Written over a span of twenty years, "Of Plymouth Plantation" is the authoritative account of the founding of the Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts by its leader William Bradford. The journal, here translated into modern English by Harold Paget in 1920, was begun by Bradford in 1630 and tells the story of the Pilgrims from their 1608 settlement in the Dutch Republic in Europe, through their voyage in 1620 aboard the "Mayflower" to the New World, and...

A freshly researched account of the dramatic rescue of the Jamestown settlers. The English had long dreamed of colonizing America, especially after Sir Francis Drake brought home Spanish treasure and dramatic tales from his raids in the Caribbean. Ambitions of finding gold and planting a New World colony seemed within reach when in 1606 Thomas Smythe extended overseas trade with the launch of the Virginia Company. But, from the beginning the American...

Brabbling Women takes its title from a 1662 law enacted by Virginia's burgesses, which was intended to offer relief to the "poor husbands" forced into defamation suits because their "brabling" wives had slandered or scandalized their neighbors. To quell such episodes of female misrule, lawmakers decreed that husbands could choose either to pay damages or to have their wives publicly ducked. But there was more at stake here. By examining women's use...

In this wide-ranging study Stephen Foster explores Puritanism in England and America from its roots in the Elizabethan era to the end of the seventeenth century. Focusing on Puritanism as a cultural and political phenomenon as well as a religious movement, Foster addresses parallel developments on both sides of the Atlantic and firmly embeds New England Puritanism within its English context. He provides not only an elaborate critque of current interpretations...

Michael P. Winship is Professor of History at the University of Georgia and the author of Seers of God: Puritan Providentialism in the Restoration and Early Enlightenment. Making Heretics is a major new narrative of the famous Massachusetts disputes of the late 1630s misleadingly labeled the "antinomian controversy" by later historians. Drawing on an unprecedented range of sources, Michael Winship fundamentally recasts these interlocked religious...

Often compared unfavorably with colonial New England, the early Chesapeake has been portrayed as irreligious, unstable, and violent. In this important new study, James Horn challenges this conventional view and looks across the Atlantic to assess the enduring influence of English attitudes, values, and behavior on the social and cultural evolution of the early Chesapeake. Using detailed local and regional studies to compare everyday life in English...

It is 1702 and Elizabeth Parker, found living on the Massachusetts frontier, is called out as a witch. It is ten years after Salem and nobody, other than Edward Sharpe who calls her out, wants a trial, but the accusation requires a response. It comes as an expedition, to be sent from Boston, to determine if the witch can be scientifically proved. Isaac Hill agrees to journey ahead of the expedition to prepare for its arrival, though his real mission...

Proof that the renaissance in colonial Chesapeake studies is flourishing, this collection is the first to integrate the immigrant experience of the seventeenth century with the native-born society that characterized the Chesapeake by the eighteenth century.Younger historians and senior scholars here focus on the everyday lives of ordinary people: why they came to the Chesapeake; how they adapted to their new world; who prospered and why; how property...

Nelson identifies three principal institutions involved in conflict resolution: the twon meeting, the church congregation, and the courts of law. He subsequently determines the type of cases over which each institution had jurisdiction and studies the procedures by which each functioned. He examines the tendency after 1800 to bring disputes to the court and sees this as a response to the introduction of new, nontraditional values not held by local...

This brilliant, dramatic reconstruction of the Puritan mind in action, informed with psychological and sociological insights, provides a fresh understanding of Anne Hutchinson and the Antinomian controversy in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and gives her controversy with the Puritan Saints a new dimension in American colonial history. Originally published in 1962.A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology...