Puritan Punishment

[LarryCook]

I am trying to learn more about the punishments that were prevelent in the New England puritan community. I started googling after I came across the mention of "branding" in The Evil of Evils, which I'm reading. I seem to be able to find only information that is antagonistic to the puritans.

Are there any good sites or books to which I might be directed to balance out the antagonistic perspective?

thanks,
Larry

 

[LadyFlynt]

The Puritan Family by Edmund S. Morgan is excellent. Just finished it. It doesn't make the puritans look bad...just realistic and it expands beyond the family into the entire social structure. Includes the issues that were brought before the courts and how they were dealt with...both within families, servants, and travelers.

 

[Plimoth Thom]

Morgan's "The Puritan Family" is very good. "The Times of Their Lives" by James Deetz and Patricia Scott Deetz is a good history of Plymouth Colony. It deals quite a bit with Plymouth court cases, showing what kinds of crimes were being committed and the punishment handed out by the magistrates. Also "John Winthrop: America's Forgotten Founding Father" by Francis J. Bremer is an excellent history of Winthrop and the early years of Massachusetts Bay Colony. Winthrop was a magistrate in England and sometime governor of Massachusetts Bay. Bremer covers the major court cases that Winthrop was involved in, and shows that the New England Puritans followed the standard of 17th century English Common Law and were quite fair and moderate in their punishments by the standards of the day, and often merciful to repentent lawbreakers.

 

[LarryCook]

Colleen and Thom,

Thanks for the sources. They're on my list.

Larry