Devil Made Me Do It! Crime And Punishment In Early New England

by Mofford, Juliet Haines

• ISBN13: 9780762771653
• ISBN10: 0762771658
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-12-20
• Publisher: Globe Pequot Press

Summary

Scarlet Letters, wanton dalliances, Sabbathbreaking, and debt: Colonial laws were easily broken and the malefactors who broke them, swiftly punished. How did our ancestors deal with murder and mayhem? How did seventeenth- and eighteenth-century New England communities handle deviants? How have definitions of criminal behavior and its punishment changed over the centuries? What were early prisons like? What were the duties of a turn-key? Find out all this and more in The Devil Made Me Do It. Drawing on early court dockets, diaries, sermons, gaolers' records, and other primary sources, Juliet Haines Mofford investigates historical cases from a time when accused felons often pleaded in their own defense: "The Devil made me do it!" Among the questions that emerge in this fascinating book: Would spinster Sarah Booker be punished today for her 1769 theft of three skeins of linen yarn? Would Joan Andrews still get a T for Theft pinned upon her bodice for cheating a client by placing two stones in the firkin of butter she sold him?

Author Biography

Juliet Haines Mofford is a writer and historian based in Bath, ME. She is a former educational board member of the American Association of Museums, and has written feature articles for the Boston Globe’s Sunday Travel Section. She is also a member of Bentley College's Speakers' Bureau.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. vii
The Puritan Way	p. 1
The First Execution	p. 3
Laws Crafted from English Precedents and Holy Scripture	p. 4
Public Ridicule as Punishment	p. 7
Class and Social Status	p. 10
Treatment of Native Americans	p. 11
"Ordeal by Touch"	p. 14
Governing the Family	p. 18
Minding Your Neighbor's Business	p. 19
Dress According to Your Station	p. 20
Incorrigible and Delinquent Youth	p. 21
"Railing" Women	p. 24
Quarrelsome Couples	p. 29
Divorce	p. 36
Governing the Community	p. 38
Vagabonds and Vagrants	p. 39
"Disguised with Drink"	p. 41
The Power of Speech	p. 50
Crime on the Rise	p. 54
The First Colonial Crime Wave: Crimes against Religion	p. 57
The "Quaker Invasion"	p. 59
Sexual Deviants and Female Felons	p. 74
Bridal Pregnancy and Birthing Bastards	p. 77
Wearing the Scarlet Letter	p. 81
"Pursuing Strange Flesh"	p. 86
"A Horrible Case of Bestiality"	p. 89
Pedophilia-The Spectacular Humfry Case	p. 91
Most Tragic of Female Felonies-Infanticide	p. 94
The Second Colonial Crime Wave: Witches	p. 102
Ann Hibbens-Hanged "for having more wit than her neighbors"	p. 105
The Connecticut Witch Hunts	p. 108
The Salem Trials	p. 113
Confession-Chief Goal of Ministers and Magistrates	p. 142
Salem Trials Brought to an End	p. 154
Aftermath of the Salem Trials	p. 156
Crimes against Property	p. 160
"Tiefin"	p. 161
Arson	p. 165
The Third Colonial Crime Wave: Pirates	p. 168
Dixey Bull-Pirate off Pemaquid	p. 170
Captain Kidd-The Pirate Who Was Framed	p. 172
Captain John Quelch-A Privateer Hanged for Piracy	p. 176
The Pickled Head of Captain John Phillips	p. 179
Captain William Fly-"A very hardened wretch"	p. 182
Early Prisons	p. 185
Houses of Correction	p. 186
Life in Prison	p. 187
Debtors	p. 192
Connecticut's Unique Newgate Prison	p. 105
The Case of Patience Samson Boston, the Penitent Prisoner	p. 196
Afterword: From Ridicule to Reform	p. 206
Endnotes	p. 211
Bibliography	p. 217
Index	p. 223
Acknowledgments	p. 231
About the Author	p. 232
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