A Quaker in Seventeenth-Century Virginia

F OR a time in the early i66os Virginia's magistrates, from the governor to the justices of the peace, tried systematically to rid the Old Dominion of Quakers. Their efforts represented a renewal of a long-standing attempt by the colonial government to suppress the Friendly heresy. The story of the sect's troubles forms an integral if unpleasant part of Virginia's early religious history, and the persecutions of Quakers are generally interpreted as having derived from the magistrates' desire to drive a disruptive element from the colony.' Quaker missionaries had first come to Virginia in the i650S.2 The Friends' challenge to the Anglican establishment, their defiance of authority, their unwillingness to take oaths, their refusal to serve in the militia, and their secret meetings soon made them suspect in a society that possessed few means of calling its citizenry to account. Consequently, as the numbers and missionary activity of the Quakers increased, the authorities took steps to eliminate the threat they perceived in these unwelcome immigrants. Local justices of the peace began to enforce existing statutes against nonconformity, and the General Assembly enacted stiffer laws aimed at stamping out the sect.3 Until the threat subsided, as many of the children of light as could be caught were arrested, fined, jailed, and deported

Art · Art history · George (robot · American Constitutional Law and Politics · History · Religion, Gender, and Enlightenment

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