5a Religion and Everyday Life in the American Colonies

0:00 good morning and today we are looking at religion and everyday life in the American colonies this is a first of a series of lectures on social history everyday life before the American Revolution so in this lecture we'll be looking at religion everyday life including witchcraft so beginning with a survey of religion we're first going to look at the two most important established churches in the colonies before the Revolution and these would be the Anglican Church and the Congregational Church or the Puritan Church so they're the two religions that were the most most established that were most associated with the mainstream

0:47 establishment of course there's never an official church are the Anglican Church in the south and the Congregational Church or the Puritan Church in the north so the Anglican Church known today as the Episcopal Church is the Church of England and was the second largest denomination in the colonies it had about half a million members on the eve of the revolution four hundred eighty churches and was the very first church to reach the English colonies the chaplain of the Jamestown Colony named Robert hunt first conducted services under an old ships sail at Jamestown

1:32 shortly after the colony was founded so the ant can charge was the first church to reach the new world the Anglican Church was the biggest religious denomination in the south it was made into the official Church of the colony of Virginia in 1626 by the Virginia House of Burgesses and in other colonies the Anglican Church was also made the established Church so the Anglican Church was the established Church in Virginia Maryland South Carolina Georgia and certain counties New York in these areas the salaries of

2:18 anglican church clergy anglican priest were paid by tax revenue from these areas the Anglican Church as you know was based on a hierarchical hierarchical structure like the Catholic Church it was based on the role of bishops and the American Anglican Church was actually under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of London there was no American bishop as far as the training of new priests were concerned the Anglican Church had its hands tied the Bishop of London was theoretically head of the Anglican Church in the colonies governance by the

3:05 Bishop of London as you see here but in reality his control over the church in the new world was minimal even when the Bishop of London was able to send commissions they lacked the authority to ordain new clergymen and potential clergymen in the Church of England had to make the long journey to England to become ordained so therefore only the most committed persevered and as a result all but most sincere candidates were deterred from becoming new priests and the American Anglican Church had to rely on ministers who were trained in England and usually who failed in England or weren't successful in England so what I'm trying to tell you is that

3:51 the American Anglican Church was undersupplied and didn't always have the best priests the parishes so the Anglican Church is predominant in the south and there were relatively few churches for instance in 1750 there was one Church for every thousand English settlers that's not so many parishes were large geographically and thinly settled and the areas were so large that it was impossible for priests to cover the entire areas priest wrote that it took them 10 to 12 weeks to ride through all of the places in the parish certain

4:38 people wanted to appoint a resident bishop in America many people in the American ensign Church favored the appointment of an American bishop that would be resident in America but Parliament refused to do so for several reasons Parliament wanted to remain neutral on village really religion and there was also fierce opposition that non Anglicans in America would not like this who might look at this as the creation of a state religion and also American political leaders of the government thought that a resident American bishop

5:26 in the South might diminish their control over the southern colonies so as we said the priests in the Anglican Church they were undersupplied and there was never an American bishop nonetheless it was the official Church in these colonies and the salaries of priests were supported by taxes nonetheless people resented the church taxes the tithe and the clerical salaries were always very meager barely enough to support a priest priest typically received about 200 acres of land to supplement their meager salaries through

6:12 so that's a brief look at the Anglican Church it was definitely one of the more establishment traditional religions very formal in terms of its actual liturgy Catholic like this shows you an interior of a typical Anglican Church what it looked like the pulpit the pews this is not the oldest Anglican Church but this is the oldest church that has been in continuous use since the time of colonies this is the bruton parish church in Williamsburg Virginia would you also see here another movement which was a part of the Anglican religion is something called deism something you may have heard of

6:58 before deism was I first should say that deism was not an official established religion it didn't have churches it didn't have priests it wasn't inter life it was an intellectual movement it was an attempt to combine philosophy science and the Enlightenment with religion so it was an intellectual movement that developed largely within the Anglican Church among intellectuals who continued continue to attend traditional Anglican Mass like this but sort of believed in these additional deist beliefs so deism was strongly influenced by the theories of

7:44 the Enlightenment the Scientific Revolution and the theories of Isaac Newton if you know anything about Newton Newton was the founder of the Scientific Revolution and came up with it with his famous laws of universal gravitation the law of gravity his famous laws of motion and inertia and without going into the tales the details of these physical scientific discoveries his books put forth the idea that the universe was rational that it operated like a rational machine and that if we simply observed nature that we could come to know and understand all parts of nature nature and that the world would that the

8:31 world operated according to rational observable laws so this idea of laws of nature so deism was strongly influenced by the theories of Isaac Newton his emphasis on science and the idea of rational laws of nature based on new ideas of rational observation of nature Diaz believes that the theories of science and the Enlightenment could be compatible with traditional religion based on rational observation of nature Diaz believes believed that only a good a benevolent and omniscient God could have created the world so in the same way that humans could understand the

9:18 laws of gravity through the observation of nature so too could humans understand God and moral law through their rational power it was an attempt to change traditional religion make it no longer superstitious and about blind faith but use science to further understand religion so ideas for instance believed that the Bible wasn't literal the stories in the Bible were literal and believed that revelation was unnecessary in religion revelation so divine revelation in religion is the idea of received knowledge knowledge that you get directly from God you can't prove it

10:03 it's not scientific it's something that you just know the Prophet Muhammad is an example of someone who received divine revelation or Moses or many other figures it's knowledge that you just know and you and you can't prove the ideas reject this and don't you accept divine revelation they believe it unnecessary so deism was a reform movement and new religion without fanaticism intolerance and superstition that attempted to combine human reason with traditional religious principles the best way to understand deism it's not an organized religion they didn't have church and priests but they did try to bridge the gap between different Christian sects and they did not

10:50 organize new churches most deist continued continued to attend Orthodox Anglican services like for instance Thomas Jefferson or Benjamin Franklin many of the founding fathers were deists so deist regarded God as a clockmaker or a sort of watchmaker they believe God was a sort of divine clock maker God had created the mechanisms on of the universe and the laws of nature he had set the universe into motion but he left it to run on its own the Deus Creed had two major points first observation of nature empirical

11:35 scientific data so observation of nature nature and scientific data could justify even prove the existence of God that's their first point the second belief was that because nature could provide rational evidence for God the Supreme Being God must also favor a rational morality and a rational sort of virtue this implied that there was life after death where according to logical rationality where there were rewards and punishment meted out for good and bad deeds on earth so God what logical God was rational life after death was based on good behavior on earth earth D ISM

12:26 once again was not an organized religion it was something that attracted a small circle of elitist intellectuals it was very cold and unemotional and was not something that ever appealed with everyday people but in any case it's very important especially for some of the founding fathers so the Anglican Church is this is the biggest church in the south in the north by contrast this is a picture of Newton's famous book principles of mathematics in the North the biggest church is the Congregational Church and this is the Puritan Church the Percheron

13:14 Puritan Church was the largest denomination in the American colonies with about 600,000 members about 700 churches and it had a more churches per per head so in contrast to the South where there was like one church for every thousand European settlers there was about one church for every 500 settlers in the north so let's go back to this idea what was the Puritan goal in coming to the new world the Puritans had hoped with their gleaming city on a hill to set an example of regeneration they had hoped to purify and transform and reform the

14:01 Church of England they England the Church of England anything Church however they realized that this was not possible sadly for them the city on the hill did not encourage England to change and reform - and also in terms of religion they realized that the Anglican Church was not going to change and reform and purify as they wanted so the Puritans originally a reformed movement within the Anglican Church end up and they end up founding their own church which came to be known as the Congregational Church so in a nutshell the Puritans become what is called the Congregational Church the Puritan Congregational Church is different from

14:47 the Anglican Church in many ways and here are some of the major points how first in contrast to the Anglican Church Anglican Church was based on a hierarchical structure of the role of bishops in the Congregational Church a suggested in the name it is the local congregation not the bishop that is the highest church authority like Calvin had called for right it is lay people not Church people the local congregation that elects a minister elders deacons etc so government by the local congregation secondly they threw out a Church of England worship they threw out the BCP the Book of Common Prayer

15:34 for much simpler services and purified prayers third the Congregational Church is based on a very serious commitment and a very elitist covenant remember the Congregational Church was formed by means of a covenant a contract between the elect and God the elect were those who had been given evidence from God of having been redeemed by the saving grace of God the elect were those who were saved the elect was based on the

16:21 Calvinist doctrine of predestination which we talked about before people who were either damned or saved by God from the beginning of time people were believed to be totally sinful totally depraved there was nothing they could do to change their fate only a few individuals had been elected by God for salvation and only these Saints were capable of journey joining the church as full members and remember to be counted as one of the elect you had to publicly testify about your conversion experience about your new birth so very high elitist standards to be members of the

17:06 church not just people who are going along with it regarding the church governments and the government by the congregation the churches in New England met in 1648 and drew up something called the Cambridge platform and this was an agreement of all Congregational churches in New England that re-emphasized the independence of each individual congregation so in jindo in each individual congregation would govern its own church but nonetheless cooperation among the churches was important and this Cambridge platform provided for church synods that would be called periodically

17:51 with suggestions like overall policy misty nods that spelled sy and OD s so meetings councils of all of the churches a bit more about their style of worship Puritan churches the places of worship were called meeting houses not Church and like this picture here from Massachusetts Puritan meeting houses were simple wooden structures often they originally lacked bell towers or steeples even not this so simple wooden structures reflecting their vision of religion in Puritan churches there was a

18:38 focus on a stripped down their interior no art decoration and a focus on the Word of God in the Bible and the priests I'm sorry and the minister sermon in the pulpit men and women sat on different sides of the church and benches without backs originally the Puritan churches were unheated people who worked coats and kept warm with foot stoves there basically iron little stoves that were full of live coals sometimes these foot stoves caught on fire so people use bricks that were actually put in the hearth wrapped in quilts by the end of

19:23 the 18th century churches did become churches were heated and there was a tradition of reserving to perfuse for families as for actual worship in Puritan services prayers lasted in an hour the entire congregation stood scripture readings and sermons took two hours so that might be a three hour Sunday service the parrot ins also use the foxtail it's a wooden device with a animal tail a fox tail on the end P arjen's used the fox tail to ensure no one fell asleep so one end of the rod was a sort of stick and the other rod had the

20:09 animal tail on the end and men if they fell asleep were struck with the hard end of the rod and women and children were sort of tickled with the Fox tail and if they fell asleep the puritans absolutely kept the Sabbath very strictly the Sabbath lasted from sundown on Saturday until sundown on Sunday and very strict blue laws that meant no work no amusements no alcohol no gambling etc on the Sabbath on the un-- on the other hand this also meant taverns and whatnot were closed on the other hand idleness was also forbidden and looked down upon

20:55 the Sabbath was the Sabbath was supposed to be devoted to family prayers meditation reading the Bible so you weren't supposed to indulge in luxurious amusements but you were also supposed to use your time productively to violators would be fined or put into stocks there are classic stories of New England sea captain's that come home from long sea voyages kiss their wife and are actually punished by Puritan authorities for kissing their own wife because this was not acceptable behavior on Sundays in terms of church governance we already discussed this church governance all

21:42 church officials the pastor the elders church officials called thickens all church officials were elected by the congregation so this is one thing that's important for the tradition of New England democracy New England self-government okay a very important thing in the Puritan Church something called the half way covenant the Puritan Church had very strict standards for church membership as we discussed this public conversion experience the halfway covenant was a realization that not everyone could live up to the strict standard of being chosen as the elect remember someone who was a was an elect had experienced a new birth and

22:29 publicly testified it about it to the congregation with a public conversion experience many New Englanders had come for-profit many Puritans become very prosperous and wealthy many drift away from the faith on the other end I don't want you to look at the half-way covenant I don't want you to look at the half-way covenant as necessarily reflecting the ideas that the Puritans were no longer religious on the other hand many people took their faith very seriously and many did not want to pretend to have a conversion experience you know if they really didn't have this so the halfway

23:15 covenant was a response to some people who had drifted away from the faith and weren't necessarily as religious as the Puritan founders but also on the other hand people who took their faith so seriously that they did not want to pretend that they had a conversion experience if they they felt they did not so the halfway covenant was adopted by a Massachusetts Synod church meeting in 1616 1662 and basically it was a response it was a halfway covenant it was a lessening of the standards of church membership to halfway so this was the situation by the 1650s children of the

24:00 first generation you know immigrants children of the first generation Puritans the Saints had come of age they were eligible for membership in the in the church and many of them lost their religious fervor the second generation many were unwilling or unable to testify to testify about a profound religious conversion experience for membership maybe it was because they weren't as committed as their parents they didn't remember the harsh oppression in England and England so why was church membership such a big deal in New England well remember church and state in New England are pretty closely

24:46 connected church membership was necessary for political rights in most not all of the colonies but definitely in Massachusetts so the question was should the second generation Puritans be allowed as church members should they be allowed to participate in communion the Lord's Supper and you know should they be allowed to vote if they're not church members so the halfway covenant was a compromise a halfway compromise it admitted the new-generation to the church it gave them political rights allow them to vote but these new half-way members weren't full church

25:31 members it did not allow these half-way members to participate in communion the Lord's Supper or vote on church affairs but they were still members of the church and still allowed to vote okay so I hope that's clear halfway covenant that so the halfway coming it basically lowered a standard for church membership open it up not just to the elite elect so there definitely was a collapse of Puritan religious fervor commitment this ideal of the city on the hill around the time of the halfway covenant the 1670s Puritan minutes ministers noticed catalogues of sin among people people

26:17 became proud and arrogant people broke the Sabbath there was an increase in dishonesty lying profanity and a lack of moderation in food and drink even drunkenness so in response to all of this this weakening of the strict Garrett standards for everyday life Puritan preachers began preaching special sermons trying to stop this moral laxity and these sermons were called the Jeremiah's so the Jeremiah's were a late 17th century things during the late 17th century New England Puritan clergy

27:03 specialized in age special genre a sermon known as the Jeremiah's they're named after the grim Old Testament prophet Jeremiah if you're familiar with that and you can imagine sitting in one of these interiors with the foxtail and the foot stoves and being there for three hours and listening to this a jeremiad catalog the suffering and sins of new england they talked about all the bad things that were happened because of human sinfulness indian wars fires earthquakes storms natural disasters all these bad things were sent as punishment by God to a region that was wallowing in immortality and sin the jeremiad called

27:51 out the lower religious commitment and fervor of the present generation and called on listeners to reclaim go back to the lofty standards and more moral purity of the first generation of Puritans so what was the jeremiad really about it's tempting to interpret the Jeremiah this this very moral base sermon it's tempting to interpret the Jeremiah as a simplistic expression of the decline of Puritan ideals the decline of things the halfway covenant and whatnot but the jeremiad also attested to the persistence of Puritan ideals in colonial New England even as it attested to the decline of pier

28:36 tonight Hills this is what I mean the Puritans wanted to hear this they were determined to live better and they longed for the sermons castigation they longed for the way the sermon called them out for their sins and they use this as they could and were determined to live up to their shortcomings as much as they could okay from this point we're gonna take a break from looking at the individual denominations the Congregational Church being the biggest in the northern colonies and the Anglican Church in the south to look at one of the biggest events that happen within the Puritan Church and Puritan society and this is the witchcraft craze of the late 17th

29:23 century the witchcraft craze was pretty much centered in colonial New England Massachusetts and was basically another factor or perhaps symptom of the collapse of Puritan fervor now witchcraft was widespread throughout late 9'h 17th century New England but of course the most famous outbreak of witchcraft hysteria occurred in the Salem it occurred in the Salem witch trials so let's look at these closely um witchcraft was a huge epidemic in early

30:09 modern Europe so much so that the Pope actually commissioned to Dominican monks yakov springer and heinrich kramer to commissioned a witch hunting manual that was condoned by the church this witch hunting manual it was called in English the hammer of witches and were used in the witch trials in Europe it's a picture of that here but as for witchcraft in America let's look at that now the best-known witch hunting persecutions being found in Salem Massachusetts okay so the first thing we need to talk about where we're going to be analyzing why why did this happen on many levels but the first thing we're

30:55 going to talk about is Salem town versus Salem Village so on one level the witchcraft Asteria the witchcraft hysteria at Salem a symptom of the collapse of the Puritan religious fervor the waning you know religious ideal but the witchcraft hysteria at Salem was also rooted in long-standing tensions between Salem town and Salem Village so Salem town look on the map here Salem town was the older more prosperous an established community which was next to the port Salem town was richer Salem Village was newer and poorer

31:41 Salem Village was the landlocked newer village to the West Salem town was the older more prosperous hillock on the port so Salem Village was the landlocked newer village to the west which was on the fringes of the old town economically and socially socially Salem Village consisted of lower middle class people who resented the prosperity of the port and were generally frustrated that the new modern economy was not benefiting them the goal of the people of Salem Village was to create a separate town and separate Church they wanted to break off from the old town of Salem so they would know how longer have to pay Church taxes and militia taxes authorities

32:31 denied permission to Salem Village to create a new town they weren't allowed to have a new town but they were allowed to have a separate Church so at Salem Village Church ministers came and went including one George Burroughs who was eventually hung as a witch and one someone who became minister of Salem Village at the time of the witchcraft epidemic was to Reverend Samuel Parris so what I'm trying to tell you is the accusations of witchcraft definitely reflected these tensions between the town and village and the accusations tend to follow tend to fall along those

33:18 lines many of the accusers were people who supported the Reverend of Salem Village Reverend Parris so the accusers tended to be the pro Reverend Parris faction and tended to support the separation of the village from town so the accuser tended to be from the village and separate the and support the separation of village from town the people that were accused were against Reverend Parris and tended to be from the town of Salem and not support the separation of village from town okay so the accusation

34:06 of witchcraft at Salem revolved around the minister of the the separate Church at Salem Village and his name was I didn't actually put his name here but his name was Reverend Samuel Parris Parris was a failed merchant from the English colony of Barbados who was it was as equally frustrated as the villagers with the effects of the modern economy he was minister of the Salem Village Church and definitely did not smooth over the tensions between village and town so village town tensions played a direct role in the witchcraft

34:51 accusations the witchcraft accusations began in the household of the Reverend Parris in January 1692 a handful of young girls anywhere from age 9 to 21 broke out in horrible fits and seizure that no one understood so in January 1692 girls adolescent girls including the daughter and niece of the Reverend Samuel Parris his daughter Betty Parris and his niece Abigail Williams began to suffer convulsive and seizures loss of hearing loss of speech and sight and horrible

35:38 hallucinations doctors determined that the fits the girls were suffering were not connected with any known diseases Paris's position at the church was shaky and given his shaky position within the village in town Paris decided to support the girl's claims because he didn't want to be blamed and he didn't want the girls to be blamed so he supported and stood by their claims soon the afflictions spread to other households like the putnams for instance and the girls claimed to be afflicted by the devil and that they were forced to sign the devil's book by the way witchcraft was not new to New England before 1692 there were already

36:24 22 witches who had been executed in Massachusetts and Connecticut many of these witches were widows who preferred not to remarry or women with medical skills or women who were independent and conflicts with their neighbors we'll look at some of these factors later so let's actually go the let's go over the details of the story the Salem girls accused three women of the witching them the women were two elderly women Sarah Goode and Sarah Osborne and a slave owned by Webb Reverend Parris who served in the household called Tituba the last two women met stereotypes of witches the typical

37:11 stereotype of a witch was an older woman a postmenopausal woman a woman who was beyond her childbearing years a woman who was often poor economically Marge marginalized but argumentative and with her own voice these two older women denied the accusation of witchcraft but t-thomas response was different at the end of harsh questioning and tortured Tituba Tituba readily confessed to being a to witch uh so at the end of harsh confessional at the end of harsh questioning and torture titta book confessed to being a witch readily she implicated the two others accused the two others of being witches

37:58 and added details that other witches were still practicing amongst them Tiptonville was different um I'm not sure what you've heard of her some people have asserted that she was a black slave so contrary to the inventions of 19th century historians who held that she was a black slave tip the boat was actually not an African slave but she was a Native American she was an error ox Arawak slave captured in South America and Slow sold into slavery in Barbados so she was an Indian slave purchased in Barbados by Paris her perception is black could also result from the fact that she well could also result from the fact that both black and

38:45 Indian were conflated as different as other in the popular imagination in any case Tituba in her confession gave the authorities what they wanted to hear the most more information about witches more stories and details about demons and corroborated the worst authority the worst fears of the Salem authorities they gave credence to the idea that witches were living among them among their godly community community and holding witches Sabbath's tinta but probably offered this information the juicy details that the authorities wanted to hear as a strategy to keep herself alive she backed the girls claims that other women were afflicted

39:31 once the community was convinced that witches were in their midst they became obsessed with rooting them out the accusations grew a number and began to target not only the economically marginal poor women like good and Osbourne but upstanding church members like Martha Corey and Rebecca nerves who were very religious very faithful pious relatively well-off women so as I mentioned the accusations grew in number and began to target not sort of marginal members of the society but very upstanding church members like Rebecca nurse the former minister of Salem Village was also implicated as the

40:20 crisis unfolded it became clear that the best way to stave off avoid execution was to confess and implicate and accuse others what about the people who resisted the accusations John Proctor was a farmer whose servant was one of the afflicted girls her name was Mary Warren but Proctor warned that the girls testimony was not reliable however soon the unassuming spoken proctor found himself among those accused of witchcraft how the hundreds of suspects were in prison including the old Reverend George burrows who was the former minister of Salem Village and was

41:10 a member of the anti Parris faction he did not support the Reverend Parris all of these hundreds accused 50 offered confessions to save their life let's look at a case study of some of these people who were accused like the upstanding church members how the accusation accusations widen widen Rebecca a nurse was a prosperous middle widow she was upper middle class she was an upstanding Church member very devout very religious perfect church attendance all of that and she was cried down as a witch in March 1692 two months after the accusations began she refused to confess and was hanged Rebecca nurses case was

41:58 rooted in long-standing property disputes between families and resentment of how she Rebecca nurse was the head of a prosperous family and held rights over livestock and property as widow nurse always maintained her innocence and was supported by the anti Paris faction according to her supporters a day before her arrest she was weak and sick sickly and was actually lamenting the entire witchcraft crisis she was saying that it was a shame that these innocent women were being tortured and killed true to her Puritan beliefs she was not bitter to her accusers but cried out to God and asked what sin she had committed

42:43 to deserve this fate sadly the innocent Rebecca nurse who maintained her innocence was killed before the summer was over ironically even though the jurors found her initially not guilty she would be found guilty on a technicality the accusers refused to accept the verdict she was initially found not guilty and made a hideous out prize the judge was asked to the judge asked the jury to reconsider the case and a particular piece of evidence nurse had made a statement regarding two confessed witches these two confessed witches testified against her implicated her saying that that her accusers were one of us or used to come

43:31 among us when we when we questioned about this statement before the court that her accusers confessed witches were one of us nurse refused to say anything which the jury interpreted as her implicit guilt one of us meaning that she was one of the witches but in reality nurse was hard of hearing and was trapped she didn't know what they were getting her into she was hanged on July 12 1692 and was excommunicated from the church one of nurses most prominent accusers was lower middle class woman named Ann Putnam the execution of women

44:17 like Rebecca nurse was a turning point in the epidemic and this is why I'm mentioning it the execution of nurse nurse was a turning point in the epidemic both for those who believed in the witch conspiracy and to those who denied it to those who believed in witches they saw that even the most pious members of the community were susceptible to witchcraft those who did not believe in witches recognized a similar realization those who did not believe in rich grass saw that even most even the most pious members of the community were not immune from this I've invented hysteria so I've given you some details on one particular case and now we're going to pull back and look at some of the general reasons

45:05 for why this possibly occurred so theories and motives behind the witchcraft hysteria we already looked at village town disputes most of the accusers tended to come from the poorer village the people who were accused tended to be from the older more prosperous town many accusations related to family tensions about property and wealth and this definitely relates to the nurse case the nurse case was rooted in long-standing property disputes between the Putnam and nurse family and Putnam was prominent among the accusers and represented the economic prosperity of nurses family who was her name

45:53 other women claimed similar things the widow Sarah Holden claimed that nurse practiced witchcraft the widow ser Holden claimed that a few years prior to the trial nurse had threatened home because Holton's pigs had run over and to spoiled nurses fields during the fight nurse supposedly became so angry that she called her son to get a gun and killed the pigs after the into the incident Sara Holton's husband became ill and died and this was later aired as witchcraft so the big picture idea is that oftentimes accusations of witchcraft reflected long-standing tensions rivalries families about property and wealth one

46:39 is drink interesting theory is this perhaps this hysteria reflected an empowerment of adolescent women their need for attention and I sort of rebellion from strict Puritan society of all people in Puritan New England young teenage girls were certainly accorded very little that is to say no authority and voice in normal times however at the height of the witchcraft panic their voice was vindicated like never possible in normal circumstances the whole society was wrapped to these confessions and the information that these girls were saying about witches so scholars

47:28 like Mary Beth Norton have argued that during the trot trials society gave girls a role that was extraordinary when these girls had almost the same role like that of church authorities or legal authorities their push the girls perceived ability to communicate with the ghosts specters witches gave the court the evidence that it wanted so this is this is something interesting to consider now by the way any time we talk about the history of witchcraft though that whether in Europe or America you know the historian cannot determine whether the existence of witches was true that's not really something that interests me what we can talk about is

48:14 the historicity of belief the fact that the Puritans believed that there were witches is really what we're out to study right not whether or not there were witches you know so that's just what we're looking at on in some cases witchcraft afflictions reflected a history of personal trauma and sometimes traumatic things like like warfare and loss of family members now I'm gonna tell you a specific case to illustrate this not from sale but from Boston mercy short was a teenage girl who arrived in Boston

48:59 Massachusetts from me in Maine her whole family was brutally killed before her eyes in an Indian attack although her family had been pretty prosperous in Massachusetts owning land and whatnot she fell into servitude in Boston she became a servant when the epidemic hit in 1692 in Boston she was one of the accused in running an errand to the prison for the family she worked for other witches were held captive and she claimed to be afflicted she soon fell into a state of bewitchment and this state of bewitchment was so severe with fits and convulsions that she had to be

49:46 carried back to employer's house so interestingly enough the term of the torments that mercy received the torments that Mercia claimed to receive from demons were very much like those described in Indian captivity narratives were very much like those torments or suffering that settlers claimed to have suffered at the hands of Indians starving burning critical ridicule things involving destruction of the Bible it is likely that Mercy's fists were a way of dealing with a personal trauma of her past so in other words the afflictions that she claimed to receive

50:32 from demons were a thinly thinly veiled version of the tortures that she saw before her own eyes when her family was brutally killed by Indians perhaps the witch club witchcraft affliction offered her an escape from her state of servitude in Maine mercy short had been the daughter of a landowner but now she was an indentured servant which gave her no chance to deal with her grief and trauma she felt ostracized and humiliated so witchcraft provided her with a sort of way of emotional relief so suddenly as the target of witches her neighbors

51:18 accepted her and took compassion for her in a way that was never possible before so was this a way of dealing with traumatic personal trauma Indian warfare something to consider back to Salem okay that was a case not dealing with Salem in June 1692 the witchcraft hysteria began to wind down in 1692 the influential Boston preacher Cotton Mather condemns witchcraft hysteria he begins to fight against the witchcraft hysteria he issued a statement in June 1692 with other influential preachers

52:03 that the court trying the witches in Salem was no longer to accept spectral evidence and this is evidenced evidence relating to ghosts or demons Mather said it is very certain that the Devils have sometimes represented the shapes of persons not only in you innocent but very virtuous so in other words no longer should the court accept evidence relating to ghosts and demons nonetheless the Salem Court continued to accept spectral evidence as proof of witchcraft and argued that people could not be bewitched without their consent people continued to be killed 13 women

52:51 and six men were home however what math what Mather preached began to be heated the witchcraft hysteria began winding down in the fall when the accusations reached too high when even the wife of the new Massachusetts governor the new governor of Massachusetts in 1692 was Sir William Phips and when his wife lady arey Phipps was accused the accusations had gone far enough the governor issued a statement condemning the accusations he had had enough and he temporarily suspended further proceedings across colony that month month in Salem the

53:38 court next met in 6 a.m. June 16 93 and when it met in June 16 93 the court no longer accepted spectral evidence that year in 1693 52 people were still brought before the court on charges of witchcraft but now no longer accepting spectral evidence only three were convicted and sentenced to death by by 1697 the witchcraft hysteria had ended in January 16 97 the Massachusetts government proclaimed a day of fasting and penance penance for the tragedy

54:24 judges apologized and almost 2000 heirs of those that were executed received monetary compensation now let's continue talking about some of the reasons why this happens theories and motives why what why did this happen in Salem and New England well New England saw the lion's shares of witchcraft persecutions they were by far the strongest in Massachusetts Connecticut New Hampshire and Maine witchcraft patients were sporadic and few and far between in the south in the mid-atlantic colonies and Chesapeake colonies why was New England the focus of witchcraft well because of its tight-knit community in town with

55:11 its closely settled towns close knit communities high religious standards high standards of communalism New England was a breeding ground for witch hunting the southern society was more Worrell spread out and likewise did not necessarily take root in cities the mid-atlantic so moving into more detail on the witchcraft hysteria also things that you get into in your reading let's look into details about who was the witch in the eyes of learned elites a witch was someone who entered into a diabolical covenant with Satan a witch

55:58 supposedly signed a covenant in blood with Satan and agreed to do his bidding a covenant was a contract that was the definition that elites were concerned with so supposedly ministers preachers government officials believed that which is signed a covenant in blood in the devil agreed to do his bidding and then joined him at the witches Sabbath the witches feast however every day people were not so much concerned with this demon illogical definition of witchcraft the witches relationship to the devil and demons but rather focused on mal

56:44 oficio evil acts the bad thing that the witch did the bad things like illnesses ruin crops dead livestock sickly livestock's what did it take to be convicted as a witch evil acts alone were not enough for conviction as a witch in colonial New England the best proof of witchcraft was a confession from the witch that substantiated the connection with the devil this was accepted as the best proof so without a confession the law required two witnesses to see the witch perform

57:30 the same supernatural evil act in colonial New England torture was generally not allowed but the use of torture was allowed at Salem so again to reiterate there were two definitions of a which the definition Harvard by the elite which focused on the witches covenant was Satan everyday people were concerned with the evil acts so magistrates and ministers were focused on finding evidence of a covenant with Satan whereas everyday folk were focused on the damages and evil acts done by witches so Salem was notable for its use of torture that was allowed and other taboo forms of

58:17 evidence were also important counter charms and ducking often without a confession it was difficult to have enough evidence to convict a witch sometimes natural healers were called upon for counter charms counter charms was were like white magic counter charms would help identify the offending witch by burning something belonging to the witch like hair or urine that would either make the witch herself combust or force her to reveal herself to the authorities the use of these counter terms was not something that was officially proved by ministers because it was sort of bowing down to the level

59:03 of the witch likewise most ministers and authorities denounced the practice of ducking down suspects so ducking was a practice whereby suspects had their hands and feet bound and they were ducked in water as a way of determining guilt folk belief held that water was equivalent to the pure meeting medium of baptism water was like the pure medium of baptism therefore water would reject a witch and allow her to float innocence those who were not witches would drown the prominent minister however increased Mather

59:50 explained that he had been that he was convinced by earlier writers quote the custom of tying witches by casting them into water was not only unlawful but attempting of God and a sort of indirect magic also if you thought about it it was a logic it was illogical that physical body should lose their natural buoyancy so innocence innocent women would drown well that's not very useful so this was taboo let's come to the issue of forced confessions and talking about witchcraft so here we see a typical confession of a witch so

1:00:38 here we see the typical story of witchcraft we see a witch meeting the devil signing a covenant with the devil joining him at the witches Sabbath cavorting with other witches performing evil acts then the witch is questioned before authorities she implicates others she's taken away and she's hanged or burned at the stake the colonial New Englanders hang their witches why did so many witches confession under the pressure of neighbors and authorities witches really didn't have any choice but to confess and really what they did is give the authorities the information argued with arguably the fictitious

1:01:24 information that they wanted to hear for instance one accused witch in Hartford Connecticut Rebecca Greene Smith was confessed confessed and was hanged in 1663 greens with Greene Smith was described by neighbors as lewd sexually loose and ignorant she was initially outraged by the charges and was resolved to deny them however the magistrates questioned her and questioned her and recorded her words and grilled her on the words and read them back to her so many times that quote she felt that her flesh was pulled back from her bones and she could not deny anymore so in a nutshell there was tremendous pressure from neighbor and authorities to confess torture was

1:02:11 not allowed most places in New England what but was allowed in Salem so we'll continue talking about why people might have confessed but undoubtedly witchcraft was viewed as a woman's crime witchcraft was considered a woman's crime seventy seventy eight percent of those accused were female which reflects its roots in the early modern European witchcraft craze now this also relates to Puritan misogyny that's a hatred or fear of women and Puritan ambivalence about women we need to discuss this for a second arguably Catholicism was notable for its

1:02:57 misogyny hatred or fear of women or at least so the Puritans and Protestants thought in the Catholic Church women could not become priests the Church Fathers the founders of the church took an ambivalent attitude towards women at best women were viewed as sinful Eve's sinful temptations sinful distraction and therefore the church bought father's the founder of the Catholic Church elevated celibacy celibacy remaining chaste remaining unmarried remaining not engaging in sexual relations of any kind a church fathers elevated elevated celibacy not marriage as the most holy state Puritans and pratas Protestants

1:03:42 supposedly rehabilitated women by rejecting the celibacy allowing marriage and allowing healthy procreation so although the Puritans theoretically believed in the spiritual equality of male and female in practice the Puritans thought that women were more susceptible to sin because of their weaker female bodies so Puritans had ambivalent feelings about women believing that they were more sinful who was in practice a witch what was the typical stereotype of a witch witches were vengeful sharp-tongued who were demanding prideful or selfish women

1:04:30 who did not meet the ideal standard of the submissive passive woman accusations of which witchcraft frequently invoked perversions of women's nurturing and caretaking roles women's life-giving capacities so you know the witch was someone who was the opposite of a nurturer or caretaker someone who poisoned or killed typical witches were post menopausal women women beyond childbearing age and their social backgrounds buried buried from economically marginal to prominent and wealthy but often it was the economically marginal accused women who

1:05:19 stood to inherit property were often accused or poor woman poor women we did not show proper gratitude for charity also stood to be accused but a key factor linking witchcraft accusations across classes was expression of discontent with circumstances which went against the Puritan ideal of Pima female piety and submissiveness it was assumed that if a woman complained the next step would be petitioning Satan so women who who had an independent voice who were more independent that's terrifically women who was somewhat older let's let's

1:06:08 let's see so as I mentioned to you which accusations cut across classes upper-class women and lower class women could be accused let me give you a few examples Mary Hartford was a lower-class woman accused of witchcraft in Hartford Connecticut in 1648 some women confessed to authorities that they had turned to the devil for help because Satan was helping them with chores that they resented like cleaning out the asset ashes in the fireplaces and chasing the Hogs and by closely studying her confession we can see that Mary Johnson was a woman who was

1:06:54 dissatisfied with her humble lot in life she was lower-class poor and probably invented this story of relations with seen Satan to signify the fact that she was dissatisfied with her lot and life and wanted so again this idea of discontent with circumstances speaking out against circumstances by contrast a woman of a very different social class and him ins was a prominent upper-class woman in Boston and she could be the upper-class woman could be accused of witchcraft for very different reasons long before accusations Hibbins had violated gender norms by aggressively

1:07:41 fighting with a group of carpenters who she believed overcharged for their labor so she had this quarrel with a group of carpenters who she accused of over overcharging her for their services she stubbornly refused to drop the matter and accept the court's judgment the court ruled that she had become so stubborn on pressing the matter that she had made a mockery of her husband's authority 16 years later after her husband died 16 years later following the death of her husband long after this short term incident with the Carpenters

1:08:27 witchcraft charges surfaces and she was indicated as a proud overbearing woman and basically the witchcraft accusations were made on her were made against her by these carpenters that she had originally accused the insults that hibbons had leveled on the carpenter's insulted their masculinity they didn't expect to be insulted in such a way by a woman even if she was of a higher social class status so class was a very important factor in her trial men of her own social class tried to defend her and

1:09:12 basically the witchcraft charges were a way of dealing with the problem that she was a proud overbearing woman she had inherited property and she had this grudge against the carpenters who over overcharged her and for them the most convenient way of dealing it was dealing with this these insults was calling her a witch male witches so male witches were a minority of the people accused but who was a male witch will typically male witches we're connected to other female witches male witches were also those who spoke out against the witchcraft craze like for instance John Proctor we

1:10:00 mentioned him male witches were also could also be accused of gender defying behavior engaging in feminine behavior like scolding or gossiping like a witch this was acting as act this was interpreted acting as quote less than men am but generally male witches were were individuals connected to other people accused of witchcraft well we looked at some of the factors why the why the witchcraft epidemic occurred when it did and now we're going to go on leave the Salem witch hysteria there are readings for you to do think about it on your own and we're gonna go on and

1:10:47 continue our survey of religion in the colonies so religious groups in the mid-atlantic colonies the Anglican Church was the largest group in the south the Congregational Church the largest group in the north what about the mid-atlantic colonies it's much more diverse there one important group in the middle colonies was the Presbyterian Church the Presbyterian Church was the third largest denomination about 400,000 members Presbyterians were Calvinists Presbyterians followed the teachings of Calvin but differed from the Congregationalists in believing that ultimately the control of the churches

1:11:33 should be controlled not by the individual Church but by larger councils early on in the 17th century there were very few Presbyterian churches the major growth of the Presbyterian movement Presbyterians or Calvinists came in the 18th century with migration of scotch-irish to Pennsylvania and New Jersey what about other groups well there were a variety of other groups smaller groups present in the mid-atlantic colony like Baptists Baptists were derived from the European Anabaptist people who believed in adult baptism ancestors of the modern Baptists

1:12:21 except for Rhode Island which was notable for its religious toleration Baptists were persecuted in New England and elsewhere for much of the 17th century larger largely because they opposed infant baptism Baptists believes that believed that it was improper to baptize babies as infants but needed that needed to happen later when they were full church members and Baptists also demanded the separation of church and state that's not something that we have in New England so Baptist groups Baptist groups were present in Rhode Island from 1640 onward and also spread to Pennsylvania after that was founded and also spread to all of the colonies

1:13:09 later in the 18th century after something called the great away which we'll cover in a few moments in the middle colonies religion religion was the most mixed okay one other religious group in the middle colonies was the Dutch Reformed Church the Dutch Reformed Church basically referred to Dutch Calvinists which was strong in New York there was also groups a variety of groups in Pennsylvania Pennsylvania was by far the most religiously diverse colony Quakers were notable for the

1:13:55 rejection of religious and political hierarchy we discussed them before Quakers believed that there was a spark of divinity in every human being and every human being could experience direct revelation from God Quakers believed that all believers were equal in the eyes of God and did not pay deference to secular or religious authority Quakers did not have clergy Quakers because of their rejection of social and political hierarchy Quakers refused to pay taxes perform in military duties serve in the army or take political oaths they met in meeting houses they did not have clergy but all were equally permitted to stand up and

1:14:42 address the congregation as they saw fit the Quakers were notable for their belief in women's equality and here we see a female Quaker addressing the congregation actually in London in this picture but by far Pennsylvania with its religious freedom was notable for its religious religious toleration and religious diversity Quaker the Quakers were Arvest obviously centered in Pennsylvania as well as Mennonites Baptist Pennsylvania Germans Lutheran's Jews and other groups Quakers were most prominent in Pennsylvania where there were about 300

1:15:28 meeting houses but they were also found in Rhode Island and New Jersey let's see so finally coming to the least tolerated groups in the mid-atlantic colonies and the colonies in general the religions that received the least toleration were Catholics and Jews before the American Revolution there were about 25,000 American Catholics in 50 churches and a much smaller number of Jews about 1,500 Jews in congregations in New York

1:16:15 Newport and Philadelphia among all the religious groups Catholics and Jews found the least acceptance Catholics were viewed by the English as bitter enemies because of the religious wars in England because of English Reformation England's two main enemies were Catholic France and Spain so being an English Catholic was not an easy position Jews found a bit more acceptance than Catholics no colony permitted Catholics the right to vote or hold office whereas in 1741 Parliament permitted the

1:17:03 colonies to naturalize Jews but forbade them to naturalize Catholics make them into British citizens okay finally the last point that we wanted to cover on religion is something called the Great Awakening the great awake okay in the 18th century there was a decline in formal church membership 50% of white males attended church but their spiritual devotion left something to be desired so there was a decline in church membership church fervour due to several

1:17:49 reasons some people found the doctrines of the church too formal too sterile the Congregational Church the Puritan Church had its strict admission requirements and also because of new immigration to the frontier many people were isolated and there was a shortage of churches so once again there was this lessening of religious belief and fervor in the 18th century the Great Awakening was a response to this the Great Awakening was a flourishing evangelical movement of the 18th century it took place among different Protestant sects and was a reviving of religion and deepening of

1:18:36 religion and expanding of inner piety it was about preaching spiritual conversion and inner conversion the Great Awakening was closely associated with preaching tours of various roaming preachers for instance the English preacher George Witt Whitfield but generally speaking in the Great Awakening generally speaking in the Great Awakening there was a stress on generally speaking in the Great Awakening there was a stress on emotionalism a spiritual conversion and evangelicalism basically um with the Great Awakening

1:19:24 preachers are trying to capture people's emotions and seeking to fill the void that established religions had not okay um one thing to know about the Great Awakening it's not specific to any one Christian denomination it began among members of the Dutch Reformed Church in New Jersey but spread to Anglicanism and Presbyterianism and something new called Methodists probably the most outstanding figure in the American colonies associated with the Great Awakening this rebirth of religion was the Puritan Minister the Congregationalist minister Jonathan Edwards he's from Massachusetts he began his revival in Northampton Massachusetts

1:20:09 in 1734 Edwards was the grandson of the Reverend Solomon Stoddard and his grandfather had been one of the people who was responsible for the half-way covenant remember the half-way covenant had admitted all persons of good standing to full church membership Edwards however refused to follow his grandfather's opens admission policy Edwards was a brilliant intellectual and realized that emotions not just the intellect needed to be engaged in order to heighten people's a religious experience so Edwards typical of the Great Awakening believed that he needed to touch the hearts the emotions of his

1:20:56 people and not just their minds the most famous representation of the Great Awakening was his very graphic sermon sinners in the hands of an angry god look up the text online it's graphic it's horrifying he has a graphic and horrifying depiction of hell and the way that he delivered it was like an actor and it was so dramatic that his listeners broke out into screams of agony and terror essentially out of Edwards frightened his congregations with the terrors of Hell to win them over into the Kingdom of Heaven and tried to appeal to their emotions their hearts not just their minds which was something

1:21:41 that the older religions like Anglicanism or Puritanism didn't necessarily provide for figures like Edwards however were just merely opening acts for the main event the arrival of George Whitfield the itinerant English Anglican minister um who was closely associated with Charles and John Wesley the founders of Methodism so one of the most famous preachers associated with the Great Awakening was an English Anglican minister named George witzel mmm he toured the American colonies the

1:22:28 Atlantic coast between seventeen 39 and 49 17 39 and 41 and had a revolutionary new style of preaching he traveled from pulpit the pulpit and tried to spread the faith and win conference he made over seven trips to America he preached over 30,000 sermons and although he was a minister in the Anglican Church he preached to to all Christian denominations Whitfield attracted huge crowds his his sermons were full of performance theatricality and dramatics similar to what I was trying to describe with Edwards he attracted the largest

1:23:15 crowds in American history tens of salad tens of thousands as many as 30,000 people and tended to give sermons on the topic what must I do to be saved whereas Edwards tried to terrify them with human sinfulness Whitfield took a somewhat different tactic he tried to get people to confess their sins and promises of repenting without going into the specifics Whitfield had a melodic and booming voice Benjamin Franklin maintained that he could that he could

1:24:01 be heard from several brought blocks away and preached to as many as 30,000 people so these figures in the Great Awakening are sort of like the Billy Graham's of the 18th century that's a good comparison Whitfield was known for his dramatic style his sermons were as much a dramatic entertaining performance as they were religious now before becoming a priest and studying divinity divinity Whitfield had actually trained as an action actor whereas traditional sermons were dry long explaining X passage of Scripture like a professor his sermons were fiery

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