Samuel Sewall on Mourning Executed Criminals

On Thursday, we saw the family of convicted pirate John Lambert successfully lobby Judge Sewall for permission to bury Lambert in King's Chapel burying ground. Today, I would like to highlight another example of a Boston family going into public mourning after an execution.

On November 13, word reached Boston that Lady Alice Beckenshaw Lisle had been beheaded in Winchester, England. Lady Alice (age 68) had given shelter to fugitives from the Battle of Sedgemoor, the last battle in the Protestant Duke of Monmouth's campaign to depose his Catholic uncle, James II. Lady Alice claimed that she did not know that the fugitives had been involved in the Monmouth Rebellion. Nevertheless, she was tried and convicted at the Bloody Assizes on August 25, 1685 and sentenced to be burned to death. King James II commuted her sentence to death by beheading, an order that was carried out on September 2.

Most Puritan Bostonians had been horrified by the ascension of a Catholic king and were in sympathy with Monmouth's Rebellion. The same ship that brought news of Lady Alice's execution also brought "a Rumor that the Government [of New England] will be Changed, this Fall or Winter, by some Person sent over, or a Commission to some here." This rumor proved true with the establishment of the Dominion of New England a few months later.

None in Boston mourned Lady Alice's death more deeply than did her daughter, Bridget Lisle Usher, widow of late Harvard president Leonard Hoar and wife of Boston merchant Hezekiah Usher. The week after the news arrived, Sewall noticed that "Madam Usher, her Daughter and Husband" attended Rev. Cotton Mather's Thursday lecture "in Mourning." I don't know whether their presence in the audience influenced Mather's choice of material at all, but Sewall's notes indicate that the content of the lecture would have called attention to Lady Alice's case and the plight of Protestant New England more broadly:

Mr. Mather Preaches from Numb. 25. 11. Shewed that Love was an ingredient to make one zealous; those that received good People received Christ, Mat. 25. Said that if the Government of N.E. were zealous might yet save this People. 2d Part of 79th Ps. sung. Madam Usher, her Daughter and Husband in Mourning.

Imagine Bridget Usher and her family dressed in mourning as the congregation around them sang the 79th Psalm, which begins with,

O god, the heathen are come into thine inheritance; thy holy temple have they defiled; they have laid Jerusalem on heaps.

If they sang the second half, they sang,

 Let the sighing of the prisoner come before thee; according to the greatness of thy power preserve thou those that are appointed to die;

Mather's other texts were similarly on-point. Numbers 25:11 concerns the actions of Phineas, a grandson of Moses' brother Aaron, who saved the Israelites from God's wrath by proving his zealousness. Matthew 25 is the famous parable of the wise virgins and the foolish virgins, which contains well-known passages on preparedness and hospitality:

For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

I am not a scholar of Puritan worship practices, so I don't want to jump to the easy conclusion that Mather chose this passage to comment on Lady Alice's righteousness. Yet, it seems to me that all this talk of extending hospitality to those in need had to have focused the congregation's attention on her case, especially with her family sitting there in mourning.

In any case, this is an instance where Boston's religious and political loyalties allowed the family of someone executed for treason to mourn that death brazenly in public.

Illegal Quaker Burying Ground, 1685

Samuel Sewall did not like Quakers. This was hardly an extraordinary position among Massachusetts Puritans, but Sewall was particularly strong in his disapproval, going out of his way to oppose Quakers even when his fellow Puritans were willing to give them a chance. In 1708, when a group of Quakers petitioned the Governor and Council for permission to build a meeting house in Boston, Sewall opposed the measure, saying that he, "would not have a hand in setting up their Devil Worship" (Sewall Diary 23 Aug. 1708).

Sewall's diary is full of references to Quakers — he clearly kept a keen eye out for them. Of particular interest to me are his references to Quaker burials.

In June of 1685, a small group of Quakers asked Governor Simon Bradstreet for permission to build a fence around the graves of the "Boston Martyrs" — Marmaduke Stephenson, William Robinson, Mary Dyer, and William Leddra — on Boston Common. These four Quakers had been executed in 1659 (Stephenson and Robinson), 1660 (Dyer), and 1661 (Leddra), for the crime of returning to Massachusetts to proselytize after being banished on a previous occasion. Their fellow Quakers wished to honor them and, no doubt, draw attention to their own continued presence in the colony. This was a particularly sore subject in 1685, as the colony's charter had been revoked the previous year, partially due to concerns about the lack of religious toleration in Massachusetts. When Governor Bradstreet brought this request before the Council, it was unanimously denied. Sewall, writing in his diary, noted that, "it is very inconvenient for persons so dead and buried in the place to have any Monument" (Sewall Diary 17 June 1685).

The Quakers were not big on obeying earthly authorities, so they went ahead and built the fence anyway.

In August, Sewall passed by the gravesite on his way to Dorchester and saw

a few Feet of Ground enclosed with Boards, which is done by the Quakers out of respect to som one or more hanged and buried by the Gallows: though the Governor forbad them, when they asked Leave.

Of course, today, there is a big statue of Mary Dyer next to the State House, but this commemoration was a dramatic gesture of defiance in 1685.

Michele Bachmann Strikes Again

Michele Bachmann's opposition to a proposal that would make breast pumps tax-deductible leads me to believe that she hates babies. Well, specifically, she hates black babies and the babies of mothers who work. Either that, or she hates tax deductions.

My breast pump cost $249 and was not covered by insurance. It's a good pump, but it isn't a hospital-grade pump or anything fancy. For someone who needs a pump either because she is working, or because her baby is in the NICU, or because she needs to regulate her supply, or because she just prefers pumping to direct breast feeding or formula feeding, a tax deduction could help out a lot. Especially if she needs an expensive pump, not a cheap(!) one like mine.

But Michele Bachmann is so virulently anti-Obama that she has actually come out against a proposal that is specifically designed to help infants and new parents by reducing their tax burden. My head, it spins.

Molly disapproves.

Not history-related, but I'm afraid you'll have to put up with some occasional mommyblogging from now on.

"At some point, we have to put some faith and trust in our authority figures."

I promise a shiny gold star to the first person who can make it through this article on the privacy rights of on-duty police officers without LOLsobbing.

"Burn a Confederate Flag Day"

General J.C. Christian from Jesus' General is leading a campaign to get progressives to participate in "Burn a Confederate Flag Day" on September 12, 2010. He envisions it as a counter to the 9/12 Tea Parties and hopes that it will expose the Tea Partiers' "conscious effort to show African Americans as subversive and anti-American and to tie that to Obama."

My first question: should participants burn the Confederate national flag to protest the Confederacy's assault on the U.S. Constitution or the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia to protest the ongoing racism of the Lost Causers?

Tea Partiers Visit Colonial Williamsburg

Bless those first-person interpreters. I did my share of first-person impressions in my reenacting days, and I can only imagine how annoying it must be to give 18th-century responses to visitors who are more interested in 21st-century politics than in 18th-century history.

Cell Phone Video and the Second Amendment

This morning, Andrew Sullivan linked to an ABC article about civilians who have been arrested for capturing video or audio recordings of on-duty police officers. Many discussions of this subject — including the article mentioned above — frame citizens' rights to tape police officers in terms of First Amendment rights, but I'm not sure I agree. 

To me, this is an issue of Second Amendment rights. If the Second Amendment is meant to arm citizens with the tools necessary to protect themselves against encroaching state power, I think that cell phone cameras and YouTube are the muskets of the 21st century. No modern civilian or group of civilians, no matter how well-armed with guns or bombs, has any prayer of fighting off the police (or army) by force. If police officers or soldiers are abusing their power, the best weapon of self-defense available to the modern American is media exposure.

Hey, Let's All Just Use the 1790 Census Form

No problem!

In Which I Will Hold My Nose and Vote for Martha Coakley

I do not like Martha Coakley. From the first time I saw this fear-mongering ad back in November, I have not been a fan. The more I read about her, the less I like her. Every time she opens her mouth, I am embarassed to be a Massachusetts Democrat.

I voted against her in December, but I will suck it up and vote for her today. I had a brief moment of thinking that I couldn't possibly vote for someone so odious, but I eventually decided that if there is even a tiny chance that her losing might hurt health care reform, I could not afford to stay home.

I will do the wrong thing for the right reasons and vote for Martha Coakley.

But here's the thing — if Martha Coakley loses today (and she might), I do not want to hear national Democrats talking about how the people of Massachusetts have sunk health care reform. I don't want to hear them whining about needing the 60-vote majority or about how losing the seat is what killed the bill. The Democrats have had an entire year with a 60-vote majority in the senate and they have not accomplished the reforms that Obama promised would be done by August. Coakley losing might be the last straw, but this camel has already been overloaded with 1,000 tons of bullshit.

Teach the Controversy: Pangaea

Andrew Sullivan has a post up right now called "Looking at Race." It concerns a poll that asks Americans whether they believe that Africa and America were once part of the same continent.

At first, I thought, wtf does the existence of Pangaea have to do with race? Of course America and Africa were once part of the same continent, but the Atlantic Ocean has been around for about 100 million years, while our species is only a few hundred thousand years old. "Race" is not really a concept that maps well onto geologic time.

Then I looked at the breakdown of the results.

Yikes! Only 35% of white respondents said "yes," while 63% of black respondents agreed. I imagine that this gap is not reflective of overall scientific knowledge. Did all the white kids skip Earth Science? From this evidence, it seems that white people (particularly those who are Republicans, Southerners, or over 60) are less likely to accept the science of plate tectonics, perhaps indicating that they are still struggling with the idea that all people belong to the same species.

If it were just Republicans or Southerners who were willfully ignorant of continental drift, I might be able to explain it away by blaming Young Earth Creationism. But that racial gap is astounding.

White people do realize that our species originated in Africa, don't they? And that all humans of all races are related? Also — and I hestiate to point this out — white people are not actually from America originally.

One last thing — in his post, Sullivan says that he "would have said yes, but not too confidently." Really? Because I definitely covered Pangaea with my second graders. I thought that this was common knowledge, at least among elementary school grads.

Teach the Controversy 

Update: Some are saying that the question is flawed — that it doesn't really tell us how many Americans "believe" in continental drift. But that isn't the point, is it? The point of the question is to tell us how many Americans reflexively reject any idea that connects North America to Africa. It's a brilliant question because you can't just straight-up ask people if they are racist. Many people don't know what the term means, though they're pretty sure they aren't. You have to ask roundabout questions like this one.

Verbatim Pat Buchanan

"This has been a country built, basically, by white folks in this country."

That's 88.51392 Kilometers Per Hour

Now that Al Franken is a senator, we can expect his magnetic media presence to drive the filibuster-proof Democratic majority so far to the left that we'll be inundated with foreigny, emasculating policies like the introduction of the metric system! And speed limits!

It's true!!!11!1! 

We may end up having Easter in November, but the papists will have to pry the Julian calendar from our cold, dead, Protestant hands!

"Died in the Army of ye United States"

I spend a substantial amount of time reading about the American Revolution, but until I visited the Bridge Street Cemetery in Northampton, I had never heard of Major Brigadier General Seth Pomeroy. The more I learn about him, the more surprised I am that he is not one of those remembered among the second tier of founding fathers.


Pomeroy's story has all the makings of a good folk hero tale — he was a frontier gunsmith who took part in the Louisbourg expedition, fought at Lake George during the Seven Years' War, and, at age 69, rode 100 miles in a night to help defend Bunker Hill. He kept journals — there's even a poem about him. Seth Pomeroy would be a good character for historical fiction — he was everywhere and he seems to have been a bit eccentric.

The sources indicate that Pomeroy is not actually buried in Northampton. He fell ill and died in Peekskill and was buried in an unmarked grave. I haven't been able to find any mention of his body being relocated, so I suppose the monument in Northampton is a cenotaph.

The stone, carved by Nathaniel Phelps, would be interesting even if the deceased were unknown. What caught my eye was the use of the term "united States." I wonder when the stone was actually carved — if it was erected before 1780 or so, it may be one of the first times those words were carved on a public monument.

The imagery is interesting, too. The "CSP" stands for "Colonel Seth Pomeroy," but I have no idea what the "BG" on the little flags might mean. Guesses?

The Sky is Falling!

 Oh, wait. It's not.

On Taxation and Representation

I'm spending the afternoon immersed in revolutionary-era Boston again. I am charged with the simple task of issuing a 1,000-word rejoinder to either Bernard Bailyn or Edmund Morgan on the subject of the ideology of freedom in this period. Nice, easy assignments in this class.

As I cast about for something original to say on this topic, let me take heart from Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), who has shown us all that it is not impossible to put a unique spin on 18th-century arguments. At a recent conference (CPAC), emcee Bachmann asked the eager crowd of conservative activists,

I just wondered that if our founders thought taxation without representation was bad, what would they think of representation WITH taxation?

What indeed.

Happy Inauguration Day!

Congratulations, President Obama!
I honor you with this army of cupcakes.

Pete has approved this message.

Deep Thought of the Day

If white women had been allowed to vote, George McClellan would have won the election of 1864. And not just because he's dreamy.

Consider the following:

• McClellan captured 45% of the popular vote.
• Lincoln carried Union soldiers by a 3:1 margin (at least).
• Therefore, male civilians were more likely to vote for McClellan than were soldiers.
• McClellan ran on a platform of immediate cessation of hostilities and negotiation with the South.
  
• By 1864, many women opposed the war and wanted their men home at any cost.
• Women, by definition civilians, would probably have voted like male civilians or, perhaps, even more pro-McClellan.

My conclusion: Lincoln probably could not have won if women had been allowed to vote in 1864.

Saturday in Portland

I just got back from a Great Big Sea concert in Portland, ME, where we had a memorable election-related moment.

Before the show, a few women broke out their Newfoundland flags and waved them around to general applause. Then, more Newfoundland flags appeared all around the auditorium — at least half a dozen in all. Everyone clapped and cheered.

As the applause died down, someone produced an Obama/Biden yard sign (he carries it around with him?) and unfurled it to even greater applause. There were a couple of boos here and there, but the cheers and whistles easily overwhelmed them. And this was not a particularly young audience.

I guess it's true: Maine is blue.

McFail

I've gotten into reading FAIL Blog recently.
It has given me a new vocabulary to deal with things like this.

Amazing

Amanda Jones, the 109-year-old daughter of a former slave, votes for Barack Obama.

I spend a fair amount of my time reading, thinking, and writing about slavery, but I will admit, it sometimes seems a remote topic. I know it isn't — "slavery" did not necessarily end in 1865 and no matter what the pundits say, we are by no means a "post-racial" nation. My privilege allows me to think of slavery in a vague "back in the day" sort of way, and I am grateful to be jolted out of that complacency by stories like this one. And this one, and this one, though they don't give me the warm fuzzies.