Pilgrims Going To Church – George Henry Boughton 1867.

The Scarlet Letter offers modern readers a precise and accurate picture of Puritan society as a whole, its customs and values, but also its political organisation . Here is a summary of the evolutions in the Colony of Massachusetts’s system of government, and Hawthorne’s allusions to them in his novel.

Though the founders of the colony had received a royal charter designed for commercial purposes, which, on paper, granted them limited political autonomy, they immediately devised an original system of government predicated on theocratic principles. Their first government was formed as early as August 1630, just weeks after the Arbella had landed in Salem in June. The dozen or so founders of the colony elected John Winthrop as their first Governor, a position that was to be renewed every year, along with a deputy governor and seven assistants (also known as ‘magistrates’), who also acted as the colony’s judges. Together these nine leaders formed the colony’s government, known as the General Court. By 1631, voting rights were broadened to over 100 freemen, but limited to members of the Congregational Church, which soon became the only church tolerated in the colony (while Quakers, Roman Catholics and other heretics were gradually banned and/or persecuted). [1]  While the Church held a prominent position in the colony – notably the First Church in Boston- church and state, however, were formally separated, and ministers were not allowed to hold any government office.

By 1632, all towns outside of Boston were allowed to designate 2 deputies to discuss political decisions with the Court, notably on taxation: this gradually turned the institution into the equivalent of the colony’s parliament. Initially, though, John Winthrop and his magistrates generally attempted to limit the powers of deputies, considering that Governors and assistants should retain vetoing powers on all decisions. This led to increasing tensions which culminated in a constitutional crisis in 1642-1644; eventually a compromise was found, and the powers of the General Court were divided into a two-house legislature, the House of Assistants (later the Senate) and the House of Deputies (later the House of Representatives), making it the first example of bicameralism in modern history. ). [2]  Throughout the century, political rights were also broadened even for non-church members, though they were never allowed to vote for members of the General Court.

The Puritans’ ethos was a rigorous one. They disdained earthly pleasures (including art, which they deemed a distraction from piety), applied austere rules in all aspects of life, most of all the law. As Hawthorne emphasizes early in the novel (see pages 47- ), the legal rules in the colony enforced strict submission to Christian dogma, inflicting strict punishments upon all sins, including stigmas, mutilations and amputations, and even listing 12 death-penalty offenses including blasphemy, murder, witchcraft, and adultery. These drastic rules emanated from the Puritans’ fundamentalist approach to Christianity but they were also meant to help them survive in the face of adversity: the threats of Indian attacks and foreign invasion, the complex management of new immigrants from England and the risks of « desertion » to neighboring colonies, not to mention the diseases, harsh winters and famines that plagued the colony’s history. Not to paint too gloomy a picture either, Puritan laws also proved to be fairly progressive in a certain number of cases; the 1641 Body of Liberties notably protected all inhabitants in the colony (including foreigners) from arbitrary justice and guaranteed their right to a fair trial – a milestone in the history of modern democracies –, banned torture, notably on the rack, prohibited wife-beating, slavery, as well as cruelty to children, servants, and animals.

Still after John Winthrop’s death in 1649, the Colony’s authorities evolved towards greater and greater repressiveness and religious intolerance, which culminated with the trials of the “witches of Salem” in 1692, when young women started having epileptic fits and hallucinations which were attributed to the witchcraft of some of their neighbors: dozens of people were tried, and eventually nineteen people (and two dogs) were hanged, Hawthorne’s own ancestor, John Hathorne playing a crucial role in their sentencing.

[1] Hawthorne’s novel mentions and tends to heroize several of these heretics, notably:

• William Blackstone (mentioned page 99): an Anglican clergyman who had moved to Massachusetts in 1623, became one the very first settlers on the land where the city of Boston was built, but then disliked the Puritans so much that he left for what later became Rhode Island, making friends with the natives there.
• Roger Williams: a Puritan minister who was a vocal separatist (calling for the Puritans to denounce the Anglican Church as “anti-Christian”) but also advocated religious toleration: he was banned from the colony and went on to establish the colony of Rhode Island where freedom of faith was promoted.
• Ann Hutchinson (mentioned twice in the novel, starting with Chapter 1, and to whom Hester Prynne is implicitly associated): a religious reformer who stirred controversy by setting faith and the necessity for believers to look inward to find salvation – what she called the « covenant of Grace » – above obedience to Christian law – the « covenant of works ». She and her friends and family were excommunicated for these antinomian beliefs, and she was forced to leave for Rhode Island in 1638. She and her family later died in Long Island, slaughtered by local natives.

[2] The 1642 was sparked off by an obscure legal case involving a widow’s sow, which Hawthorne mentions in a somewhat facetious digression when Hester Prynne visits Governor Bellingham to ask him to keep Pearl with her. (p.94) The widow in question, Goody Sherman, sued a wealthy local merchant who had slaughtered her sow by mistake; in the ensuing trial, the deputies sided with her, but their decision in her favor was overruled by the magistrates.