USA > Massachusetts > Commonwealth history of Massachusetts, colony, province and state, volume 1 > Part 25
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The Massachusetts Bay colony virtually began with the arrival of fifty or sixty persons with John Endecott in 1628. In 1629 five ships brought approximately four hundred set- tlers, most of whom were servants, and at the end of that year nearly one thousand persons prepared to leave England in seventeen ships, including among them many men of wealth. Privation and sickness caused more than one hundred persons to leave the colony during the coming year and more than two hundred died, yet, before the winter of 1630 there were at least eight settlements-Salem, Charlestown, Dorches- ter, Boston, Watertown, Roxbury, Mystic and Lynn. The
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vigorous enforcement by Archbishop Laud in 1633 of the laws against Non-Conformists led to increased emigration to New England and by 1634 the population was nearly four thousand. In 1643 it had increased to fifteen thousand and by 1652 Massachusetts was a colony of approximately fifty thou- sand souls.
STANDARDS OF LIVING
The outer fringe of pioneer settlements throughout the seventeenth century reproduced in many ways the hardships and primitive social life of the original Plymouth and Boston colonies. But in the latter half of the century the social life in Boston began to take on some of the aspects of court life in England, as exemplified in the social functions of the royal governors and in the stately homes erected by men of wealth and social standing. The Province House built in Boston in 1679 is a good example of this new tendency, which devel- oped at an increasing rate throughout the coming century.
This striking development in standards of living is well exemplified by the changes throughout the century in the housing of colonists. Some of the original settlers were forced upon arrival to revert temporarily to dwelling in artificial dugouts for protection against the elements. Cornelius Van Tienhoven says that "the wealthy and principal men in New England lived in this fashion for two reasons: first, not to waste the building; second, not to discourage poorer laboring people". This is somewhat dubious evidence but Johnson in his Wonder-working Providence, written in 1645, mentions these "smoaky homes." Wherever used they were doubtless abandoned as soon as it was possible to replace them with log cabins. Alongside the log cabin soon appeared framed houses which had usually a single room on the ground floor with a large chimney at one end and a steep staircase or ladder to the sleeping loft above. Clapboards were used on the outside of this "Cape Cod cottage" and as the family income grew a new room was added on the other side of the chimney and still later an ell or lean-to at the side or the rear.
The roofs were often of thatch and the chimneys at first were of logs plastered on the inside with clay. Fires were a natural consequence and towns before the middle of the
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century were compelled to pass laws prohibiting thatched roofs and wooden chimneys. Every housekeeper had his own fire ladder and fire buckets, and whenever a fire occurred the whole community would get out with its buckets and form double lanes of persons to pass the buckets from the well or river to the burning house. The first fire engine made in this country is said to be that of Boston which was made by Joseph Jencks of Lynn about 1650.
By 1670 the log houses in both colonies had been largely replaced by two-story frame houses, many of which allowed the second story to jut out a foot or two over the first, fol- lowing the English custom of that period, and not intended as a vantage for shooting Indian marauders. The roofs were shingled and walls between the rooms were often of clay mixed with chopped straw. By 1676 Boston possessed many houses of brick exteriors, though wood predominated. Im- ported brick was used in some of the earlier houses but brick was not widely used until manufactured in Massachusetts. Gambrel roofs were sometimes built instead of the more char- acteristic gable roof. The windows of the first colonial houses were of oiled paper though glass began to take its place in a few of the colonial homes as early as 1629. The exteriors of the houses in the earlier days were not painted.
The kitchens were the centers of the home life of the early seventeenth century, and for the mass of the population throughout the century. In the kitchen was a wide fireplace with a huge backlog. The equipment included the crane, jack, spit and pothook. Built in on one side of the fireplace was a huge oven with a firebox beneath. The fireplaces were sometimes so large that the heavy backlogs had to be dragged into the house by a horse. Across the top of the room there were frequently poles on which were hung dried apples, pep- pers or rings of dried pumpkin. This single fireplace provided the only heat for the houses except in the homes of the more well-to-do where fireplaces were provided, later in the century, for each room.
The rooms were lighted either by means of knots of pitch pine, called "candle wood," or - especially in the later years - by means of home-made candles or whale oil lamps. As there were no matches, light had to be struck from flint and
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steel - a laborious process. Generally "fire" was borrowed from a neighbor.
The serving of meals was relatively simple. Forks were not then in use until the latter portion of the century, so food was held where possible in the hands. Guests were seated "above the salt" at the end of the table where the host and hostess sat side by side. Children or persons of lower social standing were seated "below the salt." Spoons and knives were in use; but instead of plates, wooden trenchers, ten or twelve inches square and three or four inches deep, were used, each being shared by two persons. This custom was universal, being followed by the early governors as well as by the rest of the population. Spoons were made of wood or horn, though most families owned at least one spoon of silver, and more well-to-do families sometimes had several silver drink- ing cups or other silver pieces. The families and guests, how- ever, did not use separate drinking cups, all drinking from the same cup or tankard or punchbowl. Children often were not allowed to eat at the main table but were required to stand at their meals and eat in complete silence. They were expected to leave the room as soon as they were "moderately satisfied."
ECONOMIC BASIS OF SOCIAL LIFE
To picture adequately the social life of the people it is necessary first to consider its economic basis. The original colonists and frontiersmen throughout the century made their living with great difficulty by farming, hunting, trapping and trading with the Indians. Great privations were suffered dur- ing the first two or three years of the Plymouth colony and ordinarily also in the first years of each of the new frontier groups as the population moved westward.
Exports, however, began relatively early and developed greatly throughout the century, thus making for prosperity. In September 1623 the Anne, a ship of one hundred forty tons, was loaded by the Plymouth colony with a cargo of clapboards and beaver skins and other furs. Three small ships were built in the Plymouth colony in 1624 and a pinnance at Sandwich in 1627 to be used for fishing. In 1641 a bark of fifty tons burden was built. The first vessel built at the Massachusetts colony was the Blessing of the Bay con-
HARTWELL FARM, LINCOLN, 1636
L
Courtesy of Marion Fitch and Jane Poor
KITCHEN OF THE HARTWELL HOUSE
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structed at Mystic, now Medford, and launched on July 4, 1631. Governor Winthrop was the owner. The Rebecca (sixty tons) was built at Medford in 1633 and a ship of one hundred twenty tons at Marblehead in 1636. In 1642 five vessels were built at Boston, Plymouth, Dorchester and Salem. This development of a "merchant marine" made international trade possible. Fish, furs and wood products were the chief cargoes up to the middle of the century. By 1665 Massa- chusetts had about one hundred and thirty vessels, which num- ber had expanded by 1676 to seven hundred and thirty.
Alongside the shipping industries of varied types grew up. The first brick kiln was established at Salem in 1629. Lime- stone, freestone and marble were found and used in the same year. The first glass works were at Salem about 1639. Though bog iron was found about 1645 it was probably not worked on a commercial basis until at Lynn in 1648. Saw mills in the meanwhile were developed in the original com- munities and in many of the outlying settlements.
The development of textiles was largely domestic in this century, yet a small woolen and fulling mill was established in Rowley by 1643. The first printing press was imported from England and set up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1639 and its first production was in the form of a pamphlet entitled The Free Man's Oath. An almanac for the year 1639 was also printed and in 1640 was issued the first book, The Bay Psalm Book. A volume of poems by Mrs. Anne Bradstreet, wife of Simon Bradstreet, later governor of Mas- sachusetts, was brought out in the same year. The second press was sent over in 1655 and the second printing establish- ment was in Boston in 1674. The first attempt at a news- paper was the Boston enterprise in 1690, entitled Public Oc- currences Both Foreign and Domestick; it never went beyond the first number, as it was suppressed by the government. The first regular newspaper was The Newsletter published in Boston in 1704.
Fundamentally the colonists were farmers and for the ma- jority of them other occupations were subsidiary. Every member of the family worked in the early days. Even Gov- ernor Winthrop, for example, when not occupied with his official duties worked, like the others, in any form of neces-
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sary manual labor. The women of the household, when not engaged at housework, were occupied with spinning, carding, weaving, candle-making and a wide variety of other occupa- tions. Children had practically no leisure and were expected to help either parent at work, usually of a confining and arduous nature, throughout the daylight hours.
LABOR PROBLEMS
A large portion of the inhabitants of the early colonies were not free, but were "bound-out" for a period of years to meet the cost of their transportation from England to America. The term "servant" covered both farm and house workers and persons who were agents of English corporations. Passage money was often worked out by service in apprentice- ship, a small wage being paid over a given number of years in addition to the cost of passage. When children were thus bound out it was often stipulated that their masters should teach them to read and write and figure in addition to the teaching of the trade. The contract might further stipulate a special gift to be made to the apprentice on attaining his ma- jority. A "freedom suit" to minors was customarily given on reaching their majority and freedom. The requirements as to labor were strict, and punishments for idleness or bad behav- ior were frequently severe.
In general, the condition of apprentices was fairly satisfac- tory from a legal point of view, in spite of the harsh practices of the time with regard to punishments; for the demand for labor was large and the opportunities for economic and social welfare, once freedom was attained, were considerable. Ap- prentices were specially protected by a statute releasing them from obligations to absconding masters.
The servant problem is not peculiar to our generation, for Mary Dudley, writing to her mother, Mrs. Winthrop, in 1636 outlines her difficulties in the following graphic manner: "I thought it convenient to acquaint you and my father what a great affliction I haue met withal by my maide servant, and how I am like through God his mercie to be freed from it; at her first coming me she carried her selfe dutifully as be- came a servant; but since through mine and my husbands for-
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bearance towards her for small faults, she hath got such a head and is growen soe insolent that her carriage towards vs, especially myselfe, is vnsufferable. If I bid her doe a thinge shee will bid me to doe it my selfe, and she says how shee can give content as wel as any servant but shee will not, and sayes if I loue not quietness I was never so fitted in my life, for shee would make me haue enough of it. If I should write to you of all the reviling speeches and filthie language shee hath vsed towards me I should but greiue you. My husband hath used all meanes to reforme her, reasons and perswasions, but she doth professe that her heart and her nature will not suffer her to confesse her faults."
In 1639 John Winter records an experience even more try- ing, in this graphic manner: "You write of some yll reports is given of my Wyfe for beatinge the maide; yf a faire waye will not doe ye, beatinge must sometimes vppon such Idlle girrel as she is. Yf you think yt fitte for my Wyfe to do all the work, and the maide sitt still, and she must forbear her hands to strike, then the work will ly vndonn. She hath bin now 212 yeares in the house & I do not thinke she hath risen 20 tymes before my Wyfe hath bin vp to Call her, and many tymes light the fire before she comes out of her bed. . We can hardly keep her within doors after we are gonn to bed except we carry the kay of the door to bed with vs. She coulde never milke Cow nor Goate since she came hither. Our men do not desire to have her boyle the kittle for them she is so sluttish. She cannot be trusted to serve a few piggs but my Wyfe must commonly be with her.
"She hath written home I heare that she was fain to ly vppon goates skinns. She might take some goates skinns to ly in her bedd but given to her for her lodginge. For a yeare & quarter or more she lay with my daughter vppon a good feather bed; before my daughter being lacke 3 or 4 days to Sacco the maid goes into bed with her cloths & stockins & would not take the paines to pluck off her Cloths; her bed after was a doust bedd & shee had 2 Coverletts to ly on her, but Sheets she had none, after that type she was found to be so sluttish. Her beatinge that she hath had hath never hurt her body nor limes. She is so fat & soggy she can hardly do any worke. Yf this maide at her lazy tymes when she
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hath bin found in her yll accyons do not deserve 2 or 3 blowes I pray you who hath the most reason to complain my Wyfe or maide. My Wyfe hath an Vnthankfull office. Yt doth not please me well, being she hath taken so much paines and care to order things as well as she could, and ryse in the morn- ing rath & go to bed soe latte, and have hard speeches for yt."
The servants were not all of English blood for John Cot- ton writing in 1651 to Oliver Cromwell tells of terms made with servants from Scotland as follows :
"The Scots, whom God delivered into your hands at Dun- barre, and whereof sundry were sent hither, we have been de- sirous (as we could) to make their yoke easy. Such as were sick of the scurvy or other diseases have not wanted physick and chyrurgery. They have not been sold for slaves to per- petuall servitude, but for 6 or 7 or 8 yeares, as we do our owne; and he that bought the most of them (I heare) build- eth houses for them, for every 4 an house, layeth some acres of ground thereto, which he giveth them as their owne, re- quiring 3 dayes in the weeke to worke for him (by turnes) and 4 dayes for themselves, and promiseth, as soone as they can repay him the money he layed out for them, he will set them at liberty. "
Irish servants were also imported but the supply of English speaking servants was too small to meet the needs of the colonists, and Indian servants were therefore employed at wages and to some extent as slaves. Thus in 1637 Hugh Peter wrote to John Winthrop, Jr., that he had heard of a "dividend" of women and children from the Pequod captives and that he would like a share, "a young woman or girl and a boy if you think good."
SLAVERY
Negro slavery began in Massachusetts somewhat later, per- haps about 1650, although there was evidently some traffic in negroes before that time from the West Indies, where Indian women and children were on some occasions sold into slavery and cotton, tobacco and negroes brought on the return voyage. In the earlier days many of them were sold elsewhere by Mas- sachusetts traders and some were employed in Massachusetts as servants on wages. Several mentions are made of negro
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slavery in early documents quoted by George H. Moore in his Notes on the History of Slavery in Massachusetts. It even appears that at first the slave trade was an enterprise undertaken with the authority of the colony, for in March 1639 the General Court ruled that three pounds eight shil- lings should be paid Lt. Davenport "for the charge transported for the slaves, which, when they have earned it, he is to re- pay it back again"; and the marginal note states "Lieft. Dav- enport to keep ye slaues."
In the "Body of Liberties," the first code of laws of the colony, adopted in 1641, Article 91 reads "There shall never be any bond slaverie, villinage or captivities amongst us un- less it be lawfull captives taken in just warres, and such strangers as willingly selle themselves or are sold to us. And these shall have all the liberties and Christian usages which the law of God established in Israell concerning such persons doeth morally require. This exempts none from servitude who shall be Judged thereto by Authoritie."
Moore interprets this law of 1641 in the following strong statement : "Thus stood the statute through the whole colonial period, and it was never expressly repealed. Based on the Mosaic code, it is an absolute recognition of slavery as a legitimate status, and of the right of one man to sell himself as well as that of another man to buy him. It sanctions the slave-trade, and the perpetual bondage of Indians and negroes, their children and their children's children, and entitles Mas- sachusetts to precedence over any and all of the other colonies in similar legislation. It anticipates by many years anything of the sort to be found in the statutes of Virginia, Maryland, or South Carolina, and nothing like it is to be found in the contemporary codes of her sister colonies in New England."
The number of slaves in Massachusetts was small until to- ward the end of the seventeenth century. Edward Randolph in 1676 stated that there were "not above two hundred slaves in the colony and those were brought from Guinea and Mada- gascar." In May 1680 Governor Bradstreet wrote "There hath been no company of blacks or slaves brought into the country since the beginning of this plantation, for the space of fifty years, onely one small Vessel about two yeares since, after twenty months' voyage to Madagascar, brought hither
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betwixt forty and fifty Negroes, most women and children, sold here for ten pounds, fifteen pounds and twenty pounds apiece, which stood the merchant, in near forty pounds apiece. Now and then, two or three Negroes are brought hither from Barbadoes and other of his Majestie's plantations, and sold here for twenty pounds a piece. So that there may be within our Government about one hundred or one hundred and twenty. There are very few blacks borne here, I think not above five or six at the most in a year, none bap- tized that I ever heard of " Nevertheless a few ne- groes were received into full church membership.
Many persons protested the unkind treatment of slaves if not the institution itself. Judge Sewall expresses the point of view effectively in a letter to Justice Davenport in 1719. "The poorest Boys and Girls within this Province, such as are of the lowest condition; whether they be English or In- dians or Ethiopians. They have the same Right to Religion and Life, that the Richest Heirs have. And they who go about to deprive them of this Right, they attempt the bom- barding of Heaven; and the Shells they will fall down upon their own heads."
WAGES
Free labor was hard worked and poorly paid, but in these particulars colonial conditions did not differ materially from those of England in the same period. Two shillings per day was considered a fair wage for mechanical labor in the earlier years of the colony, and in 1672 common white laborers were still being paid at this rate and Indians only eighteen pence per day. Women were paid at the rate of from four to five pounds per year.
Following the British example of the pre-Elizabethan period the General Court of Massachusetts Bay attempted to fix wages by statute in the early thirties, fixing the wages of masons, carpenters and wood workers at two shillings per day, the best labor at eighteen pence, tailors at twelve pence and inferior tailors at eight pence "with dyett." Penalties were prescribed for a person who either gave or received ex- tra wages; but in 1634 the General Court repealed the fine for those who paid wages above the court rates. In 1635, how-
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ever, several men were fined for taking two shillings six pence per day. The law was ineffective and was repealed in Septem- ber 1635. In 1636 towns were given the liberty to fix wages within their own borders and Plymouth fined laborers for taking excess wages as late as 1639. Attempts were also made in 1634 to limit profits.
Though money wages were small, living costs were rela- tively low. A home could be built for twenty pounds or less. In 1640 a cow cost five pounds and a sheep ten shillings. Even lower prices were sometimes recorded, for in 1638, Thomas Nelson of Boston bought a house and lot in Cambridge with six acres of arable land and five acres of meadow, for only ten pounds. At this same period, 1640, three suits of clothing are quoted as selling for two pounds, three coats for three pounds ten shillings, a hat and doublet at three pounds, one coat at one pound. Three feather beds and two bolsters are listed at seven pounds and one of each at two pounds. In general it may be said that the living conditions of the artisans, though meager, were not necessarily inadequate for the main- tenance of health and relative happiness. Freemen had dwell- ings of their own, a varied diet, few wants and little educa- tion, but had the great satisfaction which comes from hard productive work, victory over Nature and increasing oppor- tunities for themselves and their children.
LUXURY AND FASHION
At the other end of the social scale we find increasing cos- mopolitanism and worldliness. As the colony grew richer, a more luxurious mode of living developed. Persons of rela- tive wealth and culture imported articles of furniture and adornment for their homes and also for their own persons. As early as 1634 the Massachusetts General Court had found it "necessary" to pass sumptuary laws forbidding the purchase of woollen, silk or linen garments with silver, gold, silk or thread lace on them. Two years later, presumably in response to social pressure or changing view points, a narrow binding of lace was permitted on linen garments. Colonists were, however, ordered not to make or buy "slashed" garments ex- cept those with one slash in each sleeve and another slash
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in the back. Gold and silver girdles, hat bands, ruffs and beaver hats were also forbidden. In 1639 men were forbid- den to wear "immoderate great breeches," also double ruffs and capes, broad shoulder bands and silk roses on their shoes. In 1652 a man was presented in Salem for "excess in bootes, ribonds, gould and silver lace." In Newbury in 1653 two women who had been brought up for wearing silk hoods and scarfs were discharged on proof that their husbands were worth two hundred pounds. By 1682 these attempts to con- trol luxury in dress were practically abandoned.
The General Court similarly attempted in 1634 to control fashions in hair-dressing and "longe haire" on men was de- nounced. But the fashion apparently developed and in 1672 the General Court received a petition remonstrating against the example set by students at Harvard college particularly mentioning their long hair. A contemporary diatribe on wo- men's fashions issued by Nathaniel Ward in 1645 expresses the extreme of disapproval in the following vigorous and un- usual way: "But when I hear a nugiperous Gentledame in- quire what dress the Queen is in this week: what the nudius- tertian fashion of the Court; with egge to be in it in all haste, what ever it be; I look at her as the very gizzard of a trifle, the product of a quarter of a cypher, the epitome of Nothing, fitter to be kick'd, if she were of a kickable substance, than either honour'd or humour'd.
"To speak moderately, I truly confess it is beyond the ken of my understanding to conceive, how those Women should have any true Grace, or valuable vertue, that have so little wit, as to disfigure themselves with such exotick garbes, as not only dismantles their native lovely lustre, but transclouts them into gantbar-geese, ill-shapen-shotten shellfish, Egyption Hyeroglyphicks, or at the best into French flurts of the pas- tery, which a proper English Woman should scorne with her heels : it is no marvel they were drailes on the hinder part of their heads, having nothing it seems in the fore-part, but a few Squirrills brains to help them frisk from one ill-favour'd fashion to another. " .
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