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Sexual Crime and New England Law, 1636-1718 Abby Chandler

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Sexual Crime and New England Law, 1636-1718 Abby Chandler The University of Maine DigitalCommons@UMaine Electronic Theses and Dissertations Fogler Library 2008 At the Magistrate's Discretion: Sexual Crime and New England Law, 1636-1718 Abby Chandler Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/etd Part of the Criminal Law Commons, and the Legal Commons Recommended Citation Chandler, Abby, "At the Magistrate's Discretion: Sexual Crime and New England Law, 1636-1718" (2008). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 114. http://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/etd/114 This Open-Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@UMaine. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@UMaine. AT THE MAGISTRATE'S DISCRETION: SEXUAL CRIME AND NEW ENGLAND LAW, 1636-1718 By Abby Chandler B.A. Colby College, 1996 M. A. University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2002 A THESIS Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (in History) The Graduate School The University of Maine December, 2008 Advisory Committee: Liam Riordan, Associate Professor of History, Advisor Martha McNamara, Director of New England Arts and Architecture Program, Wellesley College William TeBrake, Professor of History Stephen Miller, Associate Professor of History Mazie Hough, Associate Professor of Women's Studies 11 2008 Abby Chandler All Rights Reserved AT THE MAGISTRATE'S DISCRETION: SEXUAL CRIME AND NEW ENGLAND LAW, 1636-1718 By Abby Chandler Thesis Advisor: Dr. Liam Riordan An Abstract of the Thesis Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (in History) December, 2008 This dissertation is a comparative study of sexual crime trials in four New England jurisdictions: Essex County, Massachusetts, Plymouth Colony, The Province of Maine, and Rhode Island Colony. It argued that sexual crime trials could be used as a tool for studying the diverse and changing legal cultures of different regions within New England. Whether morality or child support was under discussion, sexual intercourse outside of marriage threatened to disrupt the social and economic bounds of early modern society. Nevertheless, methods for addressing the issue varied widely in New England, depending on the jurisdiction in question. As a result, examining the particular legal decisions made during sexual misconduct trials contributes greatly to our knowledge of regional identity and legal autonomy in colonial New England. Trials from all four jurisdictions were cataloged and analyzed, then placed in their larger social and economic contexts, thus allowing for both quantitative and qualitative study of the data. Many of the Essex County trials were driven by issues of paternity and child support. Unlike the other three jurisdictions, Essex County residents had the time and money necessary for prolonged court battles. Plymouth Colony, on the other hand, utilized sexual crime trials to reinforce their tenuous control over colonists with differing cultural and religious backgrounds. As a frontier colony, the Province of Maine used its trials to demonstrate that life in the "wilderness" did not preclude a lawful society. Rhode Island's trials indicate a growing emphasis on legal procedure, one linked to the colony's close ties with English law and the mercantile world at the turn of the eighteenth century. While colonial New England is usually considered as a homogeneous region, shaped by the dominant Puritan culture found in Massachusetts Bay and Connecticut, close analysis of these sexual crime trials reveals instead that the region's colonies were shaped by the divergent experiences of their own environments. Verdicts directly reflected the needs of the individual societies and court justices making them, rather than a region wide dominant culture. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There are many people and institutions who have been part of this dissertation. I would like to first thank my dissertation chair Liam Riordan for all his advice and support for the past the four years. Equally deserving in praise are my other committee members: Dr. Martha McNamara, Dr. William TeBrake, Dr. Mazie Hough and Dr. Stephen Miller. As with all research projects, mine was dependent on the libraries and archives who held my sources and the librarians and archivists who found them for me. I would especially like to thank The Phillips Library, The Rhode Island Judicial Archives, The New England Historic and Genealogical Society, The New Hampshire State Archives, The American Antiquarian Society, , The Andover Historical Society, The Ipswich Historical Society, The Scituate Historical Society and The Bangor Public Library. No major research project is ever completed without funding and the following grants must be acknowledged: The Phillips Library Research Fellowship at the Peabody- Essex Museum, the John J. Nolde Lectureship and the Charles J. Dunn Dissertation Research Grant from the History Department, the University Graduate Research Fellowship and various Graduate Student Government grants at the University of Maine. More than anyone else, I must thank my dearest friend and husband, Jim Riordan. Though only one of us is now called doctor, you deserve it as well. My family also are deserving in thanks. While my research could not always be discussed over dinner, the history of New England is a topic dear to all of them and I hope this has widened all our knowledge. Albeit from afar, Morgan, Wade, Bree, Jill and the members of the Maud list have always provided much joy and encouragement. Finally, I must thank Clarice who arrived on my doorstep twelve years ago and has been a constant presence ever since. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iv LIST OF CHARTS viii Chapters 1. INTRODUCTION 1 2. "HIS RELATIONS BEING GREAT MEN:" CLASS, COMMUNITY AND SEXUAL CRIME IN ESSEX COUNTY. 34 3. "I MADE FRESH PURSUIT AFTER HIM:" LAW AND ORDER ON THE MAINE FRONTIER 69 4. SHADOW AND MYTH: SEXUAL CRIME IN PLYMOUTH COLONY. 104 5. "THE COURT DOE OWN HIM HER ATURNEY:" SEXUAL CRIME AND LEGAL PROCEDURE IN RHODE ISLAND 137 6. CONCLUSION 166 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 182 APPENDICES Appendix A. Charts 191 Appendix B. Alternate Sexual Crime Charges 204 Appendix C. Preservation and Publication of the Legal Sources 207 Appendix D. New England Court Systems 210 BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR 212 V LIST OF CHARTS Chart 1. Total Charges by Jurisdiction 1636-1718 191 Chart 2. Individual Charges 1636-1718 192 Chart 3. Total Charges With Documentation by Jurisdiction 1636-1718 193 Chart 4. Essex County Charges 1636-1718 194 Chart 5. Essex County Charges With Documentation, 1636-1718 195 Chart 6. Province of Maine Charges 1636-1718 196 Chart 7. Repeat Offenders by Jurisdiction 1636-1718 197 Chart 8. Province of Maine Alternate Sexual Crime Charges by Decade, 1636-1718 198 Chart 9. Plymouth Colony Charges 1636-1718 199 Chart 10. Plymouth Colony Charges With Documentation,1636-1718 200 Chart 11. Rhode Island Colony Charges 1641-1718 201 Chart 12. Province of New Hampshire Charges, 1660-1718 202 Chart 13. New Hampshire Charges for Intercourse before Marriage, 1693-1718 203 1 Chapter One INTRODUCTION The opening scene of Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel The Scarlet Letter remains vivid in classic New England imagery. Daughter Pearl in her arms and the embroidered "A" on her bodice, adulterer Hester Prynne stands forever outlined in the doorway of a seventeenth-century Boston prison. While Prynne stepped down from the threshold and set the novel's events in motion, elements of Hawthorne's tale remain frozen in the amber of New England mythology. Hester Prynne had arrived in Boston some months earlier, promising that her husband would eventually follow. In time, it became apparent that Prynne's husband was still missing and that she was with child. As her husband may have been lost at sea, the Boston magistrates chose not to sentence her to death, described by the novel as the customary punishment for her crime. Instead, she was ordered to wear an "A" for adultery. Prynne also felt "the innumerable throbs of anguish ... so cunningly contrived for her by the undying, the ever-active sentence of the Puritan tribunal."1 For years afterward, clergymen pointed out her sins to their parishioners, whether in church or on the street. No other character commits her crime throughout the seven year time span of The Scarlet Letter. As always, Hester Prynne stands alone. Most popular knowledge of sexual crime in colonial New England revolves around these fixed details. Adulterers were punished by death. Sinners wore letters on their sleeves, identifying their misdeeds for all to see. In any event, it rarely happened. Hester Prynne was a novel heroine, the rare exception who fell prey to the rigidity of ' Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, reprint edition, 1906), p. 88. See Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter (Boston: Ticknor, Reed & Fields, 1850) for original edition. 2 Puritan society.2 The reality behind the fictional tale, like most histories, was far more complex. Scholars have made great strides in the last thirty years towards unraveling the tangled relationship between sexuality and the law in colonial New England. Capital punishment was almost never used for such crimes, a point made by historian Richard Godbeer in Sexual Revolution in Early America (2002).3 A few colonists in the 1630s and 1640s were ordered to wear initials describing their sexual misconduct, but most jurisdictions preferred whippings or fines. Perhaps most importantly, Hester Prynne had company. While historians Cornelia Dayton's Women Before the Bar (1995) and Jane Kamensky's Governing the Tongue (1997) explored a range of issues in colonial New England legal culture, both used sexual crime trials from Massachusetts and Connecticut as key sources. Furthermore, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Elaine Forman Crane and Else Hambleton have each examined the women behind the trials, broadening their stories beyond gravestone epitaphs and court room convictions.4 Nevertheless, a deeper, and more focused, exploration remains necessary for understanding sexual crime trials in colonial New England.
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