WEBVTT NOTE 29. Suppressing Heresy: Massachesetts Persecutes the Quakers 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:08.560 Volume 1, Chapter 29, Suppressing Heresy, Massachusetts Persecutes the Quakers 2 00:00:08.560 --> 00:00:14.360 After its persecution of the Hutchinsonians and the Gortonites, Massachusetts continued 3 00:00:14.360 --> 00:00:20.280 on its path of suppressing all deviations from the Puritan norm. 4 00:00:20.280 --> 00:00:24.760 The next important case was that of Dr. Robert Child. 5 00:00:24.760 --> 00:00:31.780 As early as 1644, a growing number of people subjected to oligarchic Puritan rule had found 6 00:00:31.780 --> 00:00:38.100 expression in an unsuccessful petition whose purpose was to widen the highly restricted 7 00:00:38.100 --> 00:00:43.260 civil privileges of non-members of the Puritan Church. 8 00:00:43.260 --> 00:00:51.140 Two years later, in May 1646, Dr. Robert Child, a Presbyterian minister and graduate of the 9 00:00:51.140 --> 00:00:57.700 The University of Padua and Samuel Maverick, a very wealthy founder of the colony, headed 10 00:00:57.700 --> 00:01:04.060 a petition of seven important men of the colony protesting existing rule. 11 00:01:04.060 --> 00:01:10.820 The petition noted that there were many thousands of residents of Massachusetts who were disfranchised 12 00:01:10.820 --> 00:01:16.820 even though they were taxpayers and subject to all the levies and duties of the colony. 13 00:01:16.820 --> 00:01:21.300 The signers of the petition were leading merchants and property owners. 14 00:01:21.300 --> 00:01:27.140 They included Presbyterians, Anglicans, and men of diverse religious and political views, 15 00:01:27.140 --> 00:01:31.860 united only by their desire for a freer society. 16 00:01:31.860 --> 00:01:39.420 The petitioners asked that Anglicans and Presbyterians either be admitted to church membership or 17 00:01:39.420 --> 00:01:43.180 be allowed to establish churches of their own. 18 00:01:43.180 --> 00:01:49.740 They also urged that civil liberty and freedom be speedily granted to all Englishmen and 19 00:01:49.740 --> 00:01:56.980 that they no longer be compelled to attend Puritan service under penalty of a heavy fine. 20 00:01:56.980 --> 00:02:02.580 As Englishmen, they deserve to be treated equal to the rest of their countrymen and, 21 00:02:02.580 --> 00:02:07.200 as all, freeborn in joy in our native country. 22 00:02:07.200 --> 00:02:14.260 The petition also attacked the ruling over-greedy spirit of arbitrary power and the suppression 23 00:02:14.260 --> 00:02:22.260 of liberty in Massachusetts Bay, like illegal commitments, unjust imprisonments, taxes, 24 00:02:22.260 --> 00:02:30.140 unjustifiable presses, undue fines, immeasurable expenses, non-certainty of all things, whether 25 00:02:30.140 --> 00:02:34.140 lives, liberties or estates. 26 00:02:34.140 --> 00:02:41.820 The Child Petition was denounced from numerous Puritan pulpits as sedition, full of malignancy, 27 00:02:41.820 --> 00:02:48.340 subversive both to church and to commonwealth. Winthrop, Thomas Dudley and the general court 28 00:02:48.340 --> 00:02:54.400 also angrily rejected the petition and the signers were taken into court, heavily fined 29 00:02:54.400 --> 00:02:59.900 and warned to be quiet and to meddle with your own business as an injunction which the 30 00:02:59.900 --> 00:03:18.900 When the petitioners had the audacity to appeal to Parliament to attain in Massachusetts the degree of freedom enjoyed in the home country, Winthrop had them fined and imprisoned for criticizing and opposing the government. 31 00:03:18.900 --> 00:03:27.900 When Childe and some of the others attempted to leave, to present their case to England, they were seized, searched and imprisoned. 32 00:03:27.900 --> 00:03:36.060 Childe managed to escape to England but proved to be the unfortunate victim of poor timing. 33 00:03:36.060 --> 00:03:42.740 Having made his appeal originally to a predominantly Presbyterian and therefore presumptively sympathetic 34 00:03:42.740 --> 00:03:50.420 parliament, Childe's case now came before a body dominated by Cromwell and his independents, 35 00:03:50.420 --> 00:03:55.900 far more sympathetic to Massachusetts Bay. Furthermore, Childe made the mistake of getting 36 00:03:55.900 --> 00:04:02.900 The Child Opposition had thus been quickly and efficiently suppressed by Massachusetts, even though it had the support of a large part of the population of the colony, but Massachusetts was soon to reach the turning point in its previously unchecked high rate of income. 37 00:04:25.900 --> 00:04:42.900 and the road of persecution. Despite a frenzy of zeal, it was never able to suppress the determined and courageous Quakers, the individualist champions of the inner light and the next great wave of heretics in the colony. 38 00:04:42.900 --> 00:04:48.900 The first Quakers to arrive in America came to Boston in July 1656. 39 00:04:48.900 --> 00:04:53.900 They were two English women, Anne Austin and Mary Fisher. 40 00:04:53.900 --> 00:04:59.900 Although no law had yet been passed in Massachusetts prohibiting the arrival of Quakers, 41 00:04:59.900 --> 00:05:05.900 the two women were immediately imprisoned and searched carefully for witch marks. 42 00:05:05.900 --> 00:05:10.900 Deputy Governor Richard Bellingham sent officers to the ship, 43 00:05:10.900 --> 00:05:18.020 searched the ladies' baggage, seized their stock of Quaker literature, and had it summarily burned. 44 00:05:18.020 --> 00:05:25.120 The women were imprisoned for five weeks, during which time no one was allowed to visit or speak to them. 45 00:05:25.120 --> 00:05:32.060 No light or writing material was allowed in their cell, and the prisoners were almost starved to death. 46 00:05:32.060 --> 00:05:37.360 At the end of this ordeal, they were shipped back to Barbados. 47 00:05:37.360 --> 00:05:43.560 Bellingham denounced the two Quakers as heretics, transgressors with very dangerous heretical 48 00:05:43.560 --> 00:05:50.960 and blasphemous opinions, and corrupt heretical and blasphemous doctrines. 49 00:05:50.960 --> 00:05:57.820 Bellingham's litmus test for deciding if the ladies were Quakers was brusque indeed. 50 00:05:57.820 --> 00:06:04.680 One of them happened to say, Thee, whereupon Bellingham declared that he needed no more, 51 00:06:04.680 --> 00:06:10.560 Now he knew they were Quakers. Governor Endicott's only criticism of Bellingham's treatment of 52 00:06:10.560 --> 00:06:16.560 the two Quaker ladies was to say that if he had been present, the prisoners also would 53 00:06:16.560 --> 00:06:23.080 have been well-whipped. A few days after the Austin Fisher threat had been disposed of, 54 00:06:23.080 --> 00:06:29.340 nine more Quakers arrived in Boston. They were summarily arrested, imprisoned for eight 55 00:06:29.340 --> 00:06:34.940 weeks and then shipped back. The master of the ship that brought them was also jailed, 56 00:06:34.940 --> 00:06:40.580 no doubt as an instructive moral lesson to future ship captains. If the existence of 57 00:06:40.580 --> 00:06:45.780 the two ladies had driven the Massachusetts authorities to fury, this was nothing compared 58 00:06:45.780 --> 00:06:52.420 to the effects of the new goad. Governor Endicott repeatedly haranguing the hapless prisoners 59 00:06:52.420 --> 00:06:58.900 kept threatening to hang them. For example, Take heed ye break not our ecclesiastical 60 00:06:58.900 --> 00:07:05.420 laws for then ye are sure to stretch by a halter. Since it was very difficult for a 61 00:07:05.420 --> 00:07:12.260 Puritan in good standing, let alone a Quaker, not to break some ecclesiastical law, the 62 00:07:12.260 --> 00:07:18.460 halter was close indeed. It is no wonder that Mary Prince, one of the prisoners, was impelled 63 00:07:18.460 --> 00:07:24.820 to denounce Endicott as a vile oppressor and tyrant, and the Massachusetts ministers as 64 00:07:24.820 --> 00:07:31.820 hirelings and balls priests. At their trial, the Quakers had the impudence to ask for a 65 00:07:31.820 --> 00:07:38.620 copy of the laws against them, which request Endicott angrily refused, causing a murmur 66 00:07:38.620 --> 00:07:44.100 of sympathy in the audience for the prisoners, for, it was openly asked, how shall they 67 00:07:44.100 --> 00:07:53.660 From this point on, the persecution of Quakers was savage and fanatical, but the determination 68 00:07:53.660 --> 00:08:00.580 of the Quakers to keep coming and spreading their gospel remained remarkably steadfast. 69 00:08:00.580 --> 00:08:05.660 In October, the General Court passed a law providing for the fining of any shipmaster 70 00:08:05.660 --> 00:08:11.440 bringing a known Quaker to Massachusetts. The Quaker was to be imprisoned, severely 71 00:08:11.440 --> 00:08:26.440 Any existing resident of Massachusetts who dared defend any Quaker opinion was to be fined and banished on the third offence. 72 00:08:26.440 --> 00:08:32.440 Any criticism of a magistrate or minister was to be met with a whipping and a heavy fine. 73 00:08:32.440 --> 00:08:45.440 Thus not only the Quakers but anyone presuming to defend their rights or to criticize the brutally repressive acts of the authorities was to be dealt with as a criminal. 74 00:08:45.440 --> 00:08:57.440 An early example was Nicholas Upshull, a weak old man who had bribed the jailer to give Ann Austin and Mary Fisher some food while they were starving in prison. 75 00:08:57.440 --> 00:09:07.440 Upshaw protested against the oppressive anti-Quaker law and for this offense he was fined, imprisoned, and banished from the colony. 76 00:09:07.440 --> 00:09:13.440 From Plymouth, old Upshaw was forced to walk to Rhode Island in the winter snows. 77 00:09:13.440 --> 00:09:17.440 The old man was given shelter by an Indian who exclaimed, 78 00:09:17.440 --> 00:09:24.440 What a god have the English who deal so with one another about the worship of their god. 79 00:09:24.440 --> 00:09:32.400 Upshull finally found sanctuary in Warwick. In succeeding years, Quakers were repeatedly 80 00:09:32.400 --> 00:09:39.440 stripped to be searched for witch marks and whipped, the ears of the men were cut off, 81 00:09:39.440 --> 00:09:44.560 and mayor attendance at a Quaker meeting was deemed by the authorities as automatic proof 82 00:09:44.560 --> 00:09:53.080 of Quaker belief. In 1661, the Cart and Whip Act decreed that all Quakers, men and especially 83 00:09:53.080 --> 00:09:59.760 Many women were to be stripped, tied to a cart's tail, branded on the left shoulder, 84 00:09:59.760 --> 00:10:05.120 and then whipped through every town until they had reached the borders of the colony. 85 00:10:05.120 --> 00:10:10.640 Later, apologists for Massachusetts Bay have maintained that all this was nothing more 86 00:10:10.640 --> 00:10:16.340 than a perhaps overzealous means of enforcing immigration restrictions. 87 00:10:16.340 --> 00:10:20.780 Among other things, this overlooks the fact that the persecutions were conducted as much 88 00:10:20.780 --> 00:10:49.780 Edward Bader, the Treasurer of Salem, an indefatigable Quaker hunter, had two children of Lawrence Southwick sold into servitude to Virginia and Barbados in order to satisfy fines levied for aiding the Quakers. 89 00:10:49.780 --> 00:11:03.780 Massachusetts lost no time after the first Quaker arrivals in urging the United Colonies to pass a general regulation prohibiting any such pest from being admitted into any New England colony. 90 00:11:03.780 --> 00:11:15.780 Generally, the sister colonies enthusiastically complied. New Haven, as we might imagine, was especially eager, and its torture methods were a match for Massachusetts' bays. 91 00:11:15.780 --> 00:11:34.780 Plymouth in Connecticut followed some distance behind. In 1658 the Commissioners of the United Colonies urged the several colonies to decree the death penalty for all Quakers who dared return after banishment. Only Massachusetts, however, followed this advice. 92 00:11:34.780 --> 00:11:42.300 Plymouth, though not passing the death penalty, was hardly reluctant to persecute the Quakers, 93 00:11:42.300 --> 00:11:48.380 and one of its magistrates was deposed for being willing to tolerate the Friends. 94 00:11:48.380 --> 00:11:54.620 Most reluctant was Connecticut, Governor Winthrop virtually begging the Massachusetts magistrates 95 00:11:54.620 --> 00:11:58.180 not to enforce the death penalty. 96 00:11:58.180 --> 00:12:03.880 Connecticut did, however, outlaw heresy, but left it to the magistrates or elders to determine 97 00:12:03.880 --> 00:12:09.840 if heresy existed, and if so, what punishment was to be meted out. 98 00:12:09.840 --> 00:12:15.680 Of all the New England colonies, we might expect that if any gave haven to the Quakers, 99 00:12:15.680 --> 00:12:20.600 it would be doughty little Rhode Island, and this was the case. 100 00:12:20.600 --> 00:12:27.920 Rhode Island was happy to receive the Quakers, the first of whom arrived at Newport in 1657. 101 00:12:27.920 --> 00:12:32.520 On the Quakers arrival, the commissioners of the United Colonies immediately wrote to 102 00:12:32.520 --> 00:12:38.040 to the Rhode Island government, demanding that it follow the prudent course of Massachusetts 103 00:12:38.040 --> 00:12:45.240 and banish all the present Quakers and prevent any new arrivals, so that this devilish contagion 104 00:12:45.240 --> 00:12:51.320 might not spread. Finally, the commissioners darkly threatened intervention if Rhode Island 105 00:12:51.320 --> 00:12:57.640 failed to comply. Interestingly, Massachusetts also warned that the Quakers were not only 106 00:12:57.640 --> 00:13:05.960 is seditious but also anarchistic. Their doctrines turn the hearts of people from their subjection 107 00:13:05.960 --> 00:13:08.160 to government. 108 00:13:08.160 --> 00:13:14.800 Rhode Island's reply reasserted its religious freedom. As concerning these Quakers, we have 109 00:13:14.800 --> 00:13:21.680 no law among us whereby to punish any for only declaring by words and so forth their 110 00:13:21.680 --> 00:13:27.840 Their Minds and Understandings Concerning Things and Ways of God? 111 00:13:27.840 --> 00:13:32.060 The General Assembly of Rhode Island also replied that freedom of conscience was the 112 00:13:32.060 --> 00:13:37.240 keystone of their charter, which freedom we still prize as the greatest happiness that 113 00:13:37.240 --> 00:13:40.800 men can possess in this world. 114 00:13:40.800 --> 00:13:46.860 The assembly pointedly added that Quakers were being allowed their freedom in England. 115 00:13:46.860 --> 00:13:53.780 The United Colonies answered by threatening to embargo all trade to and from Rhode Island. 116 00:13:53.780 --> 00:14:00.880 Quakerism found in Rhode Island not only a refuge but also a ripe field for conversion. 117 00:14:00.880 --> 00:14:07.060 Its individualism made a deep impress on the colony and in a decade it had even secured 118 00:14:07.060 --> 00:14:08.700 a majority. 119 00:14:08.700 --> 00:14:14.560 The Newport leaders, William Coddington and Nicholas Easton and others, were converted 120 00:14:14.560 --> 00:14:18.360 and Quakerism completely dominated that town. 121 00:14:18.360 --> 00:14:22.640 The redoubtable Catherine Scott and many others of the numerous Baptists 122 00:14:22.640 --> 00:14:25.480 were now converted to the Quaker faith. 123 00:14:25.480 --> 00:14:31.880 William Dyer, one of the leading Quakers, soon became the Secretary of Rhode Island. 124 00:14:31.880 --> 00:14:36.720 As Massachusetts had fearfully predicted, the Quakers used Rhode Island 125 00:14:36.720 --> 00:14:41.320 as the base of their missionary operations in Massachusetts. 126 00:14:41.320 --> 00:14:46.520 As the Bay Colony had warned in its message to Rhode Island, the Quakers were using the 127 00:14:46.520 --> 00:14:55.000 base to creep in amongst us and to infuse and spread their cursed tenants. 128 00:14:55.000 --> 00:15:01.960 The Quaker influx was met, predictably, by an accelerating ferocity. 129 00:15:01.960 --> 00:15:07.520 The Puritan divines were the zealous theoreticians of the persecution. 130 00:15:07.520 --> 00:15:13.660 The Reverend Uriah Oaks denounced the Quaker principle of liberty of conscience as a liberty 131 00:15:13.660 --> 00:15:20.000 of perdition and the firstborn of all abominations. 132 00:15:20.000 --> 00:15:26.200 And just as many former Hutchinsonians were becoming Quakers, so the Massachusetts campaign 133 00:15:26.200 --> 00:15:31.060 of suppression drew echoes of the old Hutchinsonian battles. 134 00:15:31.060 --> 00:15:36.400 In the forefront of the Quaker hunt was none other than the fiery Reverend John Wilson, 135 00:15:36.400 --> 00:15:40.440 Leading Persecutor of Anne Hutchinson 136 00:15:40.440 --> 00:15:45.320 Wilson thundered in a typical sermon that he would carry fire in one hand and 137 00:15:45.320 --> 00:15:50.960 faggots in the other to burn all the Quakers in the world. 138 00:15:50.960 --> 00:15:55.360 After the expulsion of old Nicholas Upshull, the next important Quaker case 139 00:15:55.360 --> 00:15:56.880 was Mary Dyer, 140 00:15:56.880 --> 00:15:59.940 wife of the Secretary of Rhode Island. 141 00:15:59.940 --> 00:16:05.040 Two decades earlier the beautiful young Mary had walked down the aisle with Anne 142 00:16:05.040 --> 00:16:06.200 Hutchinson 143 00:16:06.200 --> 00:16:36.200 When Ann was condemned. Now a determined Quaker, Mary arrived in Massachusetts and was quickly banished to Rhode Island. Mary Clark, entering Massachusetts on her Quaker mission, was given twenty lashes, laid on with fury, was imprisoned for three months, and then banished in the snows of midwinter. Yet alarming Quaker inroads were being made in Salem, led by Christopher Holder and John Copeland, who were 144 00:16:36.200 --> 00:16:52.200 Thomas Harris, entering from Rhode Island, was denounced by the Deputy Governor of Massachusetts as deserving of being hanged and was lashed unmercifully before being expelled. 145 00:16:52.200 --> 00:17:02.200 The culmination of this first pre-death penalty phase of the Quaker persecutions was the torture of the venerable William Brand. 146 00:17:02.200 --> 00:17:10.200 Brent had landed at Newport in 1657 and became one of the leading Quakers in Rhode Island. 147 00:17:10.200 --> 00:17:16.200 He went to Salem in 1658. Along with other Quakers, Brent was imprisoned. 148 00:17:16.200 --> 00:17:23.200 At this point, the Quakers put into practice the now famous technique of nonviolent resistance, 149 00:17:23.200 --> 00:17:32.200 of refusing to cooperate with injustice, of refusing to grant to the oppressor the sanction of the victim. 150 00:17:32.200 --> 00:17:37.200 Commanded to work in prison, Brand and the others refused. 151 00:17:37.200 --> 00:17:44.200 To force them into submission the authorities proceeded to a frenzy of torture against Brand. 152 00:17:44.200 --> 00:17:52.200 The old man was kept four days without food, then whipped ten lashes, starved again, 153 00:17:52.200 --> 00:18:15.640 The People of Massachusetts had been getting increasingly 154 00:18:15.640 --> 00:18:21.660 Restive at the Reign of Terror Against the Peaceful Quakers, but this treatment was, 155 00:18:21.660 --> 00:18:24.540 for many, too much to bear. 156 00:18:24.540 --> 00:18:29.940 Protests swelled. A large and angry crowd gathered outside the jail and began to storm 157 00:18:29.940 --> 00:18:35.860 the building, calling for the punishment of the jailer. At this point, the incipient revolt 158 00:18:35.860 --> 00:18:43.100 was quieted by the eminent theoretician of the anti-Quaker terror, Rev. John Norton. 159 00:18:43.100 --> 00:18:45.900 Stretching a metaphor, Norton declaimed, 160 00:18:45.900 --> 00:18:50.860 William Brinn endeavored to beat our gospel ordinances black and blue, 161 00:18:50.860 --> 00:18:56.660 and if he was beaten black and blue, it was just upon him. 162 00:18:56.660 --> 00:19:01.900 Soon the Massachusetts authorities pressed on to mutilation of the Quakers. 163 00:19:01.900 --> 00:19:07.460 When in the summer of 1658 Christopher Holder and John Copeland were arrested, 164 00:19:07.460 --> 00:19:12.220 the magistrates ordered the cutting off of one ear each. 165 00:19:12.220 --> 00:19:16.920 Governor Endicott, however, was less successful at besting the Quakers at public argument 166 00:19:16.920 --> 00:19:20.940 than in using his superior force to mutilate them. 167 00:19:20.940 --> 00:19:26.080 Endicott denounced the Quakers for their custom of keeping their hats on in court and for 168 00:19:26.080 --> 00:19:31.700 addressing him by name instead of by title, and thus showing contempt for constituted 169 00:19:31.700 --> 00:19:33.260 authority. 170 00:19:33.260 --> 00:19:39.900 The Quakers quickly replied that the only honor due to all men is love, and that the 171 00:19:39.900 --> 00:19:46.400 The Bible never required people to take off their hats before magistrates. 172 00:19:46.400 --> 00:19:51.060 Witness to the mutilation of her friends was none other than Catherine Scott, the sister 173 00:19:51.060 --> 00:19:55.240 of Anne Hutchinson and future mother-in-law of Holder. 174 00:19:55.240 --> 00:20:00.360 For making critical comments at the execution, Mrs. Scott herself was seized and given ten 175 00:20:00.360 --> 00:20:06.120 lashes and then warned by Endicott that she might be hanged if she returned. 176 00:20:06.120 --> 00:20:11.920 We shall be as ready to take away your lives as you will be to lay them down. 177 00:20:11.920 --> 00:20:17.480 Since even mutilation could not stop the intrepid Quaker missionaries, the Massachusetts authorities 178 00:20:17.480 --> 00:20:21.720 decided to accelerate further their campaign of terror. 179 00:20:21.720 --> 00:20:27.360 After the Brent case, the Reverend Mr. Norton, the other divines and the magistrates decided 180 00:20:27.360 --> 00:20:33.860 to react to the popular resistance by decreeing the death penalty should any Quaker return 181 00:20:33.860 --> 00:20:40.860 after Banishment. Norton instigated a petition signed by twenty-five citizens urging banishment 182 00:20:40.860 --> 00:20:49.860 for all Quakers and death upon return for the second offense of being a Quaker in Massachusetts. 183 00:20:49.860 --> 00:20:55.620 Resisting the oligarchy of magistrates and divines was the more democratic House of Deputies, 184 00:20:55.620 --> 00:21:02.220 which finally consented to the new law in October by a hairline majority of one. To 185 00:21:02.220 --> 00:21:07.600 To make sure that the death penalty would be enforced without chilly shelling, the bill 186 00:21:07.600 --> 00:21:13.600 removed the right of a trial by jury and left Quaker cases to the not-too-tender mercies 187 00:21:13.600 --> 00:21:20.460 of a court of three magistrates, two of whom would suffice for imposing the death penalty. 188 00:21:20.460 --> 00:21:25.360 To defend the new law against rising popular opposition, the general court appointed the 189 00:21:25.360 --> 00:21:32.040 colony's leading divine and the foremost champion of the Quaker hunt, Rev. John Norton, to write 190 00:21:32.040 --> 00:21:39.040 and its definitive apologia. The following year, 1659, Norton published his findings 191 00:21:39.480 --> 00:21:46.480 in The Heart of New England Rent at the Blasphemy of the Present Generation, a revealing title. 192 00:21:47.840 --> 00:21:54.500 Norton warned that the Quaker claim of individual divine inspiration made the authority of ministers 193 00:21:54.500 --> 00:22:01.500 and magistrates equally unnecessary, thus challenging the basic rule of church and religious 194 00:22:02.040 --> 00:22:10.040 And the temptation held out by the prospect of such overthrow was bringing many converts to the Quaker creed. 195 00:22:10.040 --> 00:22:18.040 Religious liberty to Norton was simply a liberty to blaspheme, a liberty to tell lies in the name of the Lord. 196 00:22:18.040 --> 00:22:22.040 Norton concluded that the Bible pointed to the proper path. 197 00:22:22.040 --> 00:22:32.040 And he that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall surely stone him. 198 00:22:32.040 --> 00:22:40.040 With the persecution of the Quakers mounting to a critical pitch, the stage was now set for the tragic climax. 199 00:22:40.040 --> 00:22:47.040 Murder. No one had longed to wait. Define the death penalty threat. 200 00:22:47.040 --> 00:23:01.040 Mary Dyer returned to Boston and was imprisoned and was there joined by William Robinson, a merchant from London, and Marmaduke Stevenson, two Quakers who had crossed the border from Rhode Island. 201 00:23:01.040 --> 00:23:11.040 The three were released and ordered again to leave the colony on pain of death. Robinson and Stevenson refused to bow to oppression and remained. 202 00:23:11.040 --> 00:23:34.040 Mary left but returned again to comfort the imprisoned Christopher Holder. Seized again, the three defiant Quakers were hauled into court in October 1659. Robinson asked permission to read a statement explaining their defiance of Massachusetts law, but the fiery Governor Endicott thundered, You shall not read it. 203 00:23:34.040 --> 00:23:51.040 Endicott charged that neither whipping nor cutting off ears nor banishment upon pain of death will keep ye from among us. He therefore sentenced them to hang. The death penalty had now passed from threat to reality. 204 00:23:51.040 --> 00:23:53.360 Marmaduke Stevenson retorted, 205 00:23:53.360 --> 00:23:57.840 The Lord hath said, the same day ye put his servants to death, 206 00:23:57.840 --> 00:24:00.880 shall you be cursed forevermore. 207 00:24:00.880 --> 00:24:05.320 Therefore, in love to you, all I exhort you 208 00:24:05.320 --> 00:24:10.360 to take warning before it be too late. 209 00:24:10.360 --> 00:24:13.080 Nine days later, on October 27, 210 00:24:13.080 --> 00:24:17.040 the three condemned Quakers were led to their public hanging, 211 00:24:17.040 --> 00:24:23.040 The First Execution for Religion on American Soil 212 00:24:23.040 --> 00:24:26.040 It was a dramatic day on Boston Common. 213 00:24:26.040 --> 00:24:34.040 An angry opposition among the people led the authorities to bring out a hundred armed soldiers to stand guard over the proceedings. 214 00:24:34.040 --> 00:24:44.040 When the condemned trio were let out of the prison, the soldiers deliberately drowned out the prisoners when they attempted to address the restive crowd. 215 00:24:44.040 --> 00:24:50.040 Reverend John Wilson contributed to the day's festivities by taunting Robinson. 216 00:24:50.040 --> 00:24:56.040 As Robinson and Stevenson were about to be hanged, the former addressed the throng. 217 00:24:56.040 --> 00:25:04.040 We are not evildoers, he cried, but witnesses to the truth and to the inner light of Christ. 218 00:25:04.040 --> 00:25:12.040 Vigilant to the end, the Reverend Mr. Wilson shouted, Be silent! Thou art going to die with a lie on thy mouth. 219 00:25:12.040 --> 00:25:19.000 Hang them or die, Wilson exhorted, and the two Quakers were duly killed. 220 00:25:19.000 --> 00:25:23.800 Mary Dyer had gained a reprieve but with calculated brutality. 221 00:25:23.800 --> 00:25:30.280 The authorities did not tell her this until the halter was around her neck. 222 00:25:30.280 --> 00:25:36.800 Driven back to Rhode Island, Mary Dyer remained undaunted and again went back to Massachusetts 223 00:25:36.800 --> 00:25:38.160 Bay. 224 00:25:38.160 --> 00:25:44.200 When condemned to death, Mary denied the validity of the law and declared that she had returned 225 00:25:44.200 --> 00:25:51.200 to bear witness against it. Upon refusing to agree to return to Rhode Island to stay, 226 00:25:51.200 --> 00:26:00.240 Mary Dyer was hanged on June 1, 1660. Perhaps the contemporaneous Quaker historian 227 00:26:00.240 --> 00:26:07.000 George Bishop was right and Mary Dyer indeed had the last word for, Bishop wrote, addressing 228 00:26:07.000 --> 00:26:14.080 In the Massachusetts Bay, your bloody laws were snapped asunder by a woman who, trampling 229 00:26:14.080 --> 00:26:20.460 upon you and your laws and your halter and your gallows and your priest, is set down 230 00:26:20.460 --> 00:26:24.320 at the right hand of God. 231 00:26:24.320 --> 00:26:27.880 And still the indomitable Quakers kept coming. 232 00:26:27.880 --> 00:26:32.400 Among the most determined to bear witness was William Ledra. 233 00:26:32.400 --> 00:26:39.840 Again and again, Ledra had visited Massachusetts, had been whipped, starved and driven out, 234 00:26:39.840 --> 00:26:46.360 only to return. Now Ledra was being dragged into court in his shackles, having been chained 235 00:26:46.360 --> 00:26:53.000 to a log of wood all winter. He was charged with sympathizing with the executed Quakers, 236 00:26:53.000 --> 00:27:03.880 with using thee and thou, with refusing to remove his hat, in some with being Quaker. 237 00:27:03.880 --> 00:27:11.080 Promised his life, if he recanted his faith, Ledra answered, What? Act so that every man 238 00:27:11.080 --> 00:27:17.560 who meets me would say, This is the man that has forsaken the God of his salvation? 239 00:27:17.560 --> 00:27:22.460 When a magistrate asked Ledra if he would agree to go to England if released, the prisoner 240 00:27:22.460 --> 00:27:27.100 Ledra coolly replied, I have no business there. 241 00:27:27.100 --> 00:27:30.340 Then you shall be hanged, retorted the magistrate. 242 00:27:30.340 --> 00:27:35.060 Ledra appealed to the laws of England, but the court held, as might be expected, that 243 00:27:35.060 --> 00:27:40.860 England had no jurisdiction in the case and pronounced the sentence of death. 244 00:27:40.860 --> 00:27:49.220 Still chained to the log, Ledra calmly wrote shortly before his execution, I testify that 245 00:27:49.220 --> 00:27:56.260 The noise of the whip on my back, all the imprisonments and banishments on pain of death, 246 00:27:56.260 --> 00:28:02.220 and the loud threatenings of a halter did no more fright me through the strength and 247 00:28:02.220 --> 00:28:09.260 power of God than if they had threatened to bind a spider's web to my finger. 248 00:28:09.260 --> 00:28:13.700 I desire to follow my forefathers in suffering and in joy. 249 00:28:13.700 --> 00:28:19.180 My spirit waits and worships at the feet of Emmanuel. 250 00:28:19.180 --> 00:28:26.820 On March 14, 1661, William Ledra was led out to his execution on Boston Common. Once again, 251 00:28:26.820 --> 00:28:31.860 the heavily armed guard prevented him from addressing the crowd. But as the officers 252 00:28:31.860 --> 00:28:37.940 were taking him to the gallows, Ledra cried out, Forbearing my testimony for the Lord 253 00:28:37.940 --> 00:28:43.520 against the deceivers and the deceived, I am brought here to suffer. 254 00:28:43.520 --> 00:28:50.360 The people were so moved by Ledra's calmness and nobility that again the crowd threatened 255 00:28:50.360 --> 00:28:56.120 and once again the vigilant Reverend Mr. Wilson stepped into the breach, explaining to the 256 00:28:56.120 --> 00:29:02.280 people that many such criminals are willing to die for their delusions. 257 00:29:02.280 --> 00:29:07.760 Ledra was destined to be the last American martyr, although there were to be a number 258 00:29:07.760 --> 00:29:17.760 Whenlock Christensen, a banished Quaker, returned to Massachusetts during the Ladra trial and ordered to protest it in court. 259 00:29:17.760 --> 00:29:22.760 In the midst of the trial, Christensen had appeared in court and warned Endicott, 260 00:29:22.760 --> 00:29:33.760 I am come here to warn you that you shed no more innocent blood, for the blood that you have shed already cries to the Lord for vengeance to come upon you. 261 00:29:33.760 --> 00:29:47.260 Christensen was, of course, arrested immediately and protested at his own trial that the law violated the laws of England. Given a chance to recant, Christensen defiantly replied, 262 00:29:47.260 --> 00:30:02.260 Nay, I shall not change my religion, nor seek to save my life. I do not intend to deny my master, and if I lose my life for Christ's sake, then I shall save it. 263 00:30:02.260 --> 00:30:13.260 Governor Endicott summoned the magistrates for the usual death sentence, but by now the groundswell of popular resentment against the blood bath was becoming menacing, 264 00:30:13.260 --> 00:30:19.980 And several magistrates, led by Richard Russell, refused to vote for death. Enraged at two 265 00:30:19.980 --> 00:30:26.260 split votes and two weeks of determined opposition to the bloody course, Endicott shouted, You 266 00:30:26.260 --> 00:30:32.820 that will not consent, record it. I thank God I am not afraid to give judgment. Whereupon 267 00:30:32.820 --> 00:30:39.780 he summarily and illegally declared the death sentence himself. Upon hearing his sentence, 268 00:30:39.780 --> 00:30:41.780 Christensen warned the court, 269 00:30:41.780 --> 00:30:43.780 What do you gain by it? 270 00:30:43.780 --> 00:30:47.780 For the last man that you put to death here of five come up in his room, 271 00:30:47.780 --> 00:30:51.780 and if you have power to take my life from me, 272 00:30:51.780 --> 00:30:55.780 God can raise up the same principle of life in ten of his subjects 273 00:30:55.780 --> 00:31:01.780 and send them among you in my room, that you may have torment. 274 00:31:01.780 --> 00:31:06.780 By early 1661, two Quakers were under sentence of death. 275 00:31:06.780 --> 00:31:12.340 Besides Christensen, Edward Wharton of Salem had been a fellow prisoner and cellmate of 276 00:31:12.340 --> 00:31:18.980 Ledra throughout his final ordeal. Wharton had been fined heavily and whipped with twenty 277 00:31:18.980 --> 00:31:25.460 lashes for denouncing the killing of Robinson and Stevenson and was later arrested for being 278 00:31:25.460 --> 00:31:31.420 a Quaker. When Ledra was sentenced to death, Wharton was banished on pain of death and 279 00:31:31.420 --> 00:31:37.460 and given ten days to leave the colony. Instead, Wharton accompanied his friend to the gallows 280 00:31:37.460 --> 00:31:44.060 and buried Ledra's body. He then went to Boston and wrote the authorities that he was there 281 00:31:44.060 --> 00:31:51.060 and there he would remain. Yet these two courageous men, plus twenty-seven other Quakers awaiting 282 00:31:51.060 --> 00:31:58.440 trial, were never executed, for word now reached Massachusetts of an event that was to prove 283 00:31:58.440 --> 00:32:03.960 momentous in the history of New England and dispel the beginning of the long drawn-out 284 00:32:03.960 --> 00:32:10.480 end to the reign of the Puritan theocracy in Massachusetts Bay, the re-establishment 285 00:32:10.480 --> 00:32:17.480 of the monarchy in England. Now there was no longer an indulgent Puritan rule in England 286 00:32:17.480 --> 00:32:23.680 or a civil war to distract the imperial power from the knowledge that Massachusetts and 287 00:32:23.680 --> 00:32:28.880 and the other New England colonies were totally self-governing. 288 00:32:28.880 --> 00:32:34.600 Knowledge of the restoration, therefore, gave the Massachusetts authorities pause. 289 00:32:34.600 --> 00:32:38.980 The year before, rising internal protests within Massachusetts had led them to free 290 00:32:38.980 --> 00:32:41.920 a Quaker couple from the death sentence. 291 00:32:41.920 --> 00:32:47.720 They also knew that English and banished American Quakers had been protesting the persecution 292 00:32:47.720 --> 00:32:49.440 to the home government. 293 00:32:49.440 --> 00:32:58.440 Indeed, George Bishop's New England Judged had just been published and had made a deep impression on Charles II. 294 00:32:58.440 --> 00:33:05.440 The King was particularly incensed at Massachusetts' scornful refusal of appeal to the laws of England. 295 00:33:05.440 --> 00:33:12.440 The banished Quakers presented a petition to the King detailing the persecution that they had suffered to date. 296 00:33:12.440 --> 00:33:17.440 Massachusetts countered with the charge that the Quakers were open blasphemers 297 00:33:17.440 --> 00:33:47.440 Edward Burl replied for the Quakers that they had never lifted up a hand or made a turbulent gesture against Church or State, but had only warned sinners to repent. It was at this point that the news arrived in England of the martyrdom of William Ledra. Burl gained a personal interview with the King and told him the news. Burl warned that he would not be able to do so. 298 00:33:47.440 --> 00:34:01.440 There is a vein of innocent blood, opened in thy dominions, which will run all over if it is not stopped. To the King this was the last straw. I will stop that vein. 299 00:34:01.440 --> 00:34:08.440 Then stop it speedily, Barrow implored, for we know not how many may soon be put to death. 300 00:34:08.440 --> 00:34:22.440 The King promptly dispatched the banished Quaker Samuel Shattuck to Massachusetts with the order to stop all further execution and torture of the Quakers and to permit all imprisoned Quakers to leave for England. 301 00:34:22.440 --> 00:34:32.440 Prudently, Massachusetts released all Quakers and ordered them to leave for England or else leave the border of Massachusetts within eight days. 302 00:34:32.440 --> 00:34:38.440 Two recalcitrant prisoners were tied to a cart's tail and whipped out of the colony. 303 00:34:38.440 --> 00:34:45.440 Among the Quakers released were Christensen and old Nicholas Upshull, who had been imprisoned for two years. 304 00:34:45.440 --> 00:34:55.440 Massachusetts, however, refused to obey the order to transfer Quaker prisoners to England for trial as an infringement of its charter rights and privileges. 305 00:34:55.440 --> 00:35:00.800 Furthermore, the General Court sent two of the colony's most prominent leaders, Simon 306 00:35:00.800 --> 00:35:07.680 Bradstreet and Rev. John Norton, to England to justify persecution of the Quakers. 307 00:35:07.680 --> 00:35:13.800 The two denounced the Quakers' dangerous, impetuous and desperate turbulence both to 308 00:35:13.800 --> 00:35:19.120 religion and the state, civil and ecclesiastical. 309 00:35:19.120 --> 00:35:27.120 The King now changed his mind, and in effect rescinded his order, except for stopping the 310 00:35:27.120 --> 00:35:28.880 death penalty. 311 00:35:28.880 --> 00:35:35.160 We have found it necessary here to make a sharp law against them, and we are well contented 312 00:35:35.160 --> 00:35:38.040 that you do the likewise there." 313 00:35:38.040 --> 00:35:43.680 Charles added the acknowledgement that Quaker principles were basically incompatible with 314 00:35:43.680 --> 00:35:47.920 the existence of any kind of state. 315 00:35:47.920 --> 00:35:53.160 The Massachusetts authorities needed no more encouragement to resume their campaign against 316 00:35:53.160 --> 00:35:57.560 the Quakers, of course stopping short of execution. 317 00:35:57.560 --> 00:36:02.520 It was at this point that the Cart and Whip Act was passed. 318 00:36:02.520 --> 00:36:09.360 This provided for tying Quakers to the tail of a cart and whipping them out of the colony. 319 00:36:09.360 --> 00:36:15.220 Death was now only the penalty for the sixth offense, but this was never to be enforced. 320 00:36:15.220 --> 00:36:19.920 The peak of the terror campaign had passed. 321 00:36:19.920 --> 00:36:24.540 Massachusetts proceeded to enforce the Carton Whip Act as thoroughly as it could, particularly 322 00:36:24.540 --> 00:36:26.940 against Quaker women. 323 00:36:26.940 --> 00:36:32.360 Many Quakers, including several of the released prisoners, were whipped out of the colony 324 00:36:32.360 --> 00:36:35.440 only to return. 325 00:36:35.440 --> 00:36:40.580 Public pressure forced a modification of the terms of the Carton Whip Act in the fall of 326 00:36:40.580 --> 00:36:47.540 in 1952, but the persecution continued undiminished. Particularly important was the case of three 327 00:36:47.540 --> 00:36:53.900 English Quaker women, Alice Ambrose, Mary Tompkins and Anne Coleman, who had, along 328 00:36:53.900 --> 00:36:59.000 with the released Edward Wharton, gone to the annexed New Hampshire town of Dover and 329 00:36:59.000 --> 00:37:05.180 made considerable progress there among former Hutchinsonians and Baptists, as they did also 330 00:37:05.180 --> 00:37:16.180 Finally, the Reverend Mr. Rainer, Puritan Minister of Dover, induced the Massachusetts magistrates to apply the Cart and Whip Act to the three women. 331 00:37:16.180 --> 00:37:30.180 The women were duly stripped to the waist, tied to a cart's tail, and whipped through eleven towns, through deep snow, and lashed up to ten times apiece in each town. 332 00:37:30.180 --> 00:37:37.180 and yet the tortured women met their fate by singing hymns as they went. 333 00:37:37.180 --> 00:37:48.180 Finally, Walter Barefoot of Salisbury could stand the sight no more. Barefoot had himself made deputy constable and took it upon himself to liberate the three women. 334 00:37:48.180 --> 00:37:55.180 This despite the urging of old Reverend John Wheelwright, now residing in Salisbury, to continue the whippings. 335 00:37:55.180 --> 00:38:02.140 Will Wright had now evidently made his peace with Massachusetts in every way and was busy 336 00:38:02.140 --> 00:38:07.460 repudiating his heretical and libertarian past. 337 00:38:07.460 --> 00:38:12.820 As soon as they were freed, the three courageous women returned to Dover to continue their 338 00:38:12.820 --> 00:38:14.540 prayer meetings. 339 00:38:14.540 --> 00:38:20.660 Alice Ambrose and Mary Tompkins were promptly seized, dragged through the snow, imprisoned 340 00:38:20.660 --> 00:38:27.180 and then tied to the tail of a canoe and dragged through deep and freezing water, almost being 341 00:38:27.180 --> 00:38:30.420 killed in the process. 342 00:38:30.420 --> 00:38:36.180 Another important case was that of the unfortunate Elizabeth Hutton, an aging lady who had been 343 00:38:36.180 --> 00:38:43.100 the first woman Quaker in England, her whole life a bloody hedgerow of persecution and 344 00:38:43.100 --> 00:38:44.100 torture. 345 00:38:44.100 --> 00:38:50.460 Elizabeth had walked virtually from Virginia to Boston, where she was immediately jailed, 346 00:38:50.460 --> 00:39:20.460 from which she walked to Rhode Island. Sailing back to Boston, she was arrested and shipped to Virginia. After being persecuted in Virginia, she went to England. Obtaining a special license from the king to build a house in America, she sailed to Boston once more. Here, Massachusetts refused to allow friends to meet in her home, and she left for the promising Piscataqua towns. 347 00:39:20.460 --> 00:39:26.460 At Hampton she was imprisoned, and in Dover put into the stocks and imprisoned. 348 00:39:26.460 --> 00:39:34.460 Then Elizabeth Houghton returned to Cambridge, where she was thrown into a dungeon and kept two days without food. 349 00:39:34.460 --> 00:39:42.460 A Quaker, hearing about her sufferings, took her some milk, for which she was fined the large sum of five pounds. 350 00:39:42.460 --> 00:39:43.460 of Money. 351 00:39:43.460 --> 00:39:49.900 Despite her letter from the King, Elizabeth was given ten lashes in Cambridge, and then 352 00:39:49.900 --> 00:39:57.380 taken to Watertown and lashed ten times more, and finally tied to a cart in Dedham and whipped 353 00:39:57.380 --> 00:40:00.420 through the town with ten more lashes. 354 00:40:00.420 --> 00:40:04.500 At the end of this travail she was left at night in the woods. 355 00:40:04.500 --> 00:40:09.740 From there she managed to walk to Seekonk and thence to Newport. 356 00:40:09.740 --> 00:40:16.660 Incredibly, and notwithstanding this bloody odyssey, Elizabeth Hootin did not give up. 357 00:40:16.660 --> 00:40:21.860 Once again she returned to Cambridge, where after being subjected to verbal abuse by a 358 00:40:21.860 --> 00:40:28.540 group of Harvard scholars, she was whipped through three towns to the Rhode Island border. 359 00:40:28.540 --> 00:40:34.400 Yet again Elizabeth returned to Massachusetts to bear witness to her faith. Again she was 360 00:40:34.400 --> 00:40:40.160 She was lashed ten times, put in prison, then whipped at a cart's tail through three more 361 00:40:40.160 --> 00:40:47.560 towns and left in the woods. Back again she went to Boston, was whipped out of town once 362 00:40:47.560 --> 00:40:54.880 more and threatened with death if she returned. But Elizabeth continued to return and the 363 00:40:54.880 --> 00:41:01.700 authorities did not dare go all the way. She was whipped out of several more towns and 364 00:41:01.700 --> 00:41:05.700 and walked again to Rhode Island. 365 00:41:05.700 --> 00:41:11.540 In protest against these punishments, many Quaker women began appearing naked in public 366 00:41:11.540 --> 00:41:17.600 as a naked sign of the persecution for which behavior they were, of course, whipped through 367 00:41:17.600 --> 00:41:19.900 the towns. 368 00:41:19.900 --> 00:41:26.460 Another turning point in the Massachusetts persecution of the Quakers came in the mid-1660s. 369 00:41:26.460 --> 00:41:33.420 As will be treated further below, King Charles II sent a commission to New England in 1664 370 00:41:33.420 --> 00:41:37.340 with instructions to reestablish the royal power. 371 00:41:37.340 --> 00:41:42.700 The commissioners promptly ordered Massachusetts to stop all persecution of the Quakers so 372 00:41:42.700 --> 00:41:47.340 that they might quietly pass about their lawful occasions. 373 00:41:47.340 --> 00:41:51.860 They added that it was surprising that the Puritans, who had received full liberty of 374 00:41:51.860 --> 00:41:57.380 of Conscience themselves should refuse it to other religious groups. 375 00:41:57.380 --> 00:42:02.340 Although Massachusetts by no means submitted to commission rule, the Puritans dared not 376 00:42:02.340 --> 00:42:08.100 go too far in persecuting the Quakers for fear of losing their precious charter. 377 00:42:08.100 --> 00:42:14.140 Furthermore, the blood-stained older generation of the Puritan oligarchy had begun to die 378 00:42:14.140 --> 00:42:18.700 off and to be replaced by a far more moderate generation. 379 00:42:18.700 --> 00:42:25.020 In 1663, the spiritual leader of the colony and of the persecutions, the Reverend John 380 00:42:25.020 --> 00:42:31.660 Norton died at the age of 57, and the Quakers may be pardoned for exulting that this took 381 00:42:31.660 --> 00:42:35.400 place by the immediate power of the Lord. 382 00:42:35.400 --> 00:42:40.860 Two years later, the temporal leader of the colony, Governor John Endicott, followed Norton 383 00:42:40.860 --> 00:42:42.540 in death. 384 00:42:42.540 --> 00:42:48.020 It is ironic, incidentally, that none other than Elizabeth Hutton turned up at Endicott's 385 00:42:48.020 --> 00:43:00.020 And so the ruthless attempt to eradicate Quakerism from Massachusetts Bay had signally failed. 386 00:43:00.020 --> 00:43:04.740 As Roger Williams had warned Massachusetts, when the Quakers first arrived, the more savage 387 00:43:04.740 --> 00:43:09.900 the persecution, the more adherence to the Quakers would multiply. 388 00:43:09.900 --> 00:43:16.060 Not only did this happen, but internal opposition to the oligarchy multiplied as well. 389 00:43:16.060 --> 00:43:21.700 By the 1670s, troubled by their failure and by the growing internal and external opposition, 390 00:43:21.700 --> 00:43:27.700 the Massachusetts authorities decided to slacken their campaign of terror. 391 00:43:27.700 --> 00:43:33.660 Despite the urgings of such die-hards as the Reverend Thomas Shepherd, an open Quaker meeting 392 00:43:33.660 --> 00:43:39.380 in Boston in 1674 was allowed to be held. 393 00:43:39.380 --> 00:43:45.760 By 1676, the Reverend Mr. Hubbard was concluding that too much severity and persecution could 394 00:43:45.760 --> 00:44:12.760 The last case of Quaker persecution occurred in 1677, when Margaret Brewster came out from a sickbed in sackcloth and ashes to bear a testimony and be as a sign to warn the bloody town of Boston to end its cruel laws. She was duly whipped through Boston at the tail of a cart. 395 00:44:12.760 --> 00:44:19.360 The bloody persecution of the Quakers was over. The Massachusetts theocracy, while succeeding 396 00:44:19.360 --> 00:44:27.080 in driving out Roger Williams and the Hutchinsonians, had failed completely to extirpate the indomitable 397 00:44:27.080 --> 00:44:35.560 friends. Massachusetts Bay also pursued the newly burgeoning sect of Baptists in the 1660s, 398 00:44:35.560 --> 00:44:41.080 but not with the same intensity with which it pursued the Quakers. The founder of the 399 00:44:41.080 --> 00:44:47.040 The Baptist in Massachusetts was Thomas Gould of Charlestown, who was repeatedly harassed 400 00:44:47.040 --> 00:44:53.080 by ministers, elders, and high authorities to bring his infant for baptism. Refusing 401 00:44:53.080 --> 00:45:00.580 to do so because of his opposition to infant baptism, Gould tried to organize his own congregation. 402 00:45:00.580 --> 00:45:07.360 They were immediately hauled into court, convicted of heresy, fined, and imprisoned. 403 00:45:07.360 --> 00:45:13.360 The Massachusetts authorities, fond of interminable argumentation, then arranged a public debate 404 00:45:13.360 --> 00:45:19.400 in Boston between six leading Puritan ministers and some of the humble Baptists, who were 405 00:45:19.400 --> 00:45:24.080 bolstered by several emissaries from the strong contingent of Baptists from Newport, Rhode 406 00:45:24.080 --> 00:45:32.600 Island. The debate, which took place in April 1668, lasted through two days, during which 407 00:45:32.600 --> 00:45:37.760 which the Baptists were repeatedly denounced as enemies of the Church and State. 408 00:45:37.760 --> 00:45:44.480 One of the leading Puritans, the Reverend Jonathan Mitchell, ended the debate on an ominous note, 409 00:45:44.480 --> 00:45:51.480 the injunction from Deuteronomy that the man that will do presumptuously and will not hearken 410 00:45:51.480 --> 00:45:56.480 unto the priest, even that man shall die. 411 00:45:56.480 --> 00:46:00.320 But this time the threat remained only a threat. 412 00:46:00.320 --> 00:46:06.160 The authorities did proceed with further trial of Gould and two associates, who were charged 413 00:46:06.160 --> 00:46:10.880 with organizing a church without approval of the government, and whose denial of infant 414 00:46:10.880 --> 00:46:17.000 baptism undermined the authority of unbaptized ministers and congregations. 415 00:46:17.000 --> 00:46:22.560 The court sentenced the Baptist to banishment, and when they refused to leave, they were 416 00:46:22.560 --> 00:46:24.800 imprisoned for many months. 417 00:46:24.800 --> 00:46:30.600 However, as we have seen with the Quakers, sentiment against religious persecution was 418 00:46:30.600 --> 00:46:35.320 now growing in Massachusetts even among Puritans. 419 00:46:35.320 --> 00:46:42.080 This was increased by a post-restoration immigration of English Puritans who were far more tolerant 420 00:46:42.080 --> 00:46:45.800 than the Old Guard of Massachusetts Bay. 421 00:46:45.800 --> 00:46:52.640 A group of 66, including prominent men of the colony, pleaded for freedom for the Baptist. 422 00:46:52.640 --> 00:46:57.800 The oligarchy reacted as was their habit, seizing and convicting the petitioners for 423 00:46:57.800 --> 00:47:00.120 contempt of authority. 424 00:47:00.120 --> 00:47:03.960 The petitioners were fined and forced to apologize. 425 00:47:03.960 --> 00:47:11.080 But, as in the case of the Quakers, persecution only swelled the ranks of the persecuted. 426 00:47:11.080 --> 00:47:16.560 In 1679, the Baptists were strong enough to build their own meeting-house. 427 00:47:16.560 --> 00:47:22.600 The general court immediately passed law confiscating all churches built without government permission. 428 00:47:22.600 --> 00:47:27.640 The authorities promptly seized the building and banned services there without license 429 00:47:27.640 --> 00:47:29.640 from authority. 430 00:47:29.640 --> 00:47:35.440 The congregation continued to meet in the yard and finally the general court gave up, 431 00:47:35.440 --> 00:47:41.520 fearful of defying the king who was leaning increasingly toward religious freedom. 432 00:47:41.520 --> 00:47:45.000 The court eventually returned the church to its owners. 433 00:47:45.000 --> 00:47:49.240 The Baptist, too, had won their right to worship in their own way.