Sometimes Cruel, but Never Unusual: Children’s Lives in the 17th Century

1670 Mason Children

The old rhyme goes, “Men may work from sun to sun; a woman’s work is never done.”   There is no doubt that our colonial forefathers worked hard in planting crops, cutting firewood, and hunting for food.   Their wives were equally busy, but what were children’s lives like in our country’s early days?  Their parents worked hard, but did children have an easy life?

Pilgrim Cradle

They had to survive coming into the world, and what medical assistance was supplied to mother and child often did more harm than good.  Miscarriages and premature births often went unnoted, and in some communities, 30% of the children whose births and deaths were recorded died before their fifth birthday.

Young Mother's Tombstone

Hopefully the newborn’s mother would survive too.  It is estimated that 1 - 1.5% of pregnancies ended in the mother’s death, and throughout their lifetimes, 1 in 8 women died during pregnancy or childbirth.  A nursing mother passes crucial antibodies to her infant with the first milk produced after birth.  If she died, that child began life with a compromised immune system.  If the infant survived, it might be raised by another nursing woman – if one was available.

Three children in one tomb

A child who survived birth was taken to the meetinghouse a few days later for baptism.  In January, ice on the baptismal font would have to be removed first, then the baby was dunked in that frigid water.

Young children were assailed by disease, impure food and water, and accidents.  Cotton Mather, a Puritan minister in Boston, sired 15 children, 8 of which died before being weaned.  He wrote, "We have our children taken from us, the Desire of our Eyes taken away with a stroke."  40% of 17^th century children did not become adults.

“In the midst of life we are in death” comes from the Book of Common Prayer.  Children learned that early, for they were often taken to public hangings for an object lesson in crime and punishment.  Funerals and wakes were held at home.  Hell awaited most children, or so they were told, for "their Hearts naturally, are a meer nest, root, fountain of Sin, and wickedness." (Benjamin Wadsworth)

Some cures were worse than the disease.  A child being treated for rickets (vitamin D deficiency) might be dosed with snakeroot and saffron steeped in rum, then dipped head first in cold water.  If that didn’t make the child sweat, “Let a little blood be taken out of ye feet…and that will cause them to sweat afterwards.”  Wearing wolf’s fangs might make the child’s teeth come in more easily, but that was less painful than scratching the child’s gums with an osprey bone.

The Capel family

Infanta Margarita

Both boys and girls wore linen gowns in their earliest years, similar to the one worn by Lady Capel’s baby.  When children were old enough to be ‘breeched,’ boys wore shirts & breeches like their father’s.  Girls were clad in miniature versions of their mother’s clothing.  Few children were so fortunate as to wear the stuff of the Infanta’s painting:

Boy Eating Porridge by Hals

Children ate and drank what their parents ate, including beer.  Milk was only available when cows had calves.  Water was considered to be an unhealthy drink.  Rightly so, when it was drawn downstream from a cow pasture or privy.

Girl With Broom - Fabritius

Childhood labor laws – what were they?  As soon as they were big enough to hold a broom, children worked alongside their parents.  They were not considered to be mouths to feed, but helping hands.  The more children a family had, the more likely that family was to prosper. 

Miss Campion with hornbook

In our country’s early days, formal education was a luxury for most boys, but it was sometimes available.  In 1640 Robert Lenthall was granted 100 acres of land in Newport, Rhode Island “for Encouraginge of ye poorer sort to trayne up their youthe in Learninge.”  The school was not successful, though, and Lenthall returned to England a few years later.  However, affluent children, both boys and girls, might be educated.  In this picture, Miss Campion holds a hornbook printed with the alphabet.

As early as age 10, many children were sent to work for another family, or were bonded to tradesmen as an apprentice.  An indenture could last a specific span, say, 5-7 years, until the age of 21, or perhaps until a girl married.  A boy could learn to be a tailor or cobbler, but there was great potential for abuse unless that child’s family was keeping an eye on him.

Children at Plimoth Plantation

Children did have some time for fun.  Marbles, tops, and pieces of ceramic dolls are turned up by colonial archeologists. King Charles I and his father both issued a Book of Sports, listing “lawfull Recreations and honest exercises” to be played “upon Sundayes and other Holy days, after the afternoone Sermon.”

Puritans were far stricter, but games for children were allowed – within reason.  In 1657, because several people had been hurt, boys who played “football in the streets” would be fined 20 shillings.  But they could play football, wicket, and other games on the Common.

17th century doll

Sampler by Loara Standish

Girls were taught household crafts, and perhaps that wasn’t as much fun as playing football.  But they also had dolls, including this early model.  It doesn’t look much like today’s Barbies, but with a dress, a painted face, and perhaps a wig, it would have provided a young girl with an hour’s entertainment.

It is clear from this blog that I have a liking for our country’s earliest days.  However, when I consider whether I’d rather have been a child in the 20^th century, or the 17^th, I am glad to have been born in modern days.

 

Sources:

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/historyonline/childbirth.cfm

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/historyonline/usdeath.cfm

Child Life in Colonial Days – Alice Morse Earle  1899

Customs and Fashions in Old New England – Alice Morse Earle  1893

Woman’s Life in Colonial Days – Carl Holliday  1922

Images:

Mason Children: http://www.worcesterart.org/Collection/Early_American/Artists/unidentified_17th/elizabeth_f/painting-discussion.html

Cradle: http://www.pilgrimhall.org/collects.htm

Tombstones: personal collection

Baptismal font: http://www.squidoo.com/colonial-williamsburg#module150843586

Lady Capel gown: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1600%E2%80%931650_in_fashion

Velasquez’ Infanta Dona Magarita de Austria: http://www.wga.hu/html_m/v/velazque/10/index.html

Fransz Hals’ “Boy Eating Porridge”: http://www.wikigallery.org/wiki/painting_206792/Reynier-Fransz-Hals/Boy-eating-Porridge

Carel Fabritius’ “A Girl With a Broom”: http://www.traceyourdutchroots.com/art/bezem.html

Miss Campion with Hornbook: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornbook

Blowing bubbles: http://www.plimoth.org/learn/just-kids/homework-help/playing-learning

Sampler by Loara Standish: http://www.pilgrimhall.org/samplers2.htm

There be Witches Too Many

Witches in 1493

I recently had a book signing for my novel, Rebel Puritan, and I was asked whether my historical fiction is based in Salem during the witchcraft frenzy.  Though my novel takes place in 17^th-century New England, it occurs mostly in Rhode Island several decades before the Salem tragedy.  However, I get many such questions.

I am now writing the sequel to Rebel Puritan, and my real-life protagonist, Herodias Long, apparently lived until 1705.  I admit that I searched through Rhode Island’s records for a case of witchcraft to use in Herodias’ story.  After all, fine Salem witchcraft tales, such as Kathleen Kent’s The Heretics Daughter and The Afflicted Girls by Suzi Witten, have attracted many readers.  Why not borrow some for my sequel? 

Rhode Island let me down.  Though there was a 1647 death penalty for witchcraft in Rhode Island, there were no executions.  There was not a single trial.  Not even an accusation!

Bringing a witch to justice

Witchcraft is as old as humanity, but I confine this account to colonial New England.  The Pilgrims brought Europe’s beliefs with them, and when they wrote a code of laws in 1636, one of the five crimes for which a person would be put to death was “forming a solemn compact with the devil by way of witchcraft.”

Puritans arrived ten years after the Pilgrims, and they also had stern witchcraft laws.  In spring 1647 John Winthrop, governor of Massachusetts, wrote in his journal, “One ___ of Windsor [CT] was arraigned and executed at Hartford for a witch.”  One year later, three Massachusetts women were convicted and executed.  As John Palfrey wrote, “These cases appear to have excited no more attention than … any other felony, and no judicial record of them survives.”

A Puritan witch

Margaret Jones was one of the executed women, and Governor Winthrop described some of the deathly evidence against her.  She had a “malignant touch” and persons whom she “stroked or touched with any affection or displeasure … were taken with deafness, or vomiting, or other violent pains or sickness.”  She used herbal remedies such as aniseed, which should have been harmless, yet had “extraordinary violent effects.”  And thirdly, Margaret told people that if they did not use her remedies, they would never be healed, and her predictions often came true.  Considering that doctors of the day used such dubious ingredients as mercury and snails, and relied on bloodletting, it’s amazing that anyone survived.

John Josselyn’s book, New England’s Rarities Discovered, was published in 1672.  He comments that in the region “there be witches too many … that produce many strange apparitions if you will believe report.”  Notice the date: Josselyn’s book appeared two decades before the Salem witchcraft accusations.

Bridget Bishop's 1692 hanging

Witchcraft accusations, trials, and hangings occurred in the Puritan colonies of Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Hampshire on a near-yearly basis.  The accusations came to a horrific climax in 1692 when 160 persons were charged with witchcraft.  Nineteen were hanged, and one was crushed to death in a futile attempt to make him plead guilty.

It didn’t take much to be suspected.  In 1656 Ann Hibbins was hanged in Boston, Massachusetts as a witch (contrary to popular belief, witches were not burned in America).  She met a pair of neighbors, and accurately guessed that they were talking about her.  Incredibly, that was enough to get her tried and executed.

Ann Hibbins’ husband died a year before she was tried.  That alone imperiled Goodwife Hibbins.  A goodly proportion of accused witches were middle aged women or elderly widows.  Festering ill-will often broke to the surface after a quarrelsome woman’s husband died.

Accusers and accused: witchcraft was a peculiarly female provenance.  Out of 116 persons on a list of accused witches, 37 were male.  79 of them were women, most of them elderly or middle-aged. Witchcraft accusations gave women a public voice they rarely possessed.  They accused and gave depositions, and acted out their possessions in court.  Ministers, governors, and judges treated them with respect, sometimes with deadly results.

A Monstrous Birth

Puritans were superstitious folk, and they examined every unusual event for its divine meaning.  An earthquake, bad storm, or a deformed newborn was a sign that God was very displeased.  It was up to them to figure out why.  If a witch was the reason for God's wrath, she would be dispatched, and quickly.

In contrast, look at Rhode Island, which was not Puritan.  Though over 300 persons were accused of witchcraft in17^th century New England, only 3 of them were Rhode Island residents!!  Those three accusations weren’t even made in Rhode Island.

The 1640 accusation against Anne Hutchinson and two men of “Aquiday Island” widely cited online is merely a slanderous suspicion. John Winthrop, Massachusetts’ Puritan governor, wrote in his then-private journal that a Mr. Hales was so taken with Mrs. Hutchinson’s heresies that “it gave suspicion of witchcraft.”  If Rhode Island’s government was aware of Winthrop’s notion it took no notice.

So, why was Rhode Island immune to the witchcraft hysteria?  The people who lived there in the first 70 years were the same Englishmen who lived in Puritan Massachusetts and Connecticut.  They grew up with the same belief system and superstition brought over from England.  Where were Rhode Island’s accusations?

Anne Hutchinson's heresy trial

I suspect that the reason lies in Rhode Island’s origins.  Providence was first settled in 1636 by Roger Williams and a handful of followers who were ejected from Massachusetts as heretics and troublemakers.  In 1638-9 an influx of refugees arrived after Anne Hutchinson was convicted of heresy in Boston.  She was excommunicated and banished.  Several of her followers were also ejected, and many opted to escape Puritan persecution.  Nearly all went to Rhode Island, where they founded the towns of Portsmouth and Newport.

Rhode Islanders knew what it was like to experience baseless accusations and discrimination.  Tolerance was not just a notion – it was a way of life.  Quakers, Jews, Catholics, and Hugenots were welcomed in Rhode Island.  There certainly were disputes between neighbors in that tiny colony.  Thankfully they did not erupt into deadly accusations of witchcraft and Satan-worship.

Here is an incomplete list of witchcraft investigations from 1651 well into the 20^th century:

http://www.spelwerx.com/timeline1651_today.html

History of New England  John Palfrey 1878

The Witchcraft Delusion in Colonial Connecticut  John M. Taylor

Entertaining Satan  John Putnam Demos 1982

Images from:

1)      http://ebooks.library.cornell.edu/w/witch/

2)      http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/salem/generic.html

3)      http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/salem/generic.html

4)      http://womenshistory.about.com/od/salempeople/p/bridget_bishop.htm

5)      http://uh.edu/engines/epi603.htm

6)      http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/8-30-2006-107048.asp

Titanic or Mayflower - Which Ship Would You Take?

RMS Titanic and Mayflower

Think fast!  If you were given the choice of crossing the Atlantic on the RMS Titanic or on the Mayflower, which would you choose?  People whom I have asked give me that ‘Duh’ look, and say, “Mayflower, of course!”  However, I am not so sure.

Let’s compare the two ships.  My photo montage may not be entirely to scale, but given the perspective, it is not far off.  Titanic measured 882’ at the waterline, with a weight of 46,328 tons.  A plan of Mayflower does not exist, but contemporary ships of her size (a mere 180 tons) measured only 90-100’ in length (and less at the waterline).  Mayflower was a merchant ship, so she was armed with 12 cannons to fight off pirates, and she was powered by a half-dozen sails carried on three masts and the bowsprit.  Titanic was unarmed, and was powered with three coal-burning engines which produced 76,000 horsepower.

Titanic 1st class lounge

Titanic is rightly famed for its luxurious accommodations.  There were separate dining rooms and cabins for first-class, second-class, and third-class, or steerage.  First class passengers could also enjoy lounges, smoking rooms, gymnasiums, and a Turkish bath.

Titanic 3rd class quarters

Even Titanic’s third-class quarters shared with strangers were luxurious compared with the accommodations on Mayflower.  That ship had been built to carry wine between Bordeaux and England.  It had quarters on the upper deck for the captain and crew.  A lower, entirely enclosed deck could carry cargo, and in 1620 it carried 102 passengers from England to the New World.  The lowest deck held the Separatists’ belongings and food.

Mayflower Compact

This painting depicts the Separatists (better known as Pilgrims) signing their compact, and it depicts Mayflower’s quarters as more spacious than they actually were.  While Titanic’s passengers could stroll on the open deck or in enclosed promenades, Mayflower’s passengers mostly stayed below decks.  There were no windows; only hatches which would have been covered during foul weather.  The deck was only 5’ 5” tall, so most of the men would have had to stoop.  There were no private cabins – if a family wanted privacy, they had to hang blankets from the beams.

Titanic 1st class menu

Who ate better?  Titanic’s passengers, hands down.  Even steerage had better food than Mayflower’s hardtack, salt pork, dried beef, Holland cheese, wheat, peas, oil, and butter.  Their water and beer were stored in wooden casks for months, and soon became foul.  Children on the ship tapped bits of hardtack on the table and guessed which piece might start moving first, impelled by alarmed weevils.

Titanic's lifeboats

Titanic is infamous for its inadequate lifeboats.  There was space for 1178 passengers – half of the persons on board.  However, Mayflower had but two auxiliary boats.  It had a long boat, to assist the ship with anchoring, and also a shallop.  That single-masted boat, which could be rowed, was meant to help the colonists in explorations, and might have carried one-two dozen people.  However, if the Mayflower had sunk, so would the shallop, because it was dismantled and stowed below deck.

If you get seasick, you would have preferred Titanic’s schedule.  It left England on April 10^th, and if all had gone well, it would have arrived at New York on the 15^th.  Mayflower departed on September 6^th, and did not arrive at Cape Cod until November 11^th (both dates Old Calendar).

Neither trip was trouble-free from the start.  Titanic set out from Southampton with a fire smoldering in one of its coal bunkers.  Such fires were not uncommon, but it has been theorized that its heat contributed to the damage caused by striking the iceberg by making the ship’s iron more brittle.

Mayflower was supposed to cross with a smaller ship, the Speedwell.  They set out from England on August 5^th, but had to turn back when Speedwell began leaking dangerously.  Mayflower was also leaky, but one of the main crossbeams caused the most alarm when it cracked during a storm.  The Separatists had a large iron screw in their belongings, used it to jack the beam back into place, then propped it with a post.

Titanic enjoyed a smooth crossing until it met the icepack.  Storms were much more of a problem for Mayflower, and the small ship was forced to secure its hatches, furl its sails, and drift before the furious winds.  One of her passengers fell overboard.  John Tilley managed to catch hold of a halyard and was dragged along by the ship, sometimes “sundry fathoms under water” before he was saved in a rescue even more dramatic than Rose Bukater’s attempted suicide in James Cameron’s film, “Titanic.”   An unnamed Mayflower seaman, who had mocked seasick passengers and was noted for his profanity, died of disease.  William Bradford said “his curses light on his own head” by the “just hand of God.”  A passenger also died just before landing.

Times-Dispatch headline

I imagine that by now you are thinking, ‘But Titanic sank – you would have to be crazy to sail on that ship!’  You are right – 2223 people set sail on Titanic, but only 705 of them made it safely to shore.  That makes for a mortality rate of 68.3%

Mayflower memorial

Mayflower set out with 102 passengers, and its crew is estimated at 25-30.  It arrived in Plymouth with only 2 persons having died, which gives that crossing a very favorable death rate of 1.5%.  However, half of the crew died before sailing back to England in the spring, and 50 of the passengers died of disease and starvation.  49.2% of Mayflower’s passengers and crew did not survive the crossing for long.

Pilgrims landing at Plymouth

Very little was written by Bradford about  how Mayflower’s passengers lived during the crossing.  He did note that when they arrived, there were no inns “to refresh their weather-beaten bodies” so the Separatists were forced to remain on board the tiny ship until March.  The whole country, whichever way they turned their eyes (save upward to the heavens) “represented a wild and savage hue.”  Disease and hunger were already stalking the Separatists, and desperation is palpable in Bradford’s writing.

So, if I was offered a luxurious 5-day cruise, ending with 50% chance of finding a seat on a lifeboat or a quick death, I just might take it.  After all, Mayflower’s passengers endured two months in a wet and dark cargo hold.  When they arrived in Plymouth Bay, they passed another four months in that same cold, cramped hold, stalked by disease.  They ate food stored in wooden casks for months, whatever their hunters could catch, and corn scavenged from Indian graves.  Dorothy Bradford, wife of the governor, fell overboard in Plymouth harbor and drowned.  It is possible that, like Rose of “Titanic” fame, Dorothy could not bear the hardships which lay ahead, and succeeded in killing herself.

However, though the Separatists suffered for 6 months, relief ships arrived in 1621, and with the Wampanoags’ aid, they learned how to thrive in their new home.  And today some 35,000,000 people are estimated to have a Pilgrim in their ancestry.  Though it was difficult from beginning to end, Mayflower’s trip was a resounding success.

Which ship would I take?  As a woman, I would have had a decent chance of surviving Titanic, especially if I had the means to go first class.  97% of them, and 86% of second class survived.  Even steerage women had a decent chance, with a 49% survival rate.  Men did not do so well, with 34%, 8%, and 13% surviving respectively.  Nearly all first and second class children survived, but only 1/3 children in steerage made it onto the lifeboats.

As a woman, I also had a fairly good chance of surviving Mayflower’s slow-motion disaster.  Out of 75 men, 50 died in the first 6 months.  There were 29 women, and 16 died.  At a nearly 50% death rate for Mayflower's women, I’d have a slightly better chance of surviving aboard Titanic.  On the way, I'd have some fine meals on that lovely ship.  Should I lose the dash for the lifeboats, they say that hypothermia is a pleasant way to go.  I'll count the stars until I fall asleep.

And now, which ship would you take?

For information on Titanic’s demographics:

http://www.ithaca.edu/staff/jhenderson/titanic.html

Photo credits:

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/slideshow/titanic-rescue-photos-13724147 - Titanic

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=1957+press+photo+Ship+Mayflower– Mayflower

http://mredfootballatfault.blogspot.com/ - Titanic parlor, 3^rd class quarters, ship's boats

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayflower_compact - Mayflower Compact

http://www.squidoo.com/Harland-and-Wolffs-Titanic - Titanic Menu

http://www.lva.virginia.gov/exhibits/titanic/739.htm - Titanic headline

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=15882517 – Mayflower gravestone

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plymouth_Colony - Pilgrims landing, Thanksgiving