WEBVTT NOTE 20. The Puritans "Purify": Theocracy in Massachusetts 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:10.500 Volume 1, Chapter 20, The Puritans Purify Theocracy in Massachusetts 2 00:00:10.500 --> 00:00:17.840 The Puritans had no sooner landed in the New World than they began coercively to purify 3 00:00:17.840 --> 00:00:24.900 their surroundings. As early as John Endicott's arrival in Salem, the Puritans had surprisingly 4 00:00:24.900 --> 00:00:31.460 had shifted from their loyal opposition within the Anglican Church and had severed themselves 5 00:00:31.460 --> 00:00:38.320 from the Anglican Communion. In this way they became, to a large extent, as separatists 6 00:00:38.320 --> 00:00:45.220 as the Plymouth Pilgrims they had previously despised. This act of separation was accomplished 7 00:00:45.220 --> 00:00:53.180 in 1629 with Francis Higginson and Samuel Skelton as the guiding ministers. Two Puritan 8 00:00:53.180 --> 00:01:00.380 members of the Council, John and Samuel Brown, balked at this radical departure from Puritan 9 00:01:00.380 --> 00:01:06.740 beliefs and moved to form an Anglican church of their own. This prompted the government 10 00:01:06.740 --> 00:01:14.220 to move quickly in the first act of purifying the colony's spiritual atmosphere. Governor 11 00:01:14.220 --> 00:01:20.140 Indicott protested that the Browns' speeches and activities were tending to mutiny and 12 00:01:20.140 --> 00:01:39.220 The Puritans also proceeded to the final destruction of Thomas Morton's ill-starred Marymount Colony. 13 00:01:39.220 --> 00:01:46.100 For Morton, in 1629, had indeed re-established his colony of the interracial frolic, the 14 00:01:46.100 --> 00:01:53.100 The Anglican maypole and brisk and efficient trade in Indian furs that competed with Massachusetts Bay. 15 00:01:53.100 --> 00:02:02.100 Massachusetts offered to share the Bay Company's fur trading monopoly with Morton, but the highly efficient Morton refused to do so, 16 00:02:02.100 --> 00:02:06.100 judging that he could easily outcompete the Massachusetts monopoly. 17 00:02:06.100 --> 00:02:12.100 This he did, far outstripping Massachusetts in the fur trade by over six to one. 18 00:02:12.100 --> 00:02:15.100 This the colony could not tolerate. 19 00:02:15.100 --> 00:02:19.600 and Captain Littleworth was sent to Marymount with an armed troop. 20 00:02:19.600 --> 00:02:29.100 Littleworth cut down the maypole, burned Morton's house and confiscated his property and proceeded to destroy the settlement. 21 00:02:29.100 --> 00:02:39.100 Morton was charged by the authorities with alienating the Indians, the reverse of the fact, and was again deported to England. 22 00:02:39.100 --> 00:02:51.100 Back in England, the embittered Morton protested his persecution and worked for Gorgias in trying to void the Plymouth and Massachusetts patents, but to no avail. 23 00:02:51.100 --> 00:03:03.100 Years later, returning to Massachusetts, the poverty-stricken Morton was heavily fined, was imprisoned for a year by the authorities, and died in Maine shortly after his release. 24 00:03:03.100 --> 00:03:23.100 The Massachusetts colony was organized in towns. The church congregation of each town selected its minister. Unlike the thinly populated, extensive settlement of Virginia, the clustering in towns was ideal for having the minister and his aides keep watch on all the inhabitants. 25 00:03:23.100 --> 00:03:30.680 Although the congregation selected the minister, the town government paid his salary. In contrast 26 00:03:30.680 --> 00:03:36.400 to the poorly paid clergy of the southern colonies, the salary was handsome indeed. 27 00:03:36.400 --> 00:03:41.540 Out of it, the minister could maintain several slaves or indentured servants and amass a 28 00:03:41.540 --> 00:03:48.100 valuable library. The minister, himself a government official, exerted enormous political 29 00:03:48.100 --> 00:04:11.100 The Congregation was ruled not democratically by the members, but rather by its Council of Elders, also highly important was the minister who functioned as church teacher, specializing in doctrinal matters. 30 00:04:11.100 --> 00:04:17.200 Since only church members could vote in political elections, the requirements for admission 31 00:04:17.200 --> 00:04:20.880 became a matter of concern for every inhabitant. 32 00:04:20.880 --> 00:04:23.140 These requirements were rigorous. 33 00:04:23.140 --> 00:04:29.160 For one thing, the candidate had to satisfy the minister and elders of his complete adherence 34 00:04:29.160 --> 00:04:36.120 to pure doctrine and of his satisfactory personal conduct, and, once admitted, he was always 35 00:04:36.120 --> 00:04:40.740 subject to expulsion for deviations in either area. 36 00:04:40.740 --> 00:04:47.900 As the years wore on, the rule of the oligarchy tended to tighten and polarize further, so 37 00:04:47.900 --> 00:04:52.900 that a lower proportion of the colony was admitted to church membership. 38 00:04:52.900 --> 00:04:59.220 The Puritan leaders made strenuous efforts to exclude the unsanctified from the colony. 39 00:04:59.220 --> 00:05:07.180 Thus, in 1636, the town of Boston outlawed any persons entertaining strangers for more 40 00:05:07.180 --> 00:05:13.460 More Than Two Weeks Without Obtaining Permission from the Town Government 41 00:05:13.460 --> 00:05:19.740 Salem went one better by hiring an inspector to go from house to house once a month to 42 00:05:19.740 --> 00:05:24.660 inquire what strangers have thrust themselves into the town. 43 00:05:24.660 --> 00:05:30.320 To quicken his incentive for snooping, he was rewarded with the fines levied against 44 00:05:30.320 --> 00:05:35.700 those whose crime in entertaining strangers he had uncovered. 45 00:05:35.700 --> 00:05:43.380 In 1637, the Massachusetts government imposed this outlawing of hospitality on all towns, 46 00:05:43.380 --> 00:05:49.540 and it was now illegal for any town to permit a stranger to move there without the consent 47 00:05:49.540 --> 00:05:52.000 of high government officials. 48 00:05:52.000 --> 00:05:58.040 As the years went on, however, and the colony grew, the authorities were forced by the need 49 00:05:58.040 --> 00:06:04.860 for labor to admit servants, apprentices, sailors and artisans who did not necessarily 50 00:06:04.860 --> 00:06:11.260 belong to the body of Puritan saints. To the saints and their leaders, any idea of 51 00:06:11.260 --> 00:06:17.800 separation of church and state was anathema. As the Puritan synod put it in their Platform 52 00:06:17.800 --> 00:06:24.420 of Church Discipline, 1648, it is the duty of the magistrate to take care of matters 53 00:06:24.420 --> 00:06:30.640 of religion. The end of the magistrate's office is godliness. It is the duty of the 54 00:06:30.640 --> 00:06:37.500 The magistrate to punish and repress, idolatry, blasphemy, heresy, venting corrupt and pernicious 55 00:06:37.500 --> 00:06:44.000 opinions, open contempt of the word preached, profanation of the Lord's Day. 56 00:06:44.000 --> 00:06:50.040 Should any congregation dare to grow schismatical or walk incorrigibly or obstinately in any 57 00:06:50.040 --> 00:06:56.960 corrupt way of their own, the magistrate was to put forth his coercive power. 58 00:06:56.960 --> 00:07:02.920 And if the state was to be the strong coercive arm of the church, so the church in turn was 59 00:07:02.920 --> 00:07:10.120 to foster in the public the duty of obedience to the state rulers. Church government furthereth 60 00:07:10.120 --> 00:07:17.660 the people in yielding more hearty obedience unto the civil government. From this attitude, 61 00:07:17.660 --> 00:07:22.620 it followed for the Puritan that any rebel against the civil government was a rebel and 62 00:07:22.620 --> 00:07:46.620 So insistent indeed were the Puritans on the duty of obedience to civil government that the content of its decrees became almost irrelevant. 63 00:07:46.620 --> 00:07:50.620 As Reverend John Davenport, a leading Puritan divine, put it, 64 00:07:50.620 --> 00:07:56.620 You must submit to the ruler's authority and perform all duties to them whom you have chosen, 65 00:07:56.620 --> 00:08:01.620 whether they be good or bad, by virtue of their relation between them and you. 66 00:08:01.620 --> 00:08:10.620 Naturally, John Winthrop, who had helped govern Massachusetts for twenty years after its inception, agreed with this sentiment. 67 00:08:10.620 --> 00:08:14.620 To Winthrop, natural liberty was a wild beast, 68 00:08:14.620 --> 00:08:21.620 East, while correct civil liberty meant being properly subjected to authority and restrained 69 00:08:21.620 --> 00:08:25.180 by God's ordinances. 70 00:08:25.180 --> 00:08:30.660 Perhaps the bluntest expression of the Puritan ideal of theocracy was the Reverend Nathaniel 71 00:08:30.660 --> 00:08:39.140 Ward's The Simple Cobbler of Ag Guam in America, 1647. 72 00:08:39.140 --> 00:08:45.380 Returning to England to take part in the Puritan Ferment there, this Massachusetts divine was 73 00:08:45.380 --> 00:08:51.900 horrified to find the English Puritans too soft and tolerant, too willing to allow a 74 00:08:51.900 --> 00:08:55.100 diversity of opinion in society. 75 00:08:55.100 --> 00:09:01.500 The objective of both church and state, Ward declaimed, was to coerce virtue, to preserve 76 00:09:01.500 --> 00:09:08.620 unity of spirit, faith and ordinances, to be all like-minded of one accord, every man 77 00:09:08.620 --> 00:09:14.820 to take his brother into his Christian care and by no means to permit heresies or erroneous 78 00:09:14.820 --> 00:09:16.340 opinions. 79 00:09:16.340 --> 00:09:23.540 Ward continued, God does nowhere in his word tolerate Christian states to give toleration 80 00:09:23.540 --> 00:09:26.300 to such adversaries of his truth. 81 00:09:26.300 --> 00:09:31.740 If they have power in their hands to suppress them, he that willingly ascends to toleration 82 00:09:31.740 --> 00:09:42.740 In the description of varieties of religion, his conscience will tell him he is either an atheist, or a heretic, or a hypocrite, or at best captive to some lust. 83 00:09:42.740 --> 00:09:58.740 Polypiety is the greatest impiety in the world. To authorize an untruth by a toleration of state is to build a sconce against the walls of heaven, to batter God out of his chair. 84 00:09:58.740 --> 00:10:14.540 And so the Puritan ministry stood at the apex of rule in Massachusetts, ever ready to use the secular arm to enforce its beliefs against critics and false prophets, or even against simple lapses from conformity. 85 00:10:14.540 --> 00:10:24.900 To enforce purity of doctrine upon society, the Puritans needed a network of schools throughout the colony to indoctrinate the younger generation. 86 00:10:24.900 --> 00:10:32.220 The Southern Colonies individualistic attitude toward education was not to be tolerated. 87 00:10:32.220 --> 00:10:36.660 Also the clusters of town settlements made schools far more feasible than it did among 88 00:10:36.660 --> 00:10:41.640 the widely scattered rural population of the Southern Colonies. 89 00:10:41.640 --> 00:10:48.240 The first task was a college, to graduate suitably rigorous ministers and to train school 90 00:10:48.240 --> 00:10:50.800 Schoolmasters for Lower Schools 91 00:10:50.800 --> 00:10:58.840 And so the Massachusetts General Court established a college in Cambridge in 1636, named Harvard 92 00:10:58.840 --> 00:11:05.440 College the following year, appropriating 400 pounds for its support. 93 00:11:05.440 --> 00:11:10.280 In a few years, after schoolmasters had been trained, a network of grammar schools was 94 00:11:10.280 --> 00:11:12.600 established throughout the colony. 95 00:11:12.600 --> 00:11:19.040 In 1647, the government required every town to create and keep in operation a grammar 96 00:11:19.040 --> 00:11:25.040 school. Thus Massachusetts forged a network of governmental schools to indoctrinate the 97 00:11:25.040 --> 00:11:32.240 younger generation in Puritan orthodoxy. The master was chosen and his salary paid by the 98 00:11:32.240 --> 00:11:38.760 town government and, of course, crucial to selecting a master, was the minister's intensive 99 00:11:38.760 --> 00:11:47.120 inquiry into his doctrinal and behavioral purity. Indeed, in 1654, Massachusetts made 100 00:11:47.120 --> 00:11:54.120 it illegal for any town to continue in their post any teachers that have manifested themselves 101 00:11:54.120 --> 00:12:01.520 unsound in the faith or scandalous in their lives. To feed the network of grammar schools, 102 00:12:01.520 --> 00:12:07.760 the colony in 1645 compelled each town to provide a schoolmaster to teach reading and 103 00:12:07.760 --> 00:12:16.760 There would be no point to government schools for indoctrinating the masses if there were no masses to be indoctrinated. 104 00:12:16.760 --> 00:12:23.760 Vital to the system, therefore, was a law compelling every child in the colony to be educated. 105 00:12:23.760 --> 00:12:30.760 This was put through in 1642, the first compulsory education law in America, 106 00:12:30.760 --> 00:12:34.760 and was in contrast to the system of voluntary education 107 00:12:34.760 --> 00:12:38.760 then prevailing in England and in the southern colonies. 108 00:12:38.760 --> 00:12:42.760 Parents ignoring the law were fined and wherever government officials 109 00:12:42.760 --> 00:12:46.760 judged the parents or guardians to be unfit 110 00:12:46.760 --> 00:12:50.760 to have the children educated properly, the government was 111 00:12:50.760 --> 00:12:54.760 empowered to seize the children and apprentice them out 112 00:12:54.760 --> 00:12:58.760 to others. One of the essential goals of Puritan 113 00:12:58.760 --> 00:13:06.840 Puritan rule with strict and rigorous enforcement of ascetic puritan conception of moral behavior. 114 00:13:06.840 --> 00:13:12.680 But since men's actions, given freedom to express their choices, are determined by their 115 00:13:12.680 --> 00:13:19.760 inner convictions and values, compulsory moral values only serve to manufacture hypocrites 116 00:13:19.760 --> 00:13:23.560 and not to advance genuine morality. 117 00:13:23.560 --> 00:13:26.800 Coercion only forces people to change their actions. 118 00:13:26.800 --> 00:13:32.880 It does not persuade people to change their underlying values and convictions. 119 00:13:32.880 --> 00:13:39.320 And since those already convinced of the moral rules would abide by them without coercion, 120 00:13:39.320 --> 00:13:47.080 the only real impact of compulsory morality is to engender hypocrites, those whose actions 121 00:13:47.080 --> 00:13:51.080 no longer reflect their inner convictions. 122 00:13:51.080 --> 00:13:57.240 The Puritans, however, did not boggle at this consequence. A leading Puritan divine, the 123 00:13:57.240 --> 00:14:03.440 Reverend John Cotton, went so far as to maintain that hypocrites, who merrily conform to the 124 00:14:03.440 --> 00:14:09.840 Church rules, without inner conviction, could still be useful Church members. As to the 125 00:14:09.840 --> 00:14:15.240 production of hypocrites, Cotton complacently declared, oh, if it did so, yet better to 126 00:14:15.240 --> 00:14:28.240 Hypocrites give God part of his due, the outward man, but the profane person giveth God neither outward nor inward man. 127 00:14:28.240 --> 00:14:36.240 One requisite for the efficient enforcement of any code of behavior is always an effective espionage apparatus of informers. 128 00:14:36.240 --> 00:14:53.240 This apparatus was supplied in Massachusetts, informally but no less effectively, by the dedicated snooping of friends and neighbors upon one another, with detailed reports sent to the minister on all deviations, including the sin of idleness. 129 00:14:53.240 --> 00:15:04.240 The clustering of towns around central villages aided the network and the fond of personal information collected by each minister added to his great political power. 130 00:15:04.240 --> 00:15:12.240 Moreover, the menace of excommunication was redoubled by the threat of corollary secular punishment. 131 00:15:12.240 --> 00:15:23.240 Informal snooping, however, was felt by some of the towns to be too haphazard and these set up a regular snooping officialdom. 132 00:15:23.240 --> 00:15:33.240 These officers were called tithing men as each one had supervision over the private affairs of his ten nearest neighbors. 133 00:15:33.240 --> 00:15:46.240 One Puritan moral imperative was strict observance of the Sabbath. Any worldly pleasures indulged in on the Sabbath were a grave offense against both church and state. 134 00:15:46.240 --> 00:15:59.240 The general court was shocked to learn in the late 1650s that some people, residents as well as strangers, persisted in uncivilly walking in the streets and fields on Sunday, 135 00:15:59.240 --> 00:16:07.240 on Sunday, and even traveling from town to town and drinking at inns. And so the General 136 00:16:07.240 --> 00:16:14.320 Court duly passed a law prohibiting the crimes of playing on civil walking, drinking and 137 00:16:14.320 --> 00:16:22.120 traveling from town to town on Sunday. If these criminals could not pay the fine imposed, 138 00:16:22.120 --> 00:16:27.120 they were to be whipped by the constable at a maximum rate of five lashes per ten shilling 139 00:16:27.120 --> 00:16:33.300 and Fine. To enforce the regulations and prevent the crimes, the gates of the towns were closed 140 00:16:33.300 --> 00:16:38.920 on Sunday, and no one permitted to leave. And if two or more people met accidentally 141 00:16:38.920 --> 00:16:44.760 on the street on a Sunday, they were quickly dispersed by the police. Nor was the Sabbath 142 00:16:44.760 --> 00:16:51.120 in any sense a hasty period. Under the inspiration of the Reverend John Cotton, the New England 143 00:16:51.120 --> 00:17:21.120 The weekend Sabbath began rigorously at sunset Saturday evening and continued through Sunday night, thus ensuring that no part of the weekend could be spent in enjoyment. Indeed, enjoyment at any time, while not legally prohibited, was definitely frowned upon, levity being condemned as inconsistent with the gravity to be always preserved by a serious Christian. Kissing one's wife in public on a Sunday 144 00:17:21.120 --> 00:17:41.120 A sea captain returning home on a Sunday morning from a three-year voyage was indiscreet enough to kiss his wife on the doorstep. For this he was forced to sit in the stocks for two hours for this lewd and unseemly behavior on the Sabbath day. 145 00:17:41.120 --> 00:17:50.120 Not only were non-religious activities outlawed on Sundays, but attendance at a Puritan church was compulsory as well. 146 00:17:50.120 --> 00:17:59.120 Fines were levied for absence from church, and the police were ordered to search through the towns for absentees and forcibly haul them to church. 147 00:17:59.120 --> 00:18:05.120 Falling asleep in church was also outlawed, and whipping was the punishment for repeated offenses. 148 00:18:05.120 --> 00:18:24.120 Gambling of any kind was strictly forbidden. The law declared, nor shall any person at any time play or game for any money upon penalty of forfeiting treble the value thereof, one half to the party informing and the other half to the treasury. 149 00:18:24.120 --> 00:18:33.120 Yet, as so often happens in this world, what was so sternly prohibited to private individuals was permitted to government. 150 00:18:33.120 --> 00:18:41.080 Thus, government was permitted to raise revenue for itself by running lotteries. 151 00:18:41.080 --> 00:18:47.560 To government, in short, was given the compulsory monopoly of the gambling and lottery business. 152 00:18:47.560 --> 00:18:51.640 Cards and dice were, of course, prohibited as gambling. 153 00:18:51.640 --> 00:18:58.080 Also prohibited, however, were games of skill at public houses, such as bowling and shuffleboard, 154 00:18:58.080 --> 00:19:03.440 such activities being considered a waste of time by the people's self-appointed moral 155 00:19:03.440 --> 00:19:06.800 guardians in the government. 156 00:19:06.800 --> 00:19:13.800 Idleness in fact was not just a sin but also a punishable misdemeanor at any time, not 157 00:19:13.800 --> 00:19:15.440 only on Sunday. 158 00:19:15.440 --> 00:19:21.400 If the constable discovered anyone singly or in groups engaged in such heinous behavior 159 00:19:21.400 --> 00:19:27.600 as coasting on the ice, swimming, or sneaking in a quiet smoke, he was ordered to report 160 00:19:27.600 --> 00:19:39.600 Time, it seems, was God's gift, and therefore always to be used in His service. A sin against God's time was a crime against the Church and State. 161 00:19:39.600 --> 00:19:46.600 Drinking, oddly enough, was not completely outlawed, but drunkenness was, and subject to a fine. 162 00:19:46.600 --> 00:20:04.600 The practice of drinking toast was outlawed in 1639 because of its supposedly pagan origin and because once a man has begun to drink a toast, he is on the road to perdition. Drunkenness, uncleanness and other sins quickly follow. 163 00:20:04.600 --> 00:20:34.600 And yet the stern guardians of the public morality had their troubles. For decades later, we find ministerial complaints that the heathenish and idolatrous practice of health drinking is too frequent. Women and children, as might be expected, were treated extremely harshly by the Puritan commonwealth. Children were regarded as the virtually absolute property of their parents, and this property claim was 164 00:20:34.600 --> 00:20:42.080 rigorously enforced by the state. If any child be disobedient to his parents, any magistrate 165 00:20:42.080 --> 00:20:47.480 could haul him into court and punish the little criminal with a maximum of ten lashes for 166 00:20:47.480 --> 00:20:53.840 each offense. Should the pattern of disobedience persist into adolescence, the parents, as 167 00:20:53.840 --> 00:21:00.960 provided by the law of 1646, were supposed to bring the youth to the magistrate. If convicted 168 00:21:00.960 --> 00:21:09.240 of the High Crime of Stubbornness and Rebelliousness, the Son was to be duly executed. Happily, 169 00:21:09.240 --> 00:21:15.480 it is likely that this particular law on the books for over 30 years was rarely, if ever, 170 00:21:15.480 --> 00:21:22.780 put into effect by the parents. Women were viewed as instruments of Satan by the Puritans 171 00:21:22.780 --> 00:21:29.880 and severe laws were passed outlawing women's apparel that was either immodest or so showy 172 00:21:29.880 --> 00:21:36.580 as to indicate the sin of pride of raiment. In modesty, including the wearing of short 173 00:21:36.580 --> 00:21:42.660 sleeved dresses, whereby the nakedness of the arm may be discovered, a practice duly 174 00:21:42.660 --> 00:21:50.300 outlawed in 1656. In outlawing pride of raiment, women were not discriminated against by the 175 00:21:50.300 --> 00:21:57.900 Puritans. Men, too, felt the heavy arm of the State. In 1634, the General Court began 176 00:21:57.900 --> 00:22:04.900 and the practice of outlawing finery of dress for either sex, including immodest fashions 177 00:22:04.900 --> 00:22:12.900 with any lace on it, silver, gold or thread, hat bands, belts, ruffs, beaver hats and many 178 00:22:12.900 --> 00:22:16.300 other items of adornment. 179 00:22:16.300 --> 00:22:24.900 In 1639, more items of sin were added, for example, ribbons, shoulder bands and cuffs. 180 00:22:24.900 --> 00:22:31.940 These non-utilitarian items being of little use or benefit but to the nourishment of pride. 181 00:22:31.940 --> 00:22:36.900 Excessive finery was subject to heavy fines, and the law was extensively enforced. 182 00:22:36.900 --> 00:22:42.340 Thus in one year, Hampshire County hauled thirty-eight women and thirty men into court 183 00:22:42.340 --> 00:22:47.420 for illegal finery, silk being an especially popular sin. 184 00:22:47.420 --> 00:22:52.600 One woman was punished for wearing silk in a flaunting garb to the great offence of several 185 00:22:52.600 --> 00:23:01.720 Even the wearing of one's hair long, an old cavalier practice condemned by the Puritans, 186 00:23:01.720 --> 00:23:07.760 who were therefore called roundheads, was placed under interdict. 187 00:23:07.760 --> 00:23:12.560 The general court repeatedly condemned flowing hair as dangerous vanity. 188 00:23:12.560 --> 00:23:18.400 Many Puritan divines ranked pride in long hair fully as sinful as gambling, drinking 189 00:23:18.400 --> 00:23:19.960 or idleness. 190 00:23:19.960 --> 00:23:25.480 One citizen fined for daring to build upon unused government land was offered a remission 191 00:23:25.480 --> 00:23:34.600 of half the amount if he would only cut off the long hair off his head into a civil frame. 192 00:23:34.600 --> 00:23:40.360 Hair righteousness, however, never had much of a chance even in godly Massachusetts for 193 00:23:40.360 --> 00:23:45.500 some of the major leaders of the colony, including Governor Winthrop and John Endicott, persisted 194 00:23:45.500 --> 00:23:48.760 in the sin of long hair. 195 00:23:48.760 --> 00:23:54.480 Fixed dancing only came to the colony late in the century, but was promptly condemned 196 00:23:54.480 --> 00:24:01.000 as frivolous, immoral and a waste of time. Boston, upon hearing complaints, closed down 197 00:24:01.000 --> 00:24:08.080 a dancing school. The measures of the fanatical Puritan theocracy were not solely motivated 198 00:24:08.080 --> 00:24:14.800 by religious zeal. Part of the motivation had an economic class basis. As the century 199 00:24:14.800 --> 00:24:21.800 As we progressed, the lowly laborers and indentured servants formed an increasing minority of the populace. 200 00:24:21.800 --> 00:24:26.800 Since they were not admitted to the political and social privileges of church membership, 201 00:24:26.800 --> 00:24:30.800 they were naturally the most disaffected members of the social body. 202 00:24:30.800 --> 00:24:36.800 The above measures were partly designed to keep the lower classes in their place. 203 00:24:36.800 --> 00:24:43.800 Thus, the authorities were particularly angered to see servants or the families of laborers 204 00:24:43.800 --> 00:24:55.340 The General Court in 1658 severely announced our utter detestation that men or women of 205 00:24:55.340 --> 00:25:01.100 mean condition should take upon them the garb of gentleman by wearing gold or silk lace 206 00:25:01.100 --> 00:25:07.200 or buttons or silk of taffeta hoods or scarves, which, though allowable to persons of greater 207 00:25:07.200 --> 00:25:20.960 In short, the lower orders must know their place, and the stringent requirements of a 208 00:25:20.960 --> 00:25:27.360 fanatical moral code could bend for the upper strata of society. 209 00:25:27.360 --> 00:25:33.520 Similarly, the requirement of compulsory education was enforced particularly upon the indentured 210 00:25:33.520 --> 00:25:39.480 Servants, as many masters believed that their servants would be less inclined to be independent 211 00:25:39.480 --> 00:25:43.440 or give trouble if imbued with Puritan teachings. 212 00:25:43.440 --> 00:25:49.320 Indeed, the leaders of the colony did not hesitate to justify the oligarchic rule by 213 00:25:49.320 --> 00:25:51.800 the rich over the poor. 214 00:25:51.800 --> 00:25:59.880 As Governor Winthrop expressed it in his A Model of Christian Charity, 1630, God Almighty 215 00:25:59.880 --> 00:26:06.760 Many in his most holy and wise providence hath so disposed of the condition of mankind, 216 00:26:06.760 --> 00:26:15.760 as in all times some must be rich, some poor, some high and eminent in power and dignity, 217 00:26:15.760 --> 00:26:20.160 others mean and in subjection. 218 00:26:20.160 --> 00:26:25.080 Generally then, it was the lower orders who had to bear the main brunt of the severely 219 00:26:25.080 --> 00:26:29.000 enforced moral rules of the Puritan Code. 220 00:26:29.000 --> 00:26:35.800 Indeed, Massachusetts imposed maximum ceilings on wage rates in order to lower wage costs 221 00:26:35.800 --> 00:26:37.520 to employers. 222 00:26:37.520 --> 00:26:43.760 The temporarily enslaved indentured servants were particularly oppressed by Puritans trying 223 00:26:43.760 --> 00:26:48.000 to maintain them as the efficient property of their masters. 224 00:26:48.000 --> 00:26:53.400 They therefore tried to suppress all deviant tendencies from the norm. 225 00:26:53.400 --> 00:26:58.980 The sources of servants in Massachusetts and the other northern colonies were the same 226 00:26:58.980 --> 00:27:02.880 as those of the servants coming to Virginia. 227 00:27:02.880 --> 00:27:09.000 Many servants were branded like cattle with their initials and the date of purchase so 228 00:27:09.000 --> 00:27:13.600 as to assure their rapid identification in case of flight. 229 00:27:13.600 --> 00:27:19.200 When found unsatisfactory or troublesome, servants were generally punished, whipped 230 00:27:19.200 --> 00:27:23.920 and Imprisoned or had their tenure of servitude extended. 231 00:27:23.920 --> 00:27:30.120 Orphaned boys were bound out as servants by the state until they reached the age of 20, 232 00:27:30.120 --> 00:27:37.080 while illegitimate boys were especially punished by being bound out until the age of 30. 233 00:27:37.080 --> 00:27:42.720 In addition, indentured servants could, like slaves, be sold by their masters to other 234 00:27:42.720 --> 00:27:47.760 masters and thus be forcibly separated from their families. 235 00:27:47.760 --> 00:27:51.920 Those caught escaping were often punished by having their ears cut off.