Iowa
History Project
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The first
Quakers known to have set foot on American soil were two women, Ann Austin and
Mary Fisher, who appeared in Boston harbor on July 11, 1656, having come from
the island of Barbadoes for the express purpose of bearing testimony against
the religious deadness and formality of the Puritans.
Long had the
Puritans of New England heard of the turmoil raised in the home-land by the
troublesome Quakers; and now they had them at their very doors. Why should they
come hither to disturb the peace and quiet of the wilderness? These were
Puritan shores. The Puritans, as “Pilgrims” in a strange land, had come to New
England in order that they might live according to their own ideals and worship
God in their own way. They had their own institutions and their own customs,
which to them were dear and sacred. At infinite cost they had built up a
commonwealth in the wilderness, based on the laws, statutes, and ordinances of
God. They had convictions as strong as were the convictions of the Quakers. Why
should they give way to these newcomers? The very purpose of this transient
visit of members of the despised sect was to scatter their books and
pamphlets—firebrands of disruption and discord—and overturn the very
foundations on which the Puritan community rested. The Puritans were determined
that they would not allow themselves thus to be disturbed; while the Quakers
were just as determined to bear their testimonies.
The scenes which
followed the first arrival of Quakers in America were indeed dramatic. An
irresistible force seemed to have met an immovable object. The two women were
at once taken into custody by the authorities of Boston, their books and tracts
were publicly burned in the market-place as heretical, and being “stripped
stark naked” and searched for marks of witchcraft, they were confined in prison
without light, writing materials, or the privilege of speaking to anyone on the
outside. They were then ruthlessly thrust out of the colony; while Simon
Kempthorne, master of the ship which brought them thither, was strictly charge
with speedily taking them back whence he got them, at his own expense and under
heavy penalty if he refused.(16)
Two days after
the departure of Mary Fisher and Ann Austin form the port of Boston, another
vessel came into the harbor bearing eight Quakers—four men and four women.
These, likewise, were seized and thrown into prison, where they remained for
about eleven weeks. They, too, were finally driven out of the colony and
transported back to England, whence they had come. The first law, bearing date
of October 14, 1656, was then passed against the intruders.(17)
Entrance
from the sea being barred, the commonwealth was soon invaded from another
quarter. By 1658 Rhode Island, the earliest home of religious toleration in
America, had been visited by the Quakers, and there the new ideas had spread
rapidly. Through this “back door the Quakers again began to appear in
Massachusetts in defiance of the stringent laws which that colony had passed.(18) Time after
time they were flogged, tied to the cart’s tail, threatened, and banished from
the jurisdiction, but all to no avail. Finally, on October 19, 1658, this
beset, defied, and outrage Puritan colony passed the fatal act, carrying with
it a death penalty.
Laws thus framed
and intent upon blood were not long in finding their victims. Mary Dyer, a
Quaker from Rhode Island, had been banished from Massachusetts as an
Antinomian; Marmaduke Stephenson had also been banished for making a
disturbance in Boston; William Robinson had been whipped and banished for
abusing the court; and William Leddra had been several times whipped,
imprisoned, and banished. Their devotion to the cause of truth was, however,
greater than their regard for man, so they fearlessly returned. On October 22,
1659, Marmaduke Stephenson and William Robinson paid the penalty on the
scaffold, and thus sealed their testimony in Boston with their blood. In the
spring of the following year, Mary Dyer swung from the same scaffold in
obedience to what she believed to be the will of God, and on March 14, 1661,
William Leddra offered up his life in the same way. All four of these persons,
we are told, were of unsullied character. Constant, heroic, fearless, they
faced death for the sake of religious toleration. Upon hearing of these
atrocious crimes, Charles II at once ordered his Puritan subjects to forbear,
and the flow of innocent blood ceased. Thus Quaker fortitude had met Puritan
intolerance in Massachusetts, and, with the tongue as its only weapon of
defense, the former had prevailed,(19) there to build up the first Yearly Meeting of Friends in America.(20)
With the arrival
of George Fox in Maryland in 1672(21) the movement in America was given a new impetus. He and his
devoted followers traveled in all directions, bearing their message. Day after
day Fox plunged through pathless forests and over dangerous bogs from New
England to the Carolinas, planting here and there in the scattered settlements
the germs of the new faith which soon sprang up into prosperous Quaker
communities. Many times the missionaries lay down to rest beside their camp
fires in lonely woods, and “sometimes in the Indians’ wigwams or houses”, there
taking the opportunity of speaking the word of life to these savage “kings”.(22) In New
England, in the middle colonies, and in the sea-board colonies of the South the
work went forward, strongly tincturing the commonwealths of the Jerseys,
Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina with Quaker doctrine.(23)
Persecuted by
the established church in the mother country, suppressed by the Puritans in New
England, and maltreated by the Roman Catholics of Maryland and the cavaliers of
the more southern colonies, the Quakers longed for a home which they could call
their own. The keen mind of George Fox early perceived the advantages which the
uninhabited woods of America offered as a place of refuge form the storms of
persecution which beat so fiercely upon the “Friends of Truth”. In 1660 steps
were taken to secure by purchase a tract of land from the Susquehanna Indians,
but due to a war then raging among the tribes the attempt failed.(24) It was not long, however, until a new avenue was opened; for
when Lord Berkeley offered for sale one-half of New Jersey in 1674 it was at
once purchased by two Quakers, John Fenwick and Edward Billinge. Thus a new
opening was made in America for the growth of Quakerism.(25)
The importance
of this incident does not lie so much in the purchase of the New Jersey land by
two Quakers, as in the fact that the transaction brought into play the vital
interest of William Penn—a man whose name became almost a synonym for Quakerism
in America. Fortunate, indeed, was it for the Quakers that he allied himself
with the new faith. Rich, scholarly, and powerful, Penn threw his whole
influence and fortune into the cause.
From Admiral
Penn, his father, William had inherited a large estate, together with a claim
of some 16,000 pounds against the British crown. Knowing that a demand for cash
payment would be all but useless he besought the King, Charles II, to grant to
him in payment of the debt extensive lands to the north of Maryland, “to be
bounded on the east by the Delaware river…to be limited on the west as Maryland
was, and…to extend northward as far as it was plantable.”(26) It should
here be said, much to Penn’s credit, that the “holy experiment” which he here
proposed to make was not solely for the benefit of himself and his religious
order; but his colony was to be a place where all who chose might be “as free
and happy as the nature of their existence could possibly bear in their civil
capacity, and, in their religious state, to restore them to those lost rights
and privileges with which God and nature had originally blessed the human
race.”(27)
In view of the
broad and liberal terms which Penn outlined for both the settlement and the
government of his colony, it is no marvel that many who were oppressed in other
parts of the world should come to this haven of religious toleration.
Pennsylvania rapidly rose to a commanding place among the colonies on the
Atlantic seaboard; and when the forces began to shape themselves toward the
formation of an independent nation, the Commonwealth which bore its founder’s
name was in the forefront of the struggle. Moreover, Pennsylvania—so long the
bulwark of religious freedom in the new world—has always remained the stronghold
of Quakerism in America.
16. Quoted in Jones’s The
Quakers in the American Colonies, p. 28. See also Ellis’s The Puritan
Age in Massachusetts, 1629-1685, pp. 436, 437.
17. A part of the law passed
against the Quakers on October 14, 1656, reads as follows:
“Whereas
there is a cursed sect of haereticks lately risen up in the world, which are
commonly called Quakers, who take uppon them to be immediately sent of God, and
infallibly assisted by the spirit to speake and write blasphemouth opinions,
despising government and the order of God in church and commonwealth, speaking
evill of dignities, reproaching and reviling magistrates and ministers, seeking
to turne the people form the faith and gaine proselytes to theire pernicious waies,
this Court, taking into serious consideration the premises, and to prevent the
like mischiefe as by their meanes is wrought in our native land, doth hereby
order, and by the authoritie of this Court be it ordered and enacted, that nay
commander of a vessel that shall bring into this jurisdiction any knowne Quaker
or Quakers, or any other blasphemous haereticks as aforesaid, shall pay the
fine of 100 pounds, except it appeare that he wanted true knowledge or
information of theire being such;… then to give bonds to carry them to the
place whence he brought them.
“Any
Quaker coming into this jurisdiction shall be forthwith committed to the house
of correction, and at their entrance to be severely whipt, and by the master
thereof to be kept constantly to worke, and none suffered to converse or speak
with them during the time of their imprisonment, which shall be no longer than
necessitie requireth.”—Ellis’s The Puritan Age in Massachusetts, 1629-1685, p.
439.
18. In the General Court on October
14, 1657, the following provisions were added to the previous acts: that a male
Quaker returning after having been once dealt with, should have one ear cut
off, and be kept in the house of correction till he could be sent away at his
own charges; and for again returning, he should lose the other ear. Every woman
Quaker returning, was to be whipped and kept at work in the house of correction
till removed at her own charge, and the same punishment was provided for a
repetition of the offense. Every Quaker, returning still a third time, should
have his tongue bored through with a hot iron, and again be sent off. The same
treatment was also to be visited upon Puritans who turned Quakers as upon
strangers.—Ellis’s The Puritan Age in Massachusetts, 1629-1685, p. 447
19. For an account of the struggles
between the Puritans and the Quakers herein mentioned, see Ellis’s The
Puritan Age in Massachusetts, 1629-1685, Ch. XII; Chandler’s American
Criminal Trials, Vol. I, pp. 33-63; Hallowell’s The Quaker Invasion of
Massachusetts; Jones’s The Quakers in the American Colonies, Book I,
Chs. II, III, IV, V; and Fox’s Journal (Philadelphia), pp. 346-348.
20. The New England Yearly Meeting
was organized about 1671. See Friends’ Library, Vol. I, p. 119.
21. Fox’s Journal
(Philadelphia), p. 447.
22. Fox’s Journal
(Philadelphia), p. 449.
23. “The heydey of Quakerism in the
South is indissolubly connected with the name of John Archdale,
Governor-General of Carolina.” See Weeks’s Southern Quakers and Slavery,
Ch. IV. The quotation is found on p. 50.
24. Jones’s The Quakers in the
American Colonies, p. 358.
25. Sharpless’s A History of
Quaker Government in Pennsylvania, Vol. I, p. 131.
26. Clarkson’s Memoirs of the
Public and Private Life of William Penn, p. 96.
27. Clarkson’s Memoirs of the
Public and Private Life of William Penn, p. 97.