Post by Alex on Nov 15, 2011 22:36:47 GMT -5
Nadia Park Soc 1
The Wayward Puritans by Kai T. Erikson
This book looks at the idea of deviance and tries to apply the sociology behind it to the people of seventeenth century in New England. The first section titled "On the Sociology of Deviance" starts off with the introduction of a book written by Derkheim in 1895 which states that sociologists should have different criteria for normal and not normal. The book apparently further goes to explain that it might be right to think that deviant behaviors are not only natural but beneficial to a society.
It is said that sociologists find it convenient to think that deviant people are "different" somehow and that difference is what makes them deviant. While there might be no research to back this up, when someone is thought of as a deviant it apparently reflects who the person supposedly "really" is.
Emile Derkheim and George Herbert Mead say that it's not true that all or any deviant behaviors are harmful to a society. In fact, what is considered a deviant behavior has everything to do with the community and their boundaries. It is important to also note that there are different standards of deviance at different levels of society and finally it is important to realize that boundaries always changes therefore, what’s considered “deviant” always changes too.
What makes the problem of deviance worse is the fact that the institutions that are supposed to help the deviants are poorly equipped. People are made more deviant by being in these institutions due to the fact that the institutions reinforce alienation of the so called "deviants." What adds to this issue is the fact that the deviant, even after getting out of the institution, can never get out of the label because the processes that were used to label him are irreversible (the trial, the verdict etc.). The first section finishes up by talking about three themes that will be the main focal points for the rest of the book. The first theme is the idea of community's boundaries and types of deviation experienced.. The second theme is the idea that volume of deviance is constant over time. The final theme is the fact that criminals supply a needed service for society.
The second section of the book talks about the "Puritans of Massachusetts Bay". This section delves into the background while other books on this subject focus on the religious persecutions.
At the beginning of the 16th century, England was going through a drastic change. Henry VIII broke from the Roman Catholic Church altogether. Queen Elizabeth, who later came into power, understood that people no longer would leave religion up to the monarch. Her Act of Uniformity and Act of Supremacy attempted to restore the Catholic Church back to what it was and when that happened, Elizabeth found herself right in the middle of things.
Puritans saw a new vision for a church. Queen Elizabeth allowed this movement to go on while she was in power because she was tolerant. However, things changed when James I took the throne. In fact, things got so bad to the point that first Parliament resented him and later they abandoned him altogether. When Charles I came into power, things went from bad to worse and the Puritans set sail for America. The Puritans took advantage of the fact that the charter never specified where they could or could not go.
There were three types of Puritans, two on extreme ends and one group in the middle. The idea was legal extension and spiritual revision and the idea was that they would build a "community of saints." Unfortunately, the monarchs had a different view of the situation. Queen Elizabeth thought that the Puritans were "bold with God Almighty" and dissatisfied with the church. Kings James and Charles thought that the Puritans were a menace. They challenged the church, the political system, and the throne.
The main problem became the fact that Puritans couldn't be identified. In fact, not only did the people in the 16th century have a hard time identifying someone as a Puritan, historians also faced the issue and while it was not easy to tell who the Puritans were exactly, it was easier to tell other things about them, such as their feelings, ideologies and more.
The Puritans desired services to be simple, as they had been when Jesus and his apostles were still around. They also wanted to touch and be touched by God. The Bible was everything. It supposedly provided everything including the roadmap of life and the laws and punishments for breaking them.
The Puritans also felt that God chose his elect to join him in heaven and do his work on earth. Not being an elect meant that one could not possibly know anything and by extension they were forbidden from participating in government and other things. The Puritans also had a paradox approach to life. For example, they lived as though they were in medieval times but, they protested what these times represented.
Another important aspect of study has to do with the law and order surrounding the New England. The Puritans had a different way to govern themselves under the charter. The main governing body consisted of a governor, a deputy governor, and eighteen assistants. Because the common law blended in with the Old Testament, things became very weird and no one could say for sure what the laws of the land were.
Using the Bible as a law book, so to speak, meant that things were hard to interpret; the punishments needed to fit the crime, but the question was how. The ideas and theories were good but putting them into practice was a different story and it is important to note that while magistrates enforced the law, the ministers had the final say.
Eventually, there were too much power held by the leaders The magistrates deviated from common law and later abandoned it and soon there was a need for written law. In 1641, "Body of Liberties" was written out. This was a temporary Bill of Rights so to speak and by the year 1648, Nathanial Ward wrote the official code. While all these were attempts to figure out who were the Puritans, people seemed to have a better idea of who was not a Puritan.
The third section is titled the "Shapes of the Devil" and this section talks extensively about the three "crime waves" that occurred in the first six decades of New England. The Antinomian Controversy of 1636, The Quaker persecution of the late 1650's and the famous Witchcraft hysteria of 1692. The events were used to clarify the colony's position in the world and they also redefined boundaries. The idea was that the Bay was not a "place" but a "way," people had to be careful of what they did and how they did them.
The Antinomian Controversy of 1636 started with a woman named Anne Hutchinson. She was known to be both scholarly and opinionated and her house was always filled with people having discussions. In fact, after a while people started preferring going to her house instead of listening to the sermons given by John Wilson. The problems really began when Anne spoke of what she called "The Covenant of Grace." According to Anne, there were only two ministers in the Bay (John Cotton and John Wheelwright) who knew what they were doing, and, Wilson was not one of them.
She suggested that Wheelwright go into the church under Cotton. While no action was taken due to the fact that they could not come to a consensus this little suggestion showed where the people's alliance lay should anything become of the event. This one event gathered up all the ministers from surrounding area and at first they sought peace. But, after Anne basically told them all that they were incompetent to do their jobs, the men turned to find the facts instead. This whole incident might have been more than what it really was due to the fact that Anne was a woman and she was getting herself involved in the matters of the church which was usually left to the men.
Actions didn't start taking place until Wheelwright was charged with sedition and convicted of sedition and contempt. But while he was convicted, no one was in a hurry to sentence him. The focus of the magistrates was on Governor Vane because, although his power and influence had started to fade, he was still considered an important figure.
At first no one could figure out anything "legally" wrong with Anne Hutchinson's thoughts, but the magistrates quickly corrected the problem. They gathered up ministers from surrounding areas and found all the opinions that were supposedly "unsafe." If that was not enoughl they added "unwholesome expressions." to her charge. This hearsay fishing expedition was followed by quick actions over the next several days.
Using the petition that was drawn up in favor of Wheelwright while he was arrested for sedition, the general court quickly a) dismissed two deputies from Boston who had signed the petition b) banished both Hutchinson and Wheelwright c) disenfranchised eight others involved d) disarmed seventy-five persons.
Anne was brought before the General Court days after that. Two things were clear, the prosecution had no case and Hutchinson and Withrop represented the old and new ideas respectfully. Things started to pick up when ministers were asked to recall the "covenant of Grace and Works." meeting they had with Anne and many did speak out against her. The trial ended with her protesting the technicalities at this point.
Things became really interesting the next day when Anne asked the ministers, asking that they repeat whatever they said the day before, only, under oath. John Cotton eventually took the stand and was asked to recall the same incident; only, he apparently didn't remember it as the other ministers had. In fact, he didn't recall too much of anything about that meeting. This was a problem because he was the prosecution's star witness.
Anne herself took the stand after Cotton. Giving a chronology of her life, she attributed her insight to her direct communication with God. Unfortunately, this nailed her coffin because there was no higher offense in New England at the time than if someone said that they had communicated with God directly. To make a long story short, she was banished and had participated in her own banishment. Whether this was what she wanted is unknown but she got what she expected. Her nameless crime that she had committed began to be known as Hutchinsonism.
This was not the end of the story though. After her imprisonment and release, Anne Hutchinson went through another type of trial before the Church. The Church at this point had the role of showing Anne the errors of her ways and getting her to repent. Unfortunately, they decided that she was not sincere in her repentance and she was eventually ex-communicated from the church.
Twenty years after the Antinomian Controversy, the second "crime wave" started. The Quaker persecutions were both same and different from the Antinomian Controversy except, while the Controversy dealt with the ideas of the old Puritanism, the Quaker persecutions dealt with the ideas of new Puritanism. The first Quakers to come over to the Bay weren't treated well at all. In fact, they were imprisoned and their books were burnt.
The changes New England was going through probably were not helping matters. Most of its first generation leaders either died or went back to England. But the good thing was the basics had been established; it was up to the new generation to live within these establishments. England itself had went through changes while this was happening. A new type of Puritans came into being and they, unlike their New England counterparts were religiously tolerant. Basically, the roles of the New and Old England reversed, and New England found itself quite cut off
While the magistrates tried to keep the Quakers away, The only thing it did was to keep them coming. It was getting so bad that the General Court had to keep making laws and provisions. Unfortunately, not even the threat of executions seemed to stop the Quakers. This back and forth between the magistrates, the Genera Court and the Quakers stopped quite suddenly with a letter from Charles II. Because the Quakers no longer met an opposition, the feud slowly began to fade.
New problems arose, however, with the Witchcraft hysteria of 1692. Even before the witches, the colony had issues. The charter which had allowed the colony to govern themselves had been revoked. In fact, the King went as far as to send people over to the Colony from England to make sure that his orders were being followed. The notion in the Colony was that the people had lost their original mission and with it, God's favor. A new Governer was appointed and people were pessimistic. In fact, most sermons of the day had a lot to do with "fire and brimstone" and "doomsday"
It is told (whether it is true or not is up for discussion) that the hysteria started in the winter of 1692, in the kitchen of the Reverend Samuel Parris. Girls aged from nine to twenty gathered in the place. Tituba, the Parris' slave from Barbados, would use the black arts to give the girls a glimpse into their futures. It went as far as their trying to hold a Black Mass in the woods. Shortly after that, the two youngest girls became afflicted. The village doctor made a diagnosis a short time later. The girls were bewitched.
Deodat Lawson, one of the ministers that was first to arrive shortly after the diagnosis, witnessed one of the afflictions for himself and wrote about it in his narrative. When asked to identify their tormentors, the girls initially named three suspects Tituba herself, Sarah Good, (a poor beggar woman who had been thought of as a witch even before the events) and Sarah Osburn, (Osburn had a scandal couple years ago before this when a man lived with her at her home before he eventually married her).
When asked why they hurt the girls, Good and Osburn was shocked and couldn't say anything. It wasn't until Tituba took the stand that people started getting some answers. Tituba not only implicated Good and Osburn, she named other witches in the Bay Colony.
Regarded as Diviners and Oracles within the eyes of the community, the girls kept naming more suspects. Their list included but were not limited to Bridget Bishop (who owned a tavern and dressed colorfully), Martha Corey (Who shunned the witch examinations and didn't' take it seriously), John and Elizabeth Procter, George Burrows (A former minister) and much more. Not only were the girls finding witches from Salem, they were finding witches from other places besides Salem.
A special court known as the court of Oyer and Terminer (To hear and decide) was found to hear the witchcraft trials. The girls went on to accuse many more people and sent them to their deaths on Gallows Hill. The hysteria did not stop until the accusations of the girls were so far-fetched to believe but the damage had already been done. By the time everyone looked back at the mess they had made, nineteen had hanged, one man (Giles Corey) had been pressed to death and several died while awaiting trial. 1692 was a year of change in New England even without the trials due to the loss of the charter. The governor being appointed by the king, etc. After the hysteria was over, New England retreated to a quiet colony life.
Section four talks about the "Stabilities and Instabilities of New England Crime Rates" the data was kept from the Essex County of every person that was brought before the court and basically the statistics were shown to reflect the fact that crime was consistent.
The last section talks about "Puritans and Deviancy" Even before Mrs. Hutchinson ever went to trial, there was a meeting between Withrop and Dudley. Vane who had just arrived, also was in this meeting acting as their mediator. The topic they were discussing was the severity of punishments. Withrop argued for leniency, requesting reasonable punishments. Dudley argued for harsh punishments according to the Bible. Finally, the three came to some sort of terms.
When we look at Puritans and deviancy, it is important to note that crimes against the public order were crimes against symmetry and, by extension against the orderliness of nature itself.
Historians often take sides but it can be concluded that Puritan punishments were less severe however contrary it might have seen at the time. The laws of land were not laws of man but of nature. Predestination also played a big part, and it was thought that if the deviant had been condemned to hell to begin with, the sufferings he would encounter in life was were the least of his worries. The people were expected to accept punishments and it was basically believed that the deviants weren't deviant because they wanted to be, it was because of predestination and there was little possibility of changing this.
The book concludes by introducing two prisons, Eastern State Penitentiary and one in Aburn, New York. Finally after three hundred years Quakers thought to use prisons as a way of punishment. The prisons had different models and the book concludes after a brief description of each.
This book was interesting, packed with lots of information and very educational. However, it was a bit dull. I would however, happily recommend this book to anyone with an interest in New England study, sociology or deviance
The Wayward Puritans by Kai T. Erikson
This book looks at the idea of deviance and tries to apply the sociology behind it to the people of seventeenth century in New England. The first section titled "On the Sociology of Deviance" starts off with the introduction of a book written by Derkheim in 1895 which states that sociologists should have different criteria for normal and not normal. The book apparently further goes to explain that it might be right to think that deviant behaviors are not only natural but beneficial to a society.
It is said that sociologists find it convenient to think that deviant people are "different" somehow and that difference is what makes them deviant. While there might be no research to back this up, when someone is thought of as a deviant it apparently reflects who the person supposedly "really" is.
Emile Derkheim and George Herbert Mead say that it's not true that all or any deviant behaviors are harmful to a society. In fact, what is considered a deviant behavior has everything to do with the community and their boundaries. It is important to also note that there are different standards of deviance at different levels of society and finally it is important to realize that boundaries always changes therefore, what’s considered “deviant” always changes too.
What makes the problem of deviance worse is the fact that the institutions that are supposed to help the deviants are poorly equipped. People are made more deviant by being in these institutions due to the fact that the institutions reinforce alienation of the so called "deviants." What adds to this issue is the fact that the deviant, even after getting out of the institution, can never get out of the label because the processes that were used to label him are irreversible (the trial, the verdict etc.). The first section finishes up by talking about three themes that will be the main focal points for the rest of the book. The first theme is the idea of community's boundaries and types of deviation experienced.. The second theme is the idea that volume of deviance is constant over time. The final theme is the fact that criminals supply a needed service for society.
The second section of the book talks about the "Puritans of Massachusetts Bay". This section delves into the background while other books on this subject focus on the religious persecutions.
At the beginning of the 16th century, England was going through a drastic change. Henry VIII broke from the Roman Catholic Church altogether. Queen Elizabeth, who later came into power, understood that people no longer would leave religion up to the monarch. Her Act of Uniformity and Act of Supremacy attempted to restore the Catholic Church back to what it was and when that happened, Elizabeth found herself right in the middle of things.
Puritans saw a new vision for a church. Queen Elizabeth allowed this movement to go on while she was in power because she was tolerant. However, things changed when James I took the throne. In fact, things got so bad to the point that first Parliament resented him and later they abandoned him altogether. When Charles I came into power, things went from bad to worse and the Puritans set sail for America. The Puritans took advantage of the fact that the charter never specified where they could or could not go.
There were three types of Puritans, two on extreme ends and one group in the middle. The idea was legal extension and spiritual revision and the idea was that they would build a "community of saints." Unfortunately, the monarchs had a different view of the situation. Queen Elizabeth thought that the Puritans were "bold with God Almighty" and dissatisfied with the church. Kings James and Charles thought that the Puritans were a menace. They challenged the church, the political system, and the throne.
The main problem became the fact that Puritans couldn't be identified. In fact, not only did the people in the 16th century have a hard time identifying someone as a Puritan, historians also faced the issue and while it was not easy to tell who the Puritans were exactly, it was easier to tell other things about them, such as their feelings, ideologies and more.
The Puritans desired services to be simple, as they had been when Jesus and his apostles were still around. They also wanted to touch and be touched by God. The Bible was everything. It supposedly provided everything including the roadmap of life and the laws and punishments for breaking them.
The Puritans also felt that God chose his elect to join him in heaven and do his work on earth. Not being an elect meant that one could not possibly know anything and by extension they were forbidden from participating in government and other things. The Puritans also had a paradox approach to life. For example, they lived as though they were in medieval times but, they protested what these times represented.
Another important aspect of study has to do with the law and order surrounding the New England. The Puritans had a different way to govern themselves under the charter. The main governing body consisted of a governor, a deputy governor, and eighteen assistants. Because the common law blended in with the Old Testament, things became very weird and no one could say for sure what the laws of the land were.
Using the Bible as a law book, so to speak, meant that things were hard to interpret; the punishments needed to fit the crime, but the question was how. The ideas and theories were good but putting them into practice was a different story and it is important to note that while magistrates enforced the law, the ministers had the final say.
Eventually, there were too much power held by the leaders The magistrates deviated from common law and later abandoned it and soon there was a need for written law. In 1641, "Body of Liberties" was written out. This was a temporary Bill of Rights so to speak and by the year 1648, Nathanial Ward wrote the official code. While all these were attempts to figure out who were the Puritans, people seemed to have a better idea of who was not a Puritan.
The third section is titled the "Shapes of the Devil" and this section talks extensively about the three "crime waves" that occurred in the first six decades of New England. The Antinomian Controversy of 1636, The Quaker persecution of the late 1650's and the famous Witchcraft hysteria of 1692. The events were used to clarify the colony's position in the world and they also redefined boundaries. The idea was that the Bay was not a "place" but a "way," people had to be careful of what they did and how they did them.
The Antinomian Controversy of 1636 started with a woman named Anne Hutchinson. She was known to be both scholarly and opinionated and her house was always filled with people having discussions. In fact, after a while people started preferring going to her house instead of listening to the sermons given by John Wilson. The problems really began when Anne spoke of what she called "The Covenant of Grace." According to Anne, there were only two ministers in the Bay (John Cotton and John Wheelwright) who knew what they were doing, and, Wilson was not one of them.
She suggested that Wheelwright go into the church under Cotton. While no action was taken due to the fact that they could not come to a consensus this little suggestion showed where the people's alliance lay should anything become of the event. This one event gathered up all the ministers from surrounding area and at first they sought peace. But, after Anne basically told them all that they were incompetent to do their jobs, the men turned to find the facts instead. This whole incident might have been more than what it really was due to the fact that Anne was a woman and she was getting herself involved in the matters of the church which was usually left to the men.
Actions didn't start taking place until Wheelwright was charged with sedition and convicted of sedition and contempt. But while he was convicted, no one was in a hurry to sentence him. The focus of the magistrates was on Governor Vane because, although his power and influence had started to fade, he was still considered an important figure.
At first no one could figure out anything "legally" wrong with Anne Hutchinson's thoughts, but the magistrates quickly corrected the problem. They gathered up ministers from surrounding areas and found all the opinions that were supposedly "unsafe." If that was not enoughl they added "unwholesome expressions." to her charge. This hearsay fishing expedition was followed by quick actions over the next several days.
Using the petition that was drawn up in favor of Wheelwright while he was arrested for sedition, the general court quickly a) dismissed two deputies from Boston who had signed the petition b) banished both Hutchinson and Wheelwright c) disenfranchised eight others involved d) disarmed seventy-five persons.
Anne was brought before the General Court days after that. Two things were clear, the prosecution had no case and Hutchinson and Withrop represented the old and new ideas respectfully. Things started to pick up when ministers were asked to recall the "covenant of Grace and Works." meeting they had with Anne and many did speak out against her. The trial ended with her protesting the technicalities at this point.
Things became really interesting the next day when Anne asked the ministers, asking that they repeat whatever they said the day before, only, under oath. John Cotton eventually took the stand and was asked to recall the same incident; only, he apparently didn't remember it as the other ministers had. In fact, he didn't recall too much of anything about that meeting. This was a problem because he was the prosecution's star witness.
Anne herself took the stand after Cotton. Giving a chronology of her life, she attributed her insight to her direct communication with God. Unfortunately, this nailed her coffin because there was no higher offense in New England at the time than if someone said that they had communicated with God directly. To make a long story short, she was banished and had participated in her own banishment. Whether this was what she wanted is unknown but she got what she expected. Her nameless crime that she had committed began to be known as Hutchinsonism.
This was not the end of the story though. After her imprisonment and release, Anne Hutchinson went through another type of trial before the Church. The Church at this point had the role of showing Anne the errors of her ways and getting her to repent. Unfortunately, they decided that she was not sincere in her repentance and she was eventually ex-communicated from the church.
Twenty years after the Antinomian Controversy, the second "crime wave" started. The Quaker persecutions were both same and different from the Antinomian Controversy except, while the Controversy dealt with the ideas of the old Puritanism, the Quaker persecutions dealt with the ideas of new Puritanism. The first Quakers to come over to the Bay weren't treated well at all. In fact, they were imprisoned and their books were burnt.
The changes New England was going through probably were not helping matters. Most of its first generation leaders either died or went back to England. But the good thing was the basics had been established; it was up to the new generation to live within these establishments. England itself had went through changes while this was happening. A new type of Puritans came into being and they, unlike their New England counterparts were religiously tolerant. Basically, the roles of the New and Old England reversed, and New England found itself quite cut off
While the magistrates tried to keep the Quakers away, The only thing it did was to keep them coming. It was getting so bad that the General Court had to keep making laws and provisions. Unfortunately, not even the threat of executions seemed to stop the Quakers. This back and forth between the magistrates, the Genera Court and the Quakers stopped quite suddenly with a letter from Charles II. Because the Quakers no longer met an opposition, the feud slowly began to fade.
New problems arose, however, with the Witchcraft hysteria of 1692. Even before the witches, the colony had issues. The charter which had allowed the colony to govern themselves had been revoked. In fact, the King went as far as to send people over to the Colony from England to make sure that his orders were being followed. The notion in the Colony was that the people had lost their original mission and with it, God's favor. A new Governer was appointed and people were pessimistic. In fact, most sermons of the day had a lot to do with "fire and brimstone" and "doomsday"
It is told (whether it is true or not is up for discussion) that the hysteria started in the winter of 1692, in the kitchen of the Reverend Samuel Parris. Girls aged from nine to twenty gathered in the place. Tituba, the Parris' slave from Barbados, would use the black arts to give the girls a glimpse into their futures. It went as far as their trying to hold a Black Mass in the woods. Shortly after that, the two youngest girls became afflicted. The village doctor made a diagnosis a short time later. The girls were bewitched.
Deodat Lawson, one of the ministers that was first to arrive shortly after the diagnosis, witnessed one of the afflictions for himself and wrote about it in his narrative. When asked to identify their tormentors, the girls initially named three suspects Tituba herself, Sarah Good, (a poor beggar woman who had been thought of as a witch even before the events) and Sarah Osburn, (Osburn had a scandal couple years ago before this when a man lived with her at her home before he eventually married her).
When asked why they hurt the girls, Good and Osburn was shocked and couldn't say anything. It wasn't until Tituba took the stand that people started getting some answers. Tituba not only implicated Good and Osburn, she named other witches in the Bay Colony.
Regarded as Diviners and Oracles within the eyes of the community, the girls kept naming more suspects. Their list included but were not limited to Bridget Bishop (who owned a tavern and dressed colorfully), Martha Corey (Who shunned the witch examinations and didn't' take it seriously), John and Elizabeth Procter, George Burrows (A former minister) and much more. Not only were the girls finding witches from Salem, they were finding witches from other places besides Salem.
A special court known as the court of Oyer and Terminer (To hear and decide) was found to hear the witchcraft trials. The girls went on to accuse many more people and sent them to their deaths on Gallows Hill. The hysteria did not stop until the accusations of the girls were so far-fetched to believe but the damage had already been done. By the time everyone looked back at the mess they had made, nineteen had hanged, one man (Giles Corey) had been pressed to death and several died while awaiting trial. 1692 was a year of change in New England even without the trials due to the loss of the charter. The governor being appointed by the king, etc. After the hysteria was over, New England retreated to a quiet colony life.
Section four talks about the "Stabilities and Instabilities of New England Crime Rates" the data was kept from the Essex County of every person that was brought before the court and basically the statistics were shown to reflect the fact that crime was consistent.
The last section talks about "Puritans and Deviancy" Even before Mrs. Hutchinson ever went to trial, there was a meeting between Withrop and Dudley. Vane who had just arrived, also was in this meeting acting as their mediator. The topic they were discussing was the severity of punishments. Withrop argued for leniency, requesting reasonable punishments. Dudley argued for harsh punishments according to the Bible. Finally, the three came to some sort of terms.
When we look at Puritans and deviancy, it is important to note that crimes against the public order were crimes against symmetry and, by extension against the orderliness of nature itself.
Historians often take sides but it can be concluded that Puritan punishments were less severe however contrary it might have seen at the time. The laws of land were not laws of man but of nature. Predestination also played a big part, and it was thought that if the deviant had been condemned to hell to begin with, the sufferings he would encounter in life was were the least of his worries. The people were expected to accept punishments and it was basically believed that the deviants weren't deviant because they wanted to be, it was because of predestination and there was little possibility of changing this.
The book concludes by introducing two prisons, Eastern State Penitentiary and one in Aburn, New York. Finally after three hundred years Quakers thought to use prisons as a way of punishment. The prisons had different models and the book concludes after a brief description of each.
This book was interesting, packed with lots of information and very educational. However, it was a bit dull. I would however, happily recommend this book to anyone with an interest in New England study, sociology or deviance