Crime and Punishment in American History - Lawrence M. Friedman [23]
The straitlaced Puritans of Massachusetts Bay were not the only colonial leaders who looked down their noses at vice, common or exotic. A Virginia law of 1657-58 directed local courts and parishes to use “all good meanes” to suppress “the odious sinnes of drunkenesse, blasphemous swearing and curseing,” and “scandalous liveing in adultery and fornication.”25 The law was frequently amended, often with complaints about how ineffective prior laws had been. Virginia courts may have been a bit easier than their northern colleagues on such crimes as adultery, but they hardly ignored it. So, for example, in Richmond, in 1715, one Pavey was presented by the grand jury on suspicion of living in adultery, with Sarah Yeats; he was ordered to get her out of his house, to break off all relations with her, and to remain in custody until he could post bond for his good behavior.26
Colonial Corrections
The colonial frame of mind and the structure of colonial society influenced not only what was punished but also how crimes were punished. The early settlements were tiny places; the whole population of the American colonies in 1650 would not fill a good-sized baseball stadium today. In the early years, too, the settlements were little worlds on their own, cut off from each other and most definitely cut off from the mother country; it was a bit like life on a desert island (but with a tougher climate). It was also small-town life at its most communal—in—bred and extremely gossipy. Nothing escaped the deadly eye of the collective. As Roger Thompson put it, writing about one Massachusetts county, the community was “well stocked with moral monitors who did not miss much in the goldfish-bowl existence of daily life.”27
New England settlements of this sort had both the will and the ability to enforce laws against fornication, sins of the flesh, minor vices, and bad behavior. They punished these offenses the way autocratic fathers or mothers punish children; they made heavy use of shame and shaming. The aim was not just to punish, but to teach a lesson, so that the sinful sheep would want to get back to the flock. Punishment tended to be exceedingly public. The magistrates loved confessions of guilt, open expressions of remorse. They loved to enlist the community, the bystanders ; their scorn, and the sinners’ humiliation, were part of the process. Hundreds of colonial sinners were forced to sit in the stocks—in full public view. Punishment was sometimes tailored to fit the crime, to point up the moral more vividly. Samuel Powell, a servant, stole a pair of breeches in Accomack County, Virginia, in 1638. Part of his punishment was to “sitt in the stocks on the next Sabboth day ... from the beginninge of morninge prayer until the end of the Sermon with a pair of breeches about his necke. ”28
Severity was not the point in punishing minor sins. The point was repentance and a good swift lesson. Warnings and fines were the punishment of choice for flirting, petting, and other small offenses. More aggravated sins led to the pillory and stocks, and more fines; for still worse cases, a sound whipping was inflicted. A servant, Daniel, in western Massachusetts (1654), had profaned the sabbath “in idle walkinge about and not comeinge to the Ordinances of the Lord”; his employer also complained of “grievous idleness in neglecting his busyness for Severall dayes.” Daniel had been warned before; he promised “amendment; but grew worse and worse.” At this point, he was sentenced to five lashes on