Sex with the Devil

Sex With the Devil The Sexual Other by David Rosen … in nothing doth the raging power of original sin more discover itself … than in the ungoverned exorbitancy of fleshly lust. Samuel Willard, Puritan minister, 1640—17071 Sex with the Devil came by Discontent” with her role as a servant and that “she was guilty of the The New World was besieged by Murder of a Child and that she had numerous sex scandals during the first been guilty of Uncleanness with Men seventy-five years of Puritan and Devils.” Two years earlier, she had settlement. For New Englanders and been accused of thievery and was other British colonists up and down the publicly whipped. However, for her Atlantic Coast, these scandals set the truly unholy deed of consorting with boundaries of acceptable sexual the devil, she was convicted of practice. They mostly involved witchcraft and executed.3 premarital sex (fornication), extramarital sex (adultery), sodomy Another resident of Wethersfield, and interracial sex. Two offenses were Rebecca Greensmith, admitted having most upsetting: bestiality involving participated in “a meeting under a tree young men and sexual on the green … [where] we witchcraft among older danced and had a bottle of women. Among Puritans, sack”; she also admitted to as John Murrin points out, Hartford ministers and “Bestiality discredited men magistrates that “the Devil in the way that witchcraft had frequently the carnal discredited women.”*2 knowledge of her Body”; in January 1663, she was hung However, in New England, along with her husband, sex with the devil was the Nathaniel, who denied all gravest of all sins! Puritan accusations until the bitter 4 sexual scandals were a terrain of end. Ann Cole, of Hartford, was a struggle that illuminates, if only in its woman reported to have suffered exaggeration, America’s most convulsions and fits; she was accused formative era of sexual identity. It is of taking part in “witches’ night an identity that, like a threatening wandering.” Her fate was sealed when shadow, continues to hover over she admitted that she allowed Satan America today. to have “frequent carnal knowledge of 5 her.” Mary Johnson, of Wethersfield, Connecticut, was one of ten Puritan The historian Richard Frances found women accused of having sex with that Sarah Parker had made a Satan. In 1648, Johnson allegedly covenant with the devil due to “her admitted to minister Samuel Stone great sin of Committing adultery” and (and reported by Cotton Mather): “She that “the Devil had come to her & said her first Familiarity with the Devils kissed her.” It is not clear as to her fate.6 Elizabeth Godman, of New Haven, was socially different from * Image: New York Historical Society many accused women in that she had Sex Matters Sex with the Devil a sizable estate estimated at £200 at dreadful fits, of “yielding” to the devil her death in 1660. However, as a and signing the devil’s book and, even widow with no sons she was though she confessed to being a witch, vulnerable to a variety of social was not executed when the witchcraft accusations. Some said she was “a panic subsided in 1693.11 malicious one” because she expressed discontent with religious teachings and Finally, we come to Bridget Bishop, the practices, challenged the notion of first woman at the Salem trials “God’s elect” and “… [would] justify executed for her sins. She was first [witches] rather than condemn them,” accused of being a witch in 1679 when practiced black magic, inspired fear in her husband died. It was during the others and of gnashing her teeth and Salem trials (and when she was in her grinning. In 1653 neighbors fifties) that she faced a second trial for complained that she “had laine with” being a witch, for attending a witches Satan and that “Hobbamocke [an gathering at the Parris field, for having alleged Indian ‘devil god’] was her a body mark (or what was known as a husband.”7 Another woman, Mary “witch’s teat” or imp) and for giving Parsons, of Springfield, Massachusetts, her body and soul to the devil. She was disparaged for being married to a steadfastly insisted on her innocence, “papist”. In 1651, she was accused of but was nevertheless hung.12 “being seduced by the devil” and “making a covenant with him.” Three women were accused of having According to her fellow Puritan John illegitimate children as a result of Hale: witchcraft—and were executed. Alice Lake was accused in 1651 by minister she had lost a Child and was exceedingly John Hale of being “… a single woman discontented at it and longed; Oh that she play’d the harlot, and being with Child might see her Child again! And at last the used means to destroy the fruit of her Devil in likeness of her Child came to her body to conceal her sin and shame;” bed side and talked with her, and asked to she was hanged for her sins.13 Martha come into the bed to her, and she received it into the bed to her that night and several Corey was accused of having “had nights after, and so entered into covenant born a bastard mulatto son,” of with Satan and became a witch. causing pain in others, of having a “black man” (i.e., a specter) whisper in Parsons was executed. her ear and of participating in witches’ sacrament with forty others at Parris’ Still other women faced accusations of pasture; she denied being a witch, consorting with the devil. One woman, even denied the existence of the Goody Osborne, testified that “a thing devil—and was hung in 1692.14 like an indian all black” came to her in bed one night and, in the words of one Suzannah Martin, who was born in historian, “pulled her by the back of England and lived in Amesbury, her head toward her door.”9 Another Massachusetts, was first accused of woman, Sarah Bridges, is reported to being a witch in 1669. Subsequently, have signed the devil’s book in blood, she was accused of having a bastard attended an Andover witches conclave son and having had violent quarrels in with two hundred-plus witches and her home; she was suspect for “gave her body” to the devil in the challenging male power in court. In form of a man and an animal; 1692 and at age sixty-seven, she was surprisingly, she was not executed.10 again charged with witchcraft, this Mary Warren, of Salem who earlier time based on the testimony of had been a servant to Henry Salter of Bernard Peach, who claimed that Andover was accused of suffering during one of her night wanderings © David Rosen, 2016 page 2 Sex Matters Sex with the Devil Martin sexually assaulted him: business activity, regulated in two states, and relatively free from being in bed on a lords day night he [Peach] moralistic and police harassment. The heard a [scratching] at the window. He this limits to acceptable sex are based on deponent saw susana martin … com in at consent among adults or among the window and jumpt downe upon the similarly aged adolescents over sixteen flower. Shee was in her hood and scarf and the same dress that shee was in before at years. Strong prohibitions, both legal metting the same day. Being com in, she and ethical, attempt to halt was coming up toward this deponents nonconsensual sexual acts like rape, faced but turned back to his feet and took pedophilia, incest and bestiality. hold of them and drew up his body into a However, for the early Puritans and heape and Lay upon him about an hour other colonists, both Satan and sex and half or 2 hours, in all which taim this were threats to personal and public deponent coold not stir nor speake… . life—and nothing was worse than sex with the devil. She was executed for her sins.15 Sexual other Other women were charged with witchcraft and adultery. Elizabeth On April 5, 1614, Pocahontas, a Seager, of Hartford was accused of Powhatan woman and reputed witchcraft in 1662, 1665 and 1666 but daughter of Chief Powhatan, married was acquitted; she was reported to the Englishman John Rolfe near have slapped a neighbor and was Jamestown, Virginia. The marriage suffering various questionable pains; took place just eight years after this however, she was also accused and first permanent English settlement was convicted of adultery and blasphemy, established in what would become the but fled to Rhode Island to avoid 16 United States; it is the first recorded punishment. Rachel Clinton, who was interracial marriage in the newly- born in England and lived in Ipswich, colonized territory. Sixty-seven years Massachusetts, was accused of having later, in 1681, the first recorded legal adulterous relations including with an marriage between an African man and indentured servant fourteen years a European woman is reported to have younger and who she eventually taken place on William Boarmans’ married; she was also accused of plantation on the western shore of expressing dissatisfaction with her Maryland. The couple—Eleanor Butler, inheritance settlement from her first a white servant girl called Irish Nell, husband and bringing the matter to and Negro Charles, a black slave—was court. In 1692 and at the age of fifty- 18 married by a local Catholic priest. eight, she was convicted of witchcraft, but pardoned by the governor a year During the early days of the later.17 settlement of the new nation, voluntary and noncommercial sexual We’ve come a long way since the relations between whites and people of British settlers first colonized the New color were not yet illegal.

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