollard there. We sett up. He revivd.

5 g Clear morn. Mr Hamlin Breakfastd here. Had some pills. 10 6 At Mrs Howards. Her son very sick. Capt Sewall & I was calld at 7 0 Clok to Mrs Howards to see James he being Lady sett up till half after 4. Then I rose. The Child seems very sick with the canker Rash. Tarried all night. revivd.

6 2 I am at Mrs Howards watching with her son. Went out I I 7 Calld from Mrs Howard to Mr McMasters to see their about day, discovered our saw mill in flames. The men at the son William who is very low. Tarried there this night. fort went over. Found it consumd together with some plank &

Bords. I tarried till Evinng. Left James Exceeding Dangerously 12 g Loury. At Mr McMasters. Their son very sick. I sett up ill. My daughter Hannah is 18 years old this day. Mrs Williams all night. Mrs Patin with me. The Child very ill indeed.

'The first number indicates the day of the month, the second number the day of the week. Letters indicate Sundays. 13 2 William McMaster Expird at 3 0 Clock this morn. Mrs ~ Patin & I laid out the Child. Poor mother, how Distressing her 38 A MIDWIFE'S TALE August 1787 39 Case, near the hour of Labour and three Children more very; to see his wife at I I & 30 Evening. Went as far as Mr Weston sick. I sert out for home. Calld at Mrs Howards. I find her son 4 by land, from thence by water. Find Mrs Hinkly very unwell. very Low. At Mr Williams. Shee very ill indeed. Now at home;'l It is nine 0 Clok mom. I feel as if I must take some rest. I find 1 }~ 19 g At Mr Hinkleys. Shee rernaind poorly till afternoon Mr Ballard is going to Pittston on Business. Dolly is beginning then by remedys & other means shee got Easyer. I tarried all to weav~.!.hee hankerchiefs. Ephraim & I went to see M~"'Wil- '~ . night. <"'.> Iiams at Evining. I find her some Better. death 0/Wm McMaster* 20 2 Clear. Mr Hinkly brot me to Mr Westons. I heard there that Mrs Clatons Child departed this life yesterday & that she 14 3 Clear & hotr. I pikt the safron. Mrs Patten here. Mr was thot Expireing. I went back with Mr Hinkly as far as there. Ballard & I & all the girls attended funeral of William Me­ Shee departed this Life about I pm. I asisted to Lay her out. Master. Their other Children are mending. James Howard very Her infant Laid in her arms. The first such instance I ever saw low. I drank Tea at Mr Pollards. Calld at Mr Porters. & the first woman that died in Child bed which I delivered. I Came home at dusk. Find my family all Comfortable. We hear 15 4 Clear mom. I pulld flax the fomon. Rain afternoon. I . that three Children Expird in Winthrop last Saterday night. am very much fatagud. Lay on the bed & rested. The two Han­ Daniel Stayd at Mr Cowens. nahs washing. Dolly weaving. I was called to Mrs Claron in travil at I I 0 Clok Evening. 21 3 A rainy day. I have been at home kniting.

16 5 At Mr Cowens. Put Mrs Claton to Bed with a son at 3 22 4 I atended funeral of Mrs Claron & her infant. Am En­ pm. Came to Mr Kenadays to see his wife who has a sweling formd that Mrs Shaw has Doctor Coney with her. I calld to see under her arm. Polly is mending. I returnd as far as Mr Pollards James Howard find him low. Mrs North also is sick. A thunder by water. Calld from there to Winthrop to Jeremy Richards wife Shower this Evinng. in Travil. Arivd about 9 0 Clok Evin. Birth Mrs Clatons son 23 5 I sett out to visit Joseph Fosters Children. Met Ephraim Cowen by Brooks' Barn. Calid me to see his Dafters Polly & 17 6 At Mr Richards. His wife Delivered of a Daughter at . Nabby who are sick with the rash. Find them very ill. Gave 10 0 Clok mom. Returned as far as Mr Pollards at 12. Walked directions. Was then Calid to Mrs Shaw who has been ill some from there. Mrs Coy buryd a dafter yesterday. Mr Stanley has time. Put her safe to Bed with a daughter at 10 0 Clok this a dafter Dangirous. William Wicher 2 Children also. EVinng. Shee is finely. Birth jeremy Richarddafter Birth Mr Shaws Dafter

18 7 I spun some shoe thread & went to see Mrs Williams. 24 6 Calld from Shaws to James Hinklys wife in travil. Put Shee has news her Mother is very sick. Geny Huston had a her safe to Bed with a son at 7 0 Clok this morn. Left her as Child Born the night before last. I was Calld to James Hinkly well as is usual for her. Came to Mr Shaws receivd 6/8. Receivd 6/8 of Mr Hinkly also. Came to Mr Cowens. Find his dafters & 'Italics indicate marginal entries. Jedy ill. Claton & David came inn from Sandy river. People 40 A MIDWIFE'S TALE

well there. Arivd at home at 5 afternoon. Doctor Coneys wife delivrd of a dafter Last Evening at 10 0 Clok. Birth James Hinlcleys son

,,,,. ~"'~ =C~~~1"~~~_,~ ~"'> Martha Ballard was a midwife---:and more, Between August 3 "'P;)Iidra--­ and 24, 1787, she performed four deliveries, answered one ob­ Wi:ltiatns We5ru;fj stetrical false alarm, made sixteen medical calls, prepared three bodies for burial, dispensed pills to one neighbor, harvested and prepared herbs for another, and doctored her Own husband's sore throat. In twentieth-century terms, she was simultaneously a midwife, nurse, physician, mortician, pharmacist, and attentive wife. Furthermore, in the very act of recording her work, she became a keeper of vital records, a chronicler of the medical history of her town. ··::::::::··-,('0 ····:~~~IS ttj\LLO\VE.LL "Doctor Coney here. Took acount ofBirths & Deaths the year -::::~:~ &how~ -, ''?no­ m.e.dtca.l a.a..cL past from my minnits," Martha wrote on January 4, 1791. Sur­ ~:=~ 'v obstUt:'"(c.a.L CA5e.€> prisingly, it is her minutes, not his data, that have survived. The ...~' .. ,:.~:~.::;':::~"::: account she kept differs markedly from other eighteenth-century -, AusU5t 3-2'\-', 1181 medical records. The most obvious difference, of course, is that

it is a woman's record. Equally important is the way it connects { ( I I ~ ) birth and death with ordinary life. Few medical histories, even today, do that. J 87, In June of 17 as Martha's flax blossomed in the field be­ (:t'locaUotJ of hc~ ~ yond the mill pond, scarlet fever ripened in Hallowell. She ~~) called it the "canker rash," a common name in the eighteenth century for a disease that combined a brilliant skin eruption with an intensely sore, often ulcerated throat. The "Putrid Malignant Sore Throat," a New Hampshire physician called it. We know it as "strep," scarlet fever being one of several forms of infection from a particular type of streptococci. Although mild in com­ parison with the scourges of diphtheria that had swept through towns like Oxford earlier in the century, scarlet fever was dan­ gerous. Martha reported five deaths in the summer of 1787, 15 percent of the canker rash cases she treated.s ~ ~~-*- .j. to PHtstot) ~ 4 2 A MIDWIFE'S TALE August 1787 43

Six-month-old Billy Sewall, Henry and Tabitha's only child, from "poorly" through "very ill," "very ill indeed," and "Ex­ was the first to die. "What an excellent thing is the grace of ceeding Dangerously ill" to "seemingly Expireing" or in the submission!" the young father wrote on the day of the baby's opposite direction from "Dangirous" to "revived" or from funeral. Had he been less certain of his own salvation, he might "much as shee was yesterday" to "Easyer" and then "Comfort­ have interpreted the sickness in his family as a judgment of God able." She recorded all the summer's events, her everyday work upon him for his cont'muing quarrel with Mr. Isaac Foster, the ,"'. as well as the continuing evidence of God's i:ftastening hand, in Congregational minister of the town. But Henry Sewall was the same terse style. She "pulled flax," then bathed a child's not given to that sort of self-doubt. "How happy to feel the cankered throat, "worked about house," then found a little boy temper of holy Job," he wrote. "Whom the Lord loveth he "seemingly Expireing," picked saffron, then attended another chasteneth."3 child's funeral, drank tea, then laid out an infant in its mother's The Lord loved the minister too. On July 28, when Sewall arms. came to the Ballard mills to get a raft of slabs, Martha was in a On August I 1 she arrived at the McMaster house to find little neighbor's field digging cold water root to treat the minister, William "very low." She sat with him all through the day on who was himself "very sick with the rash." By then a dozen Sunday and into the night. At about three a.m, on Monday he families had someone ailing. Martha went back and forth across died. With the help of Mrs. Patten she prepared the body for the river carrying remedies to feverish children, all the while burial, then, as the neighborhood began to stir, started home, watching for signs of illness in her own family. When a visiting stopping in at the Howards', where James was still "very Low," nephew "seemed unwell," she swathed his neck with warmed and at the Williamses', where "shee" (presumably the mother) tow and gave him hyssop tea. When Mr. Ballard and Dolly was "very ill indeed." Although Martha was exhausted by the complained of feeling ill, she bathed their feet and brewed more time she reached her house, she sat down to write in her jour­ tea, adding at the end of that day's entry, "I feel much fatagud nal: "William McMaster Expird at 3 0 Clock this morn. Mrs my self."4 Patin & I laid out the Child. Poor mother, how Distressing her At the height of the epidemic, the heat that layover the Ken­ Case, near the hour of Labour and three Children more very nebec exploded in a cloudburst of hail. "I hear it broke 130 pains sick." of glass in fort western," Martha told her diary in the August 4 "Poor mother." That entry contains the one burst of emotion passage. Sewall noted smugly that though the storm "broke all to appear in the diary all summer. Although Mrs. McMaster was the windows the windward side of houses, mine I saved, chiefly not the only woman in Hallowell to lose a child nor the only by taking out the sashes." He weighed some of the hailstones mother with two or three children suffering from the rash, and found they topped half an ounce." Two days later, fire something about her situation had pierced Martha's literary re­ struck at the Ballard sawmill. Martha watched it from the op­ serve. Perhaps the three-day vigil had brought back that sum­ posite side of the river where she had spent the night nursing mer of 1769 when she was herself "near the hour of Labour" four-year-old James Howard, whose sister, Isabella, had already and diphtheria flourished like witch grass in Oxford. Hannah, died of the rash. "The men at the fort went over. Found it the daughter born in the epidemic, turned eighteen on August consumd together with some plank & Bords," she wrote. 6, the day the sawmill burned. Martha remembered the birthday, For her there was little time to contemplate the loss of the but for some reason, during this summer of illness, she ne­ mills. Through August she continued to nurse the sick, tracking glected her usual remembrance of the Oxford deaths. Her daily their condition in her diary with 'formulaic phrases that went activities were enough of a memorial. 44 A MIDWIFE'S TALE August 1787 4 S

Not all the illness in Hallowell in the summer of 1787 can be \ -~ posure, the same toxin that produces a sore throat and a rash in attributed to scarlet fever. There were the usual accidents on] "j one person may produce a sore throat, a wound infection, a mild farms or in the woods; Martha poulticed a swollen foot for one}, and fleeting illness, or no symptoms at all in others. Yet all of the Foster boys in early June and in August, though she wasn't' these persons can spread the infection. Scarlet fever can even be called to administer aid, noted that "Peter Kenny has wounded~' transmitted through the milk o(i.!1fected cows.i It is not surpris­ his Leg-g & Bled Excesivily." There were also those "''Sudden ing, then, that Martha treated Isaac Hardin's son for an abscess strokes" that twentieth-century physicians would attribute to car~'~ as well as a rash, that Mrs. Kennedy had "a sweling under her diovascular causes. On July 12, 1787, Martha reported that "a r arm" at the same time as her children were sick with the fever, man fell down dead in the Coart hous at Pownalboro," a fate that" or that puerperal infection and the canker rash both appeared at had overcome old James Howard a few months before." one house." Susanna Clayton was the daughter of Ephraim Then there were the troubling deaths of Susanna Clayton and j Cowen, the man who summoned Martha on August 23 to treat her infant. Martha had delivered the Clayton baby on August,,! his younger daughters, "who are sick with the rash." She had 16. The birth was uneventful, with no warning at all of thel given birth on her father's farm just upriver from the Kennedys', .~ distressing news she would hear four days later as she was re-' where Martha had administered cold water tincture.'? Susanna turning home from nursing Mrs. Hinkley, who lived in the Clayton was the only one of Martha's obstetrical patients to die, southern part of the town opposite Bumberhook. James Hinkley ~ yet other women and their babies may have been infected. Mrs. had brought Martha upriver as far as Weston's landing, where McMaster, the "poor mother" of the August 13 entry, gave birth she heard "that Mrs Clatons Child departed this life yesterday . on September 8. Her infant, whom Martha described as "very & that she was thot Expireing." Martha got back in the boat (, . I, weak and low," lived only two days, and by September 23 the and went back down the river as far as the Cowen farm, where i; mother was herself so ill that Dr. Cony was summoned. He ap­ Susanna Clayton had given birth and was lying in. . parently recommended some sort of laxative. "Mrs Cowen & I She arrived in time to help with the last nursing and to lay administred remdys that Doer Coney prescribd," Martha wrote, out the baby in its mother's arms. These deaths brought no~, adding that when the "physic began to operate," she left to care exclamation, no "Poor mother" (or "Poor husband"). The mere:)' for another patient. Fortunately, Mrs. McMaster survived. facts were enough to mark them as singular ("the first such.~ Focusing on the progress of an epidemic, as we have done instance I ever saw") and monumental ("the first woman that] here, obscures the fact that most of those infected eventually died in Child bed which I delivered"). Martha had seen newborn] recovered. Billy McMaster and his newborn brother died, but infants die, but in the more than 250 deliveries she had per~ , his mother got better. Saray and Daniel Foster, Polly Kennedy, formed since coming to the Kennebec, no mother of hers hadl and the younger Cowen girls were soon up and about, and little succumbed." Susanna Clayton's death appears in the diary as an] James Howard, a child "Exceeding Dangerously ill" in August, inexplicable stroke of Providence, an event as unrelated to the,'\ was once again "mending" in September. At the end of one of canker rash as fire or hail. Martha could not have known that ], her diary packets, Martha tallied births and deaths for the six puerperal fever and scarlet fever grew from the same invisible years 1785 through 1790. In eighteenth-century terms, Hallow­ seed-Group A hemolytic streptococci. ell was a healthy place. Its death rate averaged fifteen per thou­ No one in the eighteenth century could have related the two sand, about what one would find in parts of southern Asia phenomena. Not until the 1930S did scientists unravel the mys­ today, but only half of that recorded for eighteenth-century terious epidemiology of scarlet fever. Depending upon prior ex- seaports like Salem or Boston. Just as important, in almost 4 6 A MIDWIFE'S TALE August 1787 47

every year the town had four times as many births as deaths. 11 geon. Another echoed the language of the Apostle in arguing Even in a sickly season, there was reason for hope as well as that a good midwife "ought to be Faitlifitl and Silent; always on sorrow. her Guard to conceal those Things, which ought not to be spo­ ken of." 15 Samuel Richardson drew upon midwifery lore in creating the fI:.':.'S'~ &,:.,~.. In western tradition, midwives have inspired fear, reverence, character of Mrs. yewkes, the terrifying woman who holds the '.'":'" amusement, and disdain. They have been condemned for witch­ innocent Pamela captive in the novel that gave Martha Ballard's craft, eulogized for Christian benevolence, and caricatured for niece her name." Charles Dickens exploited the same body of bawdy humor and old wives' tales. The famous seventeenth­ myth to different effect in his comic portrait of Sairey Gamp in century English physician William Harvey dismissed the loqua­ Martin Chu'{l/ewit: cious ignorance of midwives, "especially the younger and more meddlesome ones, who make a marvellous pother when they She was a fat old woman, this Mrs. Gamp, with a husky hear the woman cry out with her pains and implore assistance." voice and a moist eye.... She wore a very rusty black Yet a popular obstetrical manual published in the same century gown, rather the worse for snuff, and a shawl and bonnet dignified their work by arguing that Socrates's mother was a to correspond.... Like most persons who have attained to midwife and that "the Judges of old time did appoint a stipend great eminence in their profession, she took to hers very for those women that did practice Physick well." 12 kindly; insomuch, that setting aside her natural predilec­ In the early years of settlement, some American colonies did tions as a woman, she went to a lying-in or a laying-out in fact provide free land, if not stipends, for midwives." Yet the with equal zest and relish.'? most famous midwife in early America is remembered for reli­ gious martyrdom rather than obstetrics. Boston ministers com- . Martha Ballard had at least one thing in common with Sairey mended Anne Hutchinson for the "good discourse" she offered .. Gamp-she was very fond of snuff. Yet in eighteenth-century women in their "Childbirth-Travells," but when her teachings; Maine, it was not necessary to set aside one's "predilections as threatened to disrupt their authority, they condemned and ban- .J a woman" in order to perform what Martha once called "the ished her. The Puritans took their contradictions directly from . last ofice of friendship." Her diary tames the stereotypes and at the Bible. The Book of Exodus celebrates the courage of the the same time helps us to imagine the realities on which they Hebrew midwives who when told to destroy the male children < were based. Midwives and nurses mediated the mysteries of of Israel "feared God, and did not as the king of Egypt com- .~ birth, procreation, illness, and death. They touched the untouch­ manded them." But the Apostle Paul, while acknowledging the able, handled excrement and vomit as well as milk, swaddled good works of women who "relieved the afflicted," condemned the dead as well as the newborn. They brewed medicines from those who wandered about from house to house, "speaking plants and roots, and presided over neighborhood gatherings of things which they ought not." 14 women. I English midwifery guides also warned against impiety and " Two nineteenth-century novels by New England women fo­ gossip. "I must tell you, it is too common a Complaint of the cus on the homely mysteries of village healers, coming closer modest Part of Womankind, against the Women-Midwives, that to Martha's diary than most English literature. Sarah Josepha they are bold, and indulge their Tongues in immodest and las­ Hale's Northwood, published in 1827, was said to have been civious Speeches," warned one author who styled himself a sur- based on her own memories of a late-eighteenth-century New 4 8 A MIDWIFE'S TALE August 1787 49

Hampshire town. Hale went out of her way to make clear that, Edinburgh-educated doctor and heir to the Plymouth Company though her gossipy healer Mrs. Watson was a fortune-teller, she claims, who settled on the Kennebec in 1796, offering himself was neither a witch nor a hag. No, she was "reputed one of the not as a competitor but as a gentlemanly mentor to the local neatest women and best managers in the village. And many doctors. In addition, several physicians from neighboring wondered how it happened that though she went abroad so towns-Obadiah Williams, James Parker, and John Hubbard­ much, she generally com;;ved to have her own work done in ~()tcasionally treated Hallowell patients. (Martftl's brother-in­ season, and quite as soon as her neighbors."18 law, Stephen Barton, practiced in Vassalboro from 1775 to 1787, The central character of Sarah Orne Jewett's Country of the ' but spent the next decade in Oxford and died shortly after re­ Pointed Firs is also a good housewife. In the opening pages of turning to Maine.) the book, Jewett describes a "queer little garden," green with Martha was respectful, even deferential, toward the men's balm and southerwood, presided over by Mrs. Todd. Some of work, but the world she described was sustained by women­ her plants "might have belonged to sacred and mystic rites ... Mrs. Woodward, Mrs. Savage, Mrs. Vose, Old Mrs. Ingraham, but now they pertained only to humble compounds brewed at Sally Fletcher, Lady Cox, Hannah Cool, Merriam Pollard, and intervals with molasses or vinegar or spirits." Stopping to visit dozens of others, the midwives, nurses, afternurses, servants, Mrs. Todd at her garden fence, the local physician "would stand watchers, housewives, sisters, and mothers of Hallowell. The twirling a sweet-scented sprig in his fingers, and make sugges­ diary even mentions an itinerant "Negro woman doctor," who tive jokes, perhaps about her faith in a too persistent course of briefly appeared in the town in 1793. Female practitioners spe­ thoroughwort elixir."!" cialized in obstetrics but also in the general care of women and Hale and Jewett idealized their New England villages-there children, in the treatment of minor illnesses, skin rashes, and is no diphtheria or canker rash in either book-yet they burns, and in nursing.i" Since more than two-thirds of the pop­ grounded their stories in a world Martha might have recognized.• ulation of Hallowell was either female or under the age of ten, One of the central issues for her, as for Mrs. Watson, was how ;r since most illnesses were "minor," at least at their onset, and to get her work done at home while spending so much time' since nurses were required even when doctors were consulted, with her neighbo~s. Her garden,. though le~s romantic than;! Martha and her peers were in constant motion. Mrs. Todd's, also Incorporated notions of healing handed downl the centuries, and her diary reveals, as does Jewett's novel.] the friendly distance between a "village doctor" and a "learned: When Martha went to the field to dig cold water root on August herbalist." ..:, .. 7, 1787, she was acting out the primary ritual of her practice, Later chapters will explore Martha Ballard's domestic econ"r the gathering of remedies from the earth. Although she pur­ omy. The remainder of this chapter will pursue Jewett's themes;J chased imported laxatives and a few rare ingredients (myrrh, reaching beneath the story of the August 1787 epidemic fo~,i . "dragon's blood," galbanum, spermaceta, and camphor) from clues to Martha's herbalism and to her relations with the town's'l Dr. Colman, she was fundamentally an herbalist. "Harvested other healers, male and female. Hallowell had several male phy..J,j saffron," "Cut the sage," "Gatherd seeds & Cammomile mint sicians, In the last years of the eighteenth century, these ifiitf ~ hysop": such entries scattered throughout the' diary tie her eluded, in addition to Daniel Cony: Samuel Colman, wh~~ Factice to English botanic medicine." Three-quarters of the arrived at Fort Western in the 1780s; Benjamin Page, who se~i ~€rbs in the diary appear in Nicholas Culpeper's The Complete up practice at "the Hook" in 1791; and Benjamin Vaughan,atlfj' flerha4 published in London in 1649 (and reprinted many times ·,f;· :.:t{j, SALEM WITCH TRIALS DOCUMENT A

YEARLY EVENTS

1662 Half-Way Covenant 1675 "The destruction of Captain Lothrop and his company, on the 18th of September, filled the country with grief and consternation; and as the year. ..drew toward a close, the conviction became general, that the crisis of the fate of the colonies was near at hand. The Indians were carrying all before them... spreading conflagration, devastation, and slaughter around the borders and striking sudden and deadly blows into the heart of the country."

1684 Great Britain revokes the charter of Massachusetts Bay Colony. 1688 Glorious Revolution in Great Britain 1680s/1690s Very cold winters (the "little Ice Age") 1689 the Rev. Cotton Mather comments, "Tis almost unaccountable, that at some time in some places here, melancholy distempered, Ragings toward Self-Murder, have been ... Epidemical." 1689-1690 Small pox epidemic 1690 Military expedition against the French in Quebec ends in defeat. 1691 Native American attacks 1692 Witchcraft trials in Salem

1. Why would these events make the people fearful?

2. "Self murder" is suicide. What relationship could there be between wanting to kill oneself and thinking other people are putting spells on you, trying to hurt you? DOCUMENTB

Report of the Reverend Hale, Minister of the Beverly Church, Regarding Bridget Bishop, Accused Witch

"A certain woman being in full communion in our church, came to me to desire that Goodwife Bishop rnight not be permitted to receive the Lord's Supper in our church, because the said Bishop did entertain people in her house at unreasonable hours in the night, to keep drinking and playing at shovel-board, whereby ... young people were in danger of being corrupted. Goodwife Bishop is described as wearing a black cap anda black hat and a red "paragon" bodice, bordered and loopered with different colors .... The night after this complaint was brought to me, the woman was found to be distracted... and expressed a suspicion that she had been bewitched by Bishop's wife."

1. What did Bridget Bishop's neighbor want the minister to do? Why did the woman think Bishop would want to hurt her?

2. What did she accuse Bishop of doing? Would it keep anyone away from your place of worship?

3. Why were Bishop's clothes important? DOCUMENTC

THE REVEREND SAMUEL PARRIS

1. "We must give ourselves wholly up to Christ, and not suffer the predominancy of one lust-and particularly the lust of covetousness, which is made so light of, and which so sorely prevails in these perilous times. Christ knows who they are that have not chosen him, but prefer farms and merchandise above him."

2. Income Tax record:

Pro-Parris average tax: 10.9 shillings Anti-Parris average tax: 15.3 shillings

Historical note: the supporters of the Reverend Parris accused the others of witchcraft.

1. What is the Reverend Parris's message? Who would dislike it?

2. How is income tax figured? Who is richer, Parris's supporters or his enemies?

3. Why would the supporters of Parris accuse the others of witchcraft? DOCUMENTD

EVIDENCE OF MARY WARREN

One of the tormented young women, Mary Warren stopped having her fits.

She said, "The affected persons did but dissemble. (lie)" She started up, and said I will speak and cryed out, "Oh, I am sorry for it, I am sorry for it, and wringed her hands, and fell a little while into a fit ...and cryed out "Oh Lord help me! Oh Good Lord save me!" After a little recovery she cryed "I will tell they brought me to it...they did they did... " Then fell into a fit again which fits continueing she was ordered to be had out.

The other accusers began to declare that Mary's spirit was afflicting them.

1. What did Mary Warren accuse the other girls of doing?

2. Why was it so difficult for her to give evidence?

3. Why did the other girls say she was afflicting them- that is, that Mary was herself a witch? DOCUMENTE

DESCRIPTION OF ELIZABETH BROWN, WHO ACCUSED OTHERS OF BEWITCHING HER

" When (the witch's spirit) did come it was as birds pecking her legs or pricking her with the motion of their wings and then it would rise up into her stomach with pricking pain as nails and pins of which she did bitterly complain and cry out like a woman in travail and after that it would rise to her throat in a bunch like a (hen's) egg and then she would turn back her head and say "witch you shan't choke me."

Note: These are the symptoms ofpsychological hysteria.

1. What were the symptoms of bewitchment?

2. Why is important to know that these symptoms match a psychiatric problem? DOCUMENTF Note: Salem Town, a busy port, is to the East. Salem Village is to the West, and is mostly farmers. Salem Village is a suburb of Salem Town, and wants to control its own affairs.

Key, Ai• ACOIiJ

AII I 0

® 0 0 \ D-O 1

A AA~ A ~~D DO I

AA I A A A.

Sate: tniHc

_"The Geography of Witchcraft" (after Boyer and Nissenbawn, Salem Possessed, _Harvard University Press, 1974).

A= Accuser D=Defender W=Accused Witch

1. Where do most of the accusers live?

2. Where do the accused witches and their defenders live?

3. Why might the people of Salem Village resent the people of Salem Town? Document G SALEM WITCH "VICTIM" DISEASE?

"symptoms" of the girls ENCEPHALITIS LETHARGICA accusing others of being symptoms witches SALEM 1692 EPIDEMICS 1916-1930 Fits Convulsions Spectral visions Hallucinations Mental "distraction" Psychoses Pinching, pricking Myoclonus of small muscle bundles on skin surface "bites" Erythmata on skin surface, capillary hemorrhaqinq Eyes twisted Oculogync crises: gaze fixed upward, downward, or to the side Inability to walk Paresis: partial paralysis Neck twisted Torticollis: spasm of neck muscles forces head to one side, spasms affect trunk and neck Repeating nonsense words Palilialia: repetition of one's own words Laurie Winn Carlson, A Fever in Salem (Ivan R. Dee, 1999)

1. How well do the symptoms for the "witch victims" match the symptoms for encephalitis lethargica?

2. How would a strange disease lead to hysteria? o Towns prior101730 • Towns 1730·1765 @ County seat pOOr to 1730 @ Coontyseat1730·1765

OISTANCESINMILES

Figure 6.4 Urbanization in Southeastern Pennsylvania, 1652-1765

Table 6.2 Comparison of White and Black Population by Region, 1700 and 1775 (in percentages) ® 1700 1775 Percentage Percentage of total of total White Black population White Black population Lower South 81 19 6 59 41 17 Upper South 77 23 35 63 37 31 Middle 92 8 21 94 6 24 New England 98 2 37 97 3 26 West 83 17 1 Total population 89% 11% 100% 79% 21% 100% (Population in millions) . 0.22 0.03 0.25 1.94 0.52 2.46

Lower South; Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina. Upper South: Virginia, Maryland, Delaware. Mid-Atlantic: Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York. New England; Connecticut, Rhode Island. Massachusetts, New Hampshire, (Vermont). West: Kentucky, Tennessee. Note: 1775 interpolated from 1770 and 1780 figures. Percentages do not add to 100 because of rounding. CD 104 COLONIZATION: 14905-17705

Table 5.1 American Colonies: Estimated 17th-eentury Populations

Colony 1630 1640 1650 1660 1670 1680 1690 1700 New Hampshire 500 1,055 1,305 1,555 1,805 2,047 4,164 4,95. Plymouth 390 1.020 1,566 1,980 5,333 6.400 7,424 Massachusetts- 906 9,832 15,037 20,082 30,000 39,752 49,504 55,94 Rhode Island 300 785 1,539 2,155 3,017 4,224 5,89, Connecticut 1,472 4,139 7,980 12,603 17,246 21,645 25,97( New York 350 1,930 4,116 4,936 5,754 9,830 13,090 19,10; New Jersey 1,000 3,400 8,000 14,0l( Pennsylvania 680 11,450 17,95( Delaware 185 540 700 1,005 1,482 2,470 Maryland 583 4,504 8,426 13,226 17,904 24,024 29,604 Virginia 2,500 10,442 18,731 27,020 35,309 45,596 53,046 58,560 North Carolina 1,000 3,850 5,430 7,600 10,720 South Carolina 200 1,200 3,900 5,704 Total 4,646 26,634 50,368 75,058 111,935 153,507 209,553 250,888

aMassachusetts includes Maine, and also Plymouth after 1691, although official totals do not reflect this.

Table 6.1 Estimated Populations of the American Colonies, 1700-1780

Colony 1700 1720 1740 1760 1780 (Maine)» 20,000 49,133 (Vermont)a 47,620 New Hampshire 4,958 9,375 23,256 39,093 87,802 Massachusetts 55,941 91.008 151,613 202,600 268,627 Rhode Island 5,894 11,680 25,255 45,471 52,946 Connecticut 25,970 58,830 89,580 142,470 206,701 New York 19,107 36,919 63,665 117,138 210,541 New Jersey 14,010 29,818 51,373 93,813 139,627 Pennsylvania 17,950 30,962 85,637 183,703 327,305 Delaware 2,470 5,385 19,870 33,250 45,385 Maryland 29,604 66,133 116,093 162,267 245,474 Virginia 58,560 87,757 180,440 339,726 538,004 North Carolina 10,720 21,270 51,760 110,442 270,133 South Carolina 5,704 17,048 45,000 94,074 180,000 Georgia 2,021 9,578 56,071 (Kentuckyj­ 45,000 (Tennessee)a 10,000 Total 250,888 466,185 905,563 1,593,625 2,780,369

aNot organized as provinces or states by 1780. Maine part of Massachusetts; Vermont part of New York (disputed); Kentucky originally an extension of Virginia, and Tennessee of North Carolina. The Colonial Origins of Anglo-America 105

, 1700 / / / 54 4,958 / 24 I..... I .... )4 55,941 I \ ..." ... 24 5,894 \ 15 25,970 " ~O 19,107 oo 14,010 50 17,950 B2 2,470 24 29,604 46 58,560 00 10,720 00 5,704 53 250,888

fleet this.

ounty court­ cal residents more than a -re often sub­ 1 church par­ t .... be a less nties re­ 01 civil gov­

rever, county /' /' nd were pre­ /' td, by town­ ./ and town or ./ more socially A. Counties: Virginia andMaryland characterized d in size from lIer and more nization than ~ principal in­ :ated meeting )t only as the o as the local gement prob­ )f community decision-mak­ 20 30 40 50 more loosely , I , , Miles prime goal of Land grants Figure 5.6 17th-Century America: Local Territorial Organization oasis generally inciple or on 98 COLONIZATION: 14905-17705

Circa 1700 Circa 1600 t t

Figure 5.2 Eastern Seaboard: Indian Groupings. 1600 and 1700 Q u E 8

ous trom l' south of r merits wer Charleston everywhere miles above cut and Hue By 1740 a was OCCUpiE lands. SetH Hudson alo New Jersey pine barren southeasterr the west, an, settlers were to the Piedn Ridge. Immij vided much country. In I confined larg lina and up tl Almost all Mountains w. Revolution, a Extent of Sell/ement within the Ap (Approximate) gland, and th:

Ilt;';::"j.~..,~ 1700 nia, Marylan 0 17 4 0 mountains the .j nessee and the 1760 EJ j beckoned. By t J b>] 1780 occupied, whil -- Proclamation line 1763 1 the coast and j 2.5 million peo 1 ~ on the verge of

1) of geographical 100 I of population g I i ... 200 ,~ Population v """ cause nearly all from the soil. Figure 6.1 Population Distribution, 1700-1780 varied with the 100 I I 200

portan plougl mercia cially four-hi with V\ central racing were higher referre scratd / ably b source ducks ing. T e. deer al ~ ucts. B o o CJ bland

Wheal York IT import supply ally, th Line gether Wheal Ronqe fabric I Live stock uses. New E ",""------"' ..... grown introdi Wheal rich bl Englar dertak primal among tury a spun," British Army Forts ond Posts were" 1775 hemp, Post Offices 1774 monte {Hort ford I Sprinofield, Worcester drscoruinued 1768) bags. I ings th less ar: Tobe Figure 6.5 Colonial Trade and Economic Activity, 1775 key co: Excerpt from "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God"

Jonathan Edwards (1741 )

-Their foot shall slide in due time- Deut. 32:35

Sothat, thus it is that natural men are held in the hand of God, over the pit of hell; they have deserved the fiery pit, and are already sentenced to it; and God is dreadfully provoked, his anger is as great towards them as to those that are actually suffering the executions of the fierceness of his wrath in hell, and they have done nothing in the least to appease or abate that anger, neither is God in the least bound by any promise to hold them up one moment; the devil is waiting for them, hell is gaping for them, the flames gather and flash about them, and would fain lay hold on them, and swallow them up; the fire pent up in their own hearts is struggling to break out: and they have no interest in any Mediator, there are no means within reach that can be any security to them.

In short, they have no refuge, nothing to take hold of, all that preserves them every moment is the mere arbitrary will, and uncovenanted, unobliged forbearance of an incensed God.

The use of this awful subject may be for awakening unconverted persons in this congregation. This that you have heard is the caseof everyone of you that are out of Christ.-That world of misery, that lake of burning brimstone, is extended abroad under you. There is the dreadful pit of the glowing flames of the wrath of God; there is hell's wide gaping mouth open; and you have nothing to stand upon, nor any thing to take hold of, there is nothing between you and hell but the air; it is only the power and mere pleasure of God that holds you up.

You probably are not sensible of this; you find you are kept out of hell, but do not see the hand of God in it; but look at other things, as the good state of your bodily constitution, your care of your own life, and the means you use for your own preservation. But indeed these things are nothing; if God should withdraw his band, they would avail no more to keep you from falling, than the thin air to hold up a person that is suspended in it. Your wickedness makes you as it were heavy as lead, and to tend downwards with great weight and pressure towards hell; and if God should let you go, you would immediately sink and swiftly descend and plunge into the bottomless gulf, and your healthy constitution, and your own care and prudence, and best contrivance, and all your righteousness, would have no more influence to uphold you and keep you out of hell, than a spider's web would have to stop a falling rock...

The wrath of God is like great waters that are dammed for the present; they increase more and more, and rise higher and higher, till an outlet is given; and the longer the stream is stopped, the more rapid and mighty is its course, when once it is let loose. It is true, that judgment against your evil works has not been executed hitherto; the floods of God's vengeance have been withheld; but your guilt in the mean time is constantly increasing, and you are every day treasuring up more wrath; the waters are constantly rising, and waxing more and more mighty; and there is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, that holds the waters back, that are unwilling to be stopped, and press hard to go forward. If God should only withdraw his hand from the flood-gate, it would immediately fly open, and the fiery floods of the fierceness and wrath of God, would rush forth with inconceivable fury, and would come upon you with omnipotent power; and if your strength were ten thousand times greater than it is, yea, ten thousand times greater than the strength of the stoutest, sturdiest devil in hell, it would be nothing to withstand or endure it.

The bow of God's wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string, and justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow, and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood. Thus all you that never passed under a great change of heart, by the mighty power of the Spirit of God upon your souls; all you that were never born again, and made new creatures, and raised from being dead in sin, to a state of new, and before altogether unexperienced light and life, are in the hands of an angry God. However you may have reformed your life in many things, and may have had religious affections, and may keep up a form of religion in your families and closets, and in the house of God, it is nothing but his mere pleasure that keeps you from being this moment swallowed up in everlasting destruction. However unconvinced you may now be of the truth of what you hear, by and by you will be fully convinced of it. Those that are gone from being in the like circumstances with you, see that it was so with them; for destruction came suddenly upon most of them; when they expected nothing of it, and while they were saying, Peace and safety: now they see, that those things on which they depended for peace and safety, were nothing but thin air and empty shadows.

The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. It is to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to hell the last night; that you was suffered to awake again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep. And there is no other reason to be given, why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God's hand has held you up. There is no other reason to be given why you have not gone to hell, since you have sat here in the house of God, provoking his pure eyes by your sinful wicked manner of attending his solemn worship. Yea, there is nothing else that is to be given as a reason why you do not this very moment drop down into hell. o sinner! Consider the fearful danger you are in: it is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath, that you are held over in the hand of that God, whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you, as against many of the damned in hell. You hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to singe it, and burn it asunder; and you have no interest in any Mediator, and nothing to lay hold of to save yourself, nothing to keep off the flames of wrath, nothing of your own, nothing that you ever have done, nothing that you can do, to induce God to spare you one moment.

Source: http://woodlawnschool.pbworks.com/f/Edwards+Si nners-i n-the-Hanns-of-an+Angry+God. pdf