Moments in C.P. History - Number 7: The Boston Quakers

Seventh part of the series by Paul Melrose, from Februs 38

From the very beginning of the migration of religious dissidents from England to the New World, Puritans, mainly Calvinists, had built and developed the city of Boston as a tribute to God’s Kingdom on earth, a shining example of strict theology, subservience to church elders and to elected magistrates. They perceived true faith to be represented through strong personal discipline and obedience. Then, in 1656, the first Quakers began to arrive in Massachusetts, many missionaries finding their way to Boston.

Initially there were no laws within Boston preventing Quakers from worshiping as they saw fit or spreading their version of the faith. However, it soon became clear to the Calvinists just what a frightening threat to the established order the Quakers presented with their ideology of ‘inner light’, independent convictions and individual conscience. All this ‘anarchy’ was complete anathema to the strict Puritan ethic and very soon the leaders of the community resolved to rid the state of Quakers by any means possible. The first ‘shot across the bows’ was fired when a ship called The Swallow arrived in Boston harbour in July 1656, carrying two devout Quaker missionaries named Mary Fisher and Anne Austin. They were immediately arrested when they set foot on shore and all their belongings confiscated. Both women were stripped naked in the presence of six male magistrates and humiliatingly searched for evidence of witchcraft. None was found and the two women were sent back to England, but only after all their Quaker tracts had been burned in the market place.

Laws were hastily brought in tightening the screw on Quakers and making it illegal to ship them into Boston. The laws included a whipping sentence for all Quakers who entered the city and heavy fines on any ships captain who transported them. All this did was encouraged more brave Quakers to flood into the city to advance their faith and to express their outrage. In 1659, three Quakers travelled from Rhode Island to Massachusetts to protest against the persecution of their faith. The two men were arrested and hanged and the woman, Mary Dyer, escaped death and was returned to Rhode Island. This brave, or foolhardy (take your pick), woman returned a year later saying it was God’s will that she be sent to Boston and this time she too was hanged.

One incident above all others changed the climate for the Quakers because it shamed and embarrassed the local populace and forced a re-think of some attitudes. This was the arrival in 1662 of three young English Quaker women to the township of Dover, near Boston. They were Ann Coleman, Mary Tompkins and Alice Ambrose. They made a general nuisance of themselves preaching against the established faith and restrictions on individual conscience. Eventually an influential church elder named (yes honestly!) Hatevil Nutter organised a petition to have the women arrested. On receipt of the petition, Richard Waldron, the Crown magistrate issued an order to the constables of each of eleven towns within the Boston area that the three young women should be tied to a cart tail, stripped to the waist, and given ten stripes apiece with a horse whip on their naked backs in each of the eleven towns.

This was a hideous ruling, a total of 110 stripes each, in addition to the forced march tied half naked to the cart tail to each of the towns, a journey of more than 80 miles in bitterly cold winter weather.

On a freezing cold day, in Dover, the three young women were stripped to the waist, tied to the cart tail and severely whipped while the local populace stood and laughed. They were then towed to Hampton, the second of the towns, and delivered to the constable. Early the next day, the cart was set up in the market place and the three women were again ordered to strip to the waist. Two of them obeyed, but Anne Coleman bravely refused. As a result she was stripped completely naked by the constable, displayed to the crowd and then forced to suffer her whipping naked before being allowed to dress her lower half again. Then the three women were towed to Salisbury where the appalling punishment was delivered for a third time.

In Salisbury however, providence came to their aid. A local doctor who was also a magistrate, one William Barefoot, rather bravely overturned the Crown order and declared the punishment to be complete. He personally dressed the wounds of the three women and returned them personally to the state of Maine and safety just across the river. Had the full sentence been administered there is every possibility that the women might have died. As it was, the public humiliation vented on these poor women gave some Boston worthies some uncomfortable food for thought, and pressure to ease up on Quaker persecution began to grow.

Eventually in 1663, these three brave young women returned to Dover and established a Quaker church. By the year 1670, a third of the citizens of Dover, Massachusetts were Quakers, so the sacrifice made by these young women and their predecessors did at last bear fruit.