Albion's Seed: Food, Clothing, and Recreation

Puritan food was invented by Englishmen who didn’t approve of enjoying anything too much. Interestingly, what most people these days would think of as the archetypal New England food, clam chowder, appears to have been a later invention. Puritan staples were baked beans and rye ‘n’injun bread (corn and rye bread; wheat proved vulnerable to disease and was used only on special occasions). As everyone knows, Puritans also dressed austerely, extending to not bathing often. They wore “sadd” (serious) colors, though black was reserved for elders and authority figures, and passed sumptuary laws forbidding extravagance in dress to everyone.

The Puritan attitude toward recreation was that people should get enough recreation to maintain their physical and mental health, but not overdo it and engage in recreation just for fun. They recognized both that exercise is good for you and that people who never have any fun fall into dullness and discontent. Their favorite form of recreation was organized team sports. (This, perhaps, reflects their tight-knit nature. Having fun should be an organized community activity). Many of the team sports we play today originated in New England and were carried to other parts of the country by Yankee expatriates.

Virginians were notably hierarchical in their food, clothing and recreation. Food and clothing should not be surprising. Eating fancy food and wearing fine clothes are traditional privileges of wealth and rank. And, indeed, the gentry ate elaborate meals, with a focus on the “fricassee” or spiced, stewed meat. Plain folks ate more plainly. Feasting and entertainment were much practiced. Clothing was also hierarchical although, Fischer stresses, the gentry never dressed so extravagantly nor poor folks so miserably as in England. Sumptuary laws in Virginia were addressed less to curbing excess, but to keeping people from dressing above their station.

What may be surprising was that there was also a good deal of hierarchy in recreation. Horse racing was very popular, but only gentlemen were allowed to place bets . Male Virginians of all ranks engaged in blood sports, but there was a strict hierarchy in who was allowed to kill what. Gentlemen hunted deer and foxes. Common folk engaged in gander pulls, cock fighting and cockshairling (tying a rooster to a stake and killing it by throwing objects at it). Boys played “muzzle the sparrow," that is, they tied their hand behind their back, held a sparrow by the wing with their teeth, and tried to bite its head off. Puritans and Quakers regarded these sports as barbaric.

Quakers were an ascetic bunch, even more so than Puritans. Their food nonetheless sounds more appealing. It tended toward puddings and dumplings, and “cheeses.” “Cheese” did not mean cheese, but food slowly boiled down to preserve it. They ate cream cheese (Philadelphia!) and “fruit cheese,” meaning fruit boiled down and preserved with sugar and spices. Meat was also preserved by salt, sugar and smoking. They appeared to make heavy use of sugar as a preservative. Individually, their foods sounded attractive. Taken together, I would really miss something fresh. It impressed on me how fortunate we are to have refrigeration, so we can eat fresh food the year round and limit our sugar and salt if we so choose. Quakers dressed even more plainly than the Puritans, with plain gray clothes based on the Yorkshire style with no ornaments. Meetings carefully scrutinized people’s dress, to make sure there was no “needless” ornamentation. Women wore no makeup. Quakers did wear quality clothes, though. Wealthier Quakers wore the same plain clothes as others, but showed their status with quality materials and good workmanship.

Quakers also deeply distrusted recreation, allowing it only if it served some useful purpose. Blood sports were definitely condemned, but even ball games were distrusted. Still, children were encouraged to run and play because exercise was good for them. Adults were allowed recreations that might serve a useful purpose like skating (a form of transportation), swimming, hunting (for food only, not for the thrill of the kill), and gardening.


Backcountrymen ate a lot of what we think of as southern cooking – grits and fried pork. These were adaptations of border foods – oatmeal and fried mutton. Potatoes and “clabber” (curdled milk) were also popular. (Outsiders did not care for the clabber). They drank whiskey. Tea and coffee were fit only for the sick and the idle rich. Men dressed in what we generally think of as frontier clothes – western-style shirts, fringed leather and coonskin hats. Young women dressed for sex appeal, so much so that outsiders accused them of running around in their underwear. (Married women dressed more modestly).

Back settlers had at least some bloodthirsty forms of recreation, especially “wresting.” This could be done either according to rules (what’s the thrill in that?) or without rules. No rules meant no rules, not even against biting, eye gouging, or testicle crunching. The authorities tried to suppress these extreme sports, but audiences loved them. Backcountrymen also had more innocent contests, such as races, jumping, throwing contests, and the like. If our team sports came from the Puritans, our track and field contests came from the back country. Target shooting, imitating bird calls and other forms of woodsmanship were also popular.

Albion's Seed: Religion and Magic

The subject of religion is closely related to death, and magic is closely related to religion, so it seems reasonable that they would come next.

Religion, of course, was the main motive for emigration for the Puritans and Quakers. Fischer discusses religion in the sense of doctrine and theology in introducing his cast of characters. Religion in terms of folkways means more people’s religious practices.

The Puritans worshipped in bare, unadorned churches they called meeting houses. Their meeting houses were essentially lecture halls with no images, no stained glass, no alter, no communion rail, only a pulpit painted with a giant eye to show God is watching. Meeting houses also served as civic centers, and as arsenals, so there was no fire in the church, even during bitter winter. Services were long, regardless of the cold, consisting mostly of long sermons in both morning and afternoon. These were not (generally) the hellfire and damnation sermons Jonathan Edwards later made famous, but dry and pedantic sermons about obscure passages in scripture. Fischer assures us that the congregation was not bored by these sermons, but how can we believe him when he cites passaged like, "If the whole conclave of Hell can so compromise, exadverse, and diamertricall contradictions, as to compolitize such a multimonstrous maufry of heterclytes, and quicquidlibets quietly, I trust I may say with all humble reverence, they can do more than the Senate of Heaven." (Um, if you say so, dude). Prayers were delivered standing up and were just as long and abstruse. Puritans also sang hymns, with the emphasis on the words and no attempt to harmonize the music.

Cavaliers were High Church Anglicans, which is to say, almost Catholics. Their churches were much more traditional looking. Service was similar to a Catholic mass, with highly formalized liturgy in an established order and hymns sung by trained choirs. Sermons were short and made up only a small part of the service. Traditionally Cavaliers are considered less religious than Puritans or Quakers, but Fischer believes that does them an injustice. The gentry made many expressions of devotion, especially in their wills, kept many religious books, donated or left items in their wills to churches, and kept spiritual journals. Cavalier paid much more attention in their journals than Puritans to rituals, especially the regularity of their prayers. (Fischer often quotes William Byrd II, a Virginia gentleman diarist of the early 18th Century, who regularly records his adventures with women side by side with whether or not he said his prayers each night. He asks God’s forgiveness for forgetting a prayer a lot more often than he asks it for his adventures with women).

Quakers also worshiped in meeting houses, with large windows and whitewashed walls to emphasize the inner light. Their method of worship is well known. There was no clergy, but everyone meditated in silence together and anyone who felt called upon to speak spoke up.

Back countrymen, like Puritans, were Calvinists, but their methods of worship were quite different.* The Anglican church was the established church in most southern colonies. Back countrymen distrusted the Anglican clergy (often with good reason) as corrupt and irreligious, mere adjuncts of the low country gentry. They admired admired learning in their own ministers, but wanted preachers who could appeal to the emotions as well as to reason. They liked hellfire and damnation sermons. They also held frequent field meetings or camp meetings, held outdoors because there were too many worshippers to fit in a church, the sort of worship accompanied by jumping and shouting and other displays of religious enthusiasm. These, Fischer emphasizes, were commonly practiced in the Scottish border area and not products of the American frontier.

Magic

Fischer comments that the differences in the four cultures were not just differences in regional, social, economic or religious background. They were also the result of different in the times of migration. This is especially noticeable in their attitudes toward witchcraft. Keep in mind that witch hunting was at its peak in the 16th and early 17th Centuries, often escalating into all-out hysteria with each accusation leading to ever more accusations. Not to believe in witchcraft was sacrilege. Witch hunts showed a marked decline in the later 17th Century, and by the 18th Century, no educated person would admit to believing in witches at all. Each successive migration showed less interest in witchcraft than the one before.

The Puritans, as everyone knows, took witchcraft very seriously. The Devil was a very real presence to them, and they saw the supernatural as dangerous and fraught with evil. They put up signs and markers to ward the Devil off and had frequent prosecutions of witches. In their defense, Puritans hanged, rather than burned, witches, and they usually confined their witch hunts to one or two witches. Only once (in Salem, of course), did a witch hunt spiral out of control in European fashion. Interestingly enough, the Salem witch trials took place in 1692, after witch hunting in Europe had gone into decline. Puritans retains an outdated attitude toward witches.

Cavaliers, the next migration, did not overtly disbelieve in witchcraft, but they regarded accusations with deep suspicion and did their best to discourage them. They were also much less interested in the Devil than Puritan and saw the supernatural, not so much as dangerous or fraught with evil, but as mysterious and inscrutable. Their magical beliefs focused on an attempt to understand it. This led to an interest in astrology and gambling. Virginians were continually betting on just about everything. Gambling was regulated in Virginia, mostly to keep people from gambling away their possessions and becoming burdens on society. Puritans (and Quakers), by contrast, banned all gambling as blasphemous because if God rules the world supreme, there can be no such thing as random chance.

Quakers, at least among the leadership, did not believe in witches or the Devil. They were not, however, always able to suppress beliefs in witchcraft among general populace, and sometime mob violence broke out against alleged witches. Quakers tended to narrow the realm of the supernatural and broaden the realm of the natural. They generally saw the supernatural as kindly and adopted the magic of people who see no menace in the supernatural – spiritualism, seeking to communicate with the dead, and faith healing.

The back country migration was the final one, taking place in the 18th Century when educated people everywhere had stopped believing in witchcraft. Simple and unsophisticated back countrymen retained some vestigial beliefs in witchcraft – how to recognize a witch, how to protect yourself from witches, and even how to put the hex on people – but fighting witches was mostly limited to protective charms. In the many back country outbreaks of violence an vigilantism, Fischer reports, none involved accusations of witchcraft. Their main supernatural beliefs and practices were a set of worldly superstitions, focusing on good luck or bad luck, curing illness and other worldly concerns, like biting off a butterfly head to get a new dress. (For more detail, see Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn). God, the Devil, salvation, spirits and the like played little role.

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*Indeed, Fischer often emphasizes the back country culture is not the inevitable result of frontier conditions, but imported from Scotland. His descriptions also make clear that Puritans culture is not the automatic result of Calvinism, but has other origins as well.

Albion's Seed: Old Age and Death

Old age

All four culture honored their elders, but in different ways. The Puritans viewed a long life as a sign of God’s favor and therefore venerated their elders as saints. In very hierarchical Virginia, the main way a person of low rank could achieve status was as an elder. People were taught to respect their elders – meaning not just old people, but anyone older than they were – and betters. Respect due to age equalled and sometimes exceeded respect due to rank. A young gentlemen was expected to respect the authority of an older man of lower rank. Quakers saw their elders as teachers and nurturers, guides to the community. But, an elder’s authority was not as strong as in New England or Virginia; it yielded to the Inner Light. Competition for authority was fierce among elders in the back country. Winners became people of great authority and esteem. Losers were abandoned to lives of lonely destitution.

One ingenious measure of people’s attituded about age is the practice of “age heaping.” This is based on the understanding that, then as now, people tended to fib about their ages. So looking for statistically improbable age groupings (just an incredible number of people who are 29 or 39, compared to 30 or 40) tells us something about a society’s attitudes toward age. No age heaping statistics were availabe for Quakers. My own interpretation of Fischer’s statistics (not necessarily shared by Fischer) is that Puritan and back country attitudes toward age were not so different from our own. Very young people (around 20) wanted to be older than they were. People of intermediate age wanted to be younger. But when people reached the status of honored elders, when, as some wag put it, you stop complaining about your age and start boasting about it, people started to want to be older again. In other words, you do not achieve the status of honored elder until you are recognizably old. The difference was that in the 17th and 18th Centuries, that happened around 60. These days, it happens around 80 or even 90. Virginians had quite a different pattern. Although people around 30 were apparently too young to benefit from elder status, once they approached 40 people had a strong desire to exagerate their ages, which grew stronger with each passing decade. Seniority conveyed authority much earlier in this culture.

Another distinction Fischer did not note is that people fib about their ages much less now than they used to. I can only assume that this is part of a general tendancy to view time with much greater precision now than in the past.

Death

Untimely death was much, much more common in the 17th and 18th Centuries than it is today. People learned to be fatalistic, never knowing when death might strike. But these four cultures were not all fatalistic in the same way.

Puritans lived in constant fear of damnation. Not to fear hellfire was a sure sign of being hellbound. They encouraged people to think often about their death (they called it "daily dying.") Children were encouraged to fear hell, to live in fear that they might die any time, and to stare at the bodies of the deceased to see what their inevitable fate would be. Funerals were austere matters, with sermons that took care not to exagerate the virtues of the dead. And yet, after funeral Puritans held receptions, feasted, and got drunk (one of the few times they allowed such indulgence).

Cavaliers adopted an attitude Fischer calls “stoic fatalism,” in other words, an attitude of oh well, everyone has to die some day. Living lives surrounded by disease and uncertainty, in which anyone could sicken and die at any time, Virginians learned to be dismissive and say that there was no point in crying and carrying on. At the same time, they mourned as much for the loss of loved ones as anyone else. One way of showing grief was by elaborate funerals with pallbearers,
mourning gloves, love scarves, and much feasting, drinking and firing of salutes. Funeral customs were as hierarchical as everything else in their society. People marked funerals with as much ceremony as they could afford. People were buried according to rank, in family cemetaries on the family estate for people who could afford such a plot, with a minimum of ceremony and often no marker for servants and slaves.

If Puritans lived in fear of Hell, Quakers lived in hope of Heaven. Their favored narative of death was the sick person who feared it at first, but moved past fear to welcome death. Families gathered at deathbeds to say farewell and recorded last words for their spiritual significance. Once the event was past, though, the funeral was as quick and austere as possible. They did allow a dinner after, with the bottle circulated – but only twice.

Death by disease was less common in the backcountry than in Virginia, but death by violence was more common. Although the back countrymen, like the Puritans, were Calvinists, they focused less on salvation and more on dying bravely. Funerals had many folk traditions borrowed from Scotland – laying the body on the floor to be in contact with the earth, placing a platter of salt mixed with dirt on the stomach of the deceased, wakes, and gifts to the guests. Everyone was required to touch the body because foul play was often suspected and it was believed that if a murder touched his victim, the body would bleed.

Next: The closely related subjects of religion and magic.

Albion's Seed: Family, Marriage, Sex and Children

It is clear from Fischer’s account that choosing one’s own spouse is a venerable American custom, going back to England. (Henry VIII is said to have lamented that he, as king, was denied the freedom of his least subject, of choosing his own wife). If this seems unremarkable to us, keep in mind that historically it is actually the exception. Most societies have practiced arranged marriages. Family in all four cultures meant primarily, but not exclusively, nuclear family.

The Puritans had the strongest nuclear families. Everyone was expected to marry and live in families. The rare eccentric who did not marry was not allowed to live alone, but must belong to someone else’s family. The Puritans’ famous asceticism translated into a strong hostility to sex outside of marriage, but not to sex within marriage (so long as nothing “unnatural,” i.e., nothing that could interfere with conception took place), or to marriage itself. Not to marry was not exactly a sin deserving of hell, but it was a sign of not having God’s favor and therefore being hell-bound. Marriage took place relatively late (mid 20’s for both men and women). The young couple chose their own spouses, though with their parents’ guidance. It was considered important both to chaperone the young couple to prevent premarital sex, but also to give them enough privacy to get to know each other. Since the telephone had not yet been invented, young people whispered to each other through a “courting stick,” short enough to hear each other, but long enough to keep them from touching. More surprisingly, they also “bundled,” that is, they slept in the same bed, but with a board between them and the girl’s legs tied together in a “bundling apron.” (Groping above the waist was apparently allowed).

Marriage required the parents’ consent, but if parents denied consent unreasonably, the young couple could seek authority from a judge instead. Puritans also rejected the Catholic view that marriage was a sacred union that could never be dissolved. Instead, the treated it as a civil contract that could be dissolved (though only as a last resort) if the terms were not met. Husband and wife were not equals. A wife was expected to obey her husband. But she was considered his second-in-command and expected to receive the respect that a second in command is due. In particular, a husband was not allowed to resort to physical force to enforce is prerogatives. If a wife was disobedient, he could complain to the authorities and have her punished, but hitting he was not allowed. Domestic discord in general was not tolerated and could end up in court.

Children, in accordance with strict Calvinist orthodoxy,were considered evil, and parents were expected to be strict and “break their wicked will.” This does not mean they were supposed to be abusive. Beating a child was considered a last resort (although they did not hesitate to use it if all else failed). But their favorite means of discipline was guilt, guilt and more guilt. Children were “sent out” of their parents’ house at adolescence. Sons of the elite and very bright sons of ordinary families went to college (at a much younger age than is customary now). Town dwelling sons were apprenticed. Girls worked as domestic servants. Fischer did not clarify what sons of farmers (who were, after all, the majority of the population) did. Nor did he clarify if they returned to their parents’ houses afterward and live with their parents while courting, or if finding one’s marriage partner was part of sending out.

Virginia families were less nuclear and more extended. This was at least in part because in disease-ridden Virginia, many people died young, leaving the family incomplete. Extended family was a necessary fall-back. Among the gentry,this was also because a gentleman saw himself as a patriarch and everyone within his authority and protection – wife, children, step-children, relatives, friends, servants, slaves, and even total strangers accepting his hospitality. Southern patriarchs took pride in their hospitality and generosity to strangers, a custom inherited from the gentry of England. They also exercised a patriarch’s authority over their households, including sexual access to female slaves, servants and tenants. This, too dated back to the English aristocracy (“feudal privilege” was the accepted euphemism). Men of rank were widely expected to take a predatory attitude toward women, but the attitude toward any transgression by women was quite different. Adulterous wives and women who had babies out of wedlock were stripped, flogged, and dragged, half-drowing, behind boats, with no thought the their partner-in-crime. Indentured servants had their term of servitude extended to compensate their master for the time lost by their pregnancy and birth – even if he was the father. Needless to say, this only encouraged patriarchs in their predatory attitude.

Marriages were more likely to be arranged in this culture than any of the others. Upper class families chose spouses as alliances between houses. Love was expected to follow, rather than precede, marriage. Anglican Virginians followed the Catholic rule that marriage was a sacred knot that could never be undone, and conducted them as a Christian ceremony (though usually in the bride’s house, rather than in church), accompanied by much feasting and dancing, sometimes for several days. Husbands expected their patriarchal authority to extend to their wives as well as the rest of their household. Wives often did not submit tamely, making marriages often turbulent power struggles. Physical force was not outlawed, but frowned upon. A gentleman who hit his wife committed no crime, but he was being vulgar and lower class, and besides, both spouses could take out their frustration with each other on their slaves. If a lower class husband beat his wife, the neighbors were apt to gather around, beating pans, blowing horns, clanging bells, and otherwise shaming him into stopping with “rough music.” Child raising did not focus on breaking their evil wills, but on training children in an elaborate code of
hierarchy and conduct, and in knowing their place in the social order.

Quaker families were more nearly equal than Puritans or Cavaliers, and more child-centered. At
the same time, Quakers saw nuclear families as sub-units within the greater family of all Quakers. Women had extraordinary liberty and autonomy for the 17th Century, being allowed to preach and to hold “women’s meetings” that handled a great deal of church business. Marriage, Quakers taught, should be for love – but for spiritual love, not carnal. Unlike the Puritans, Quaker asceticism extended to sex, even within marriage. All attempt was made to banish sex from polite society, including modest dress and prudish speech (Quaker women would not admit to having anything below the waist except for “ankles.”)

Once again, Fischer does not discuss courtship customs much, but he does go into their austere-but-elaborate and highly communitarian marriage customs. Permission had to be obtained by the parents of both spouses, the coupale themselves, the women’s meeting, the men’s meeting, ny other meeting either spouse might have belonged to, and a general certificate of approval with
numerous signatures, all in the proper order. Weddings themselves took place in the meetinghouse (Quakers did not say “church”) and consisted of the couple saying vows of their own choosing to each other and everyone meditating together. Marriage took place typically in the couple’s mid-20’s, and many people never married at all.

Children were considered innocent. At an early age, they were sheltered, but with the “dawn of reason,” they were guided and molded. Teaching children was the business, not just of parents, but of the whole community. And a Quaker upbringing could shape children in strange-seeming ways – Quaker children played at “going to meeting,” i.e., sitting around and meditating in silence together, and lectured their elders about their conduct. Quaker children were not sent
out, but stayed with their parents during adolescence. This could be a difficult time, as it was
when children become tempted by the world and parents sought to keep them from
being corrupted.

Back countrymen focused on the nuclear family, but backed by the derbfine (all kin within the span of four generations) and clan. Clans had no formal structure or badges of membership, but they looked after their own, both assisting members and banding together to fight outsider. Marriage within one’s clan was permitted; marriage to a hostile clan discouraged. Nuclear families were strong, but many households included other relatives as well.

Marriage took place young for both men and women, with less difference in age than any of the other cultures. Fischer does not go into detail about their courtship customs, but the section on sex leaves some broad hints. Unmarried women wore low-cut, tightly fitting bodices and skirts above the ankles. In any event, modesty was impossible in crowded, one-room cabins. Speech was ribald and uninhibited. Young people played highly suggestive games and walked unchaperoned from cabin to cabin, or rode together on the same horse. The bride who was pregnant on her wedding day was normal – so common, in some cases, that one suspects a woman had to prove she was fertile to be marriageable. But is sex was a normal part of courtship,
marriage was the necessary outcome. Think any story you have heard about shotgun marriages. Marriage extinguished any possible dishonor (Andrew Jackson ran off with another man’s wife and no one in the back country thought the less of him since they married in the end), but the man who seduced and abandoned a girl risked being killed by her outraged kinsmen. (Presumably this strongly discouraged predatory men).

Weddings were marked by abduction rituals with the groom going through the act of carrying off the bride, a carryover from days when real abductions were common. They were also characterized by much feasting, drinking, dancing, horse racing, games, and celebratory gunfire, which sometimes led weddings to be followed by funerals. Contrary to popular belief,
Fischer reports, frontier conditions did not promote equality between husbands and wives. Rather, a border emphasis on war led to strong male domination and female subordination. Husbands alternated between passionate expressions of love for their wives, and violence and beating, particularly when drunk.

Men in this culture rarely learned to control their tempers, a tendancy that began in childhood. Boys were encouraged to be manly, manly, autonomous, independent, aggressive, and fierce in defense of honor against any perceived insult. They were not taught much in the way of self-control. Girls were taught to be submissive and obedient. Beating children was condemned, but conflict was inevitable between fathers (and often mothers) who never learned to control their tempers and sons who were assertive, aggressive, and impatient of any control. Violence was frequent; alcohol contributed.

Albion's Seed: Patterns of Migration, Settlement and Association

Fischer actually puts this toward the end of his description of each culture, but I find it useful to start out with this. Describing what the overall community looked like helps give context to the descriptions of people’s more private lives.

Although most New Englanders were farmers, they mostly lived in towns, or, rather, hamlets. Indeed, special permission was required to build a house more than half a mile from the local church. This had two effects. One was to allow people to monitor each other and penalize deviant behaviorr. The other was to gather people into New England’s primary unit of self-government – the town meeting. It made everyone (well, every adult male property holder who was a church members in good standing) a participant in the community. Communities were very stable. Young men might leave their town of origin for an apprenticeship, or young women to join their husbands, but once New England Puritans became householders, they stayed put. People moved around a lot less in the 17th Century than they do today, of course, but even by 17th Century standards, Puritan communities were exceptionally stable. Once Puritans moved across the sea from England to Massachusetts, they stayed put.

Virginians, for the most part, avoided towns. Great planters had their own little communities on their plantations; others lived on their farms. Visiting took place regularly among neighbors. On church days and court days, people from all across the local countryside assembled, for gatherings that were as much social as religious. Migration and association was hierarchical in opposite ways. People lower down on the hierarchy were more mobile in the sense that they had less stable residences. Planters rarelyl moved; small farmers moved somewhat morre often; recent arrivals moved quite frequently, and many laborers were migrants with no fixed residence. But in another way, people of higher rank were more mobile. People tended to visit a lot, mostly with their own social peers. For ordinary people, this meant mostly in their own neighborhood. For the gentry, it meant travel to more distant plantations.

Quakers lived in clusters of farms. They lived on their farms, rather than in towns, but William Penn made a deliberate policy to encourage farmers to build their houses near to each other, instead of scattered. Pennsylvania was (is) mountainous, a series of valleys with ridges between them. Each valley would form its own tight-knit, highly conformist, community, some Quaker, some German, but none quite alike. Each community would form its church that would maintain community standard, but they did not have any formal local government (that took place at the county level). Another point was that Quakers in their general asceticism and distrust of anything “needless” extended this view to “needless” socializing. They therefore discouraged gatherings or visiting unless they served a useful purpose (such as raising a barn).

In the back country, people tended to live in isolated cabins. The comment that when you see the smoke from your neighbor's chimney it is time to move on was a back country attituded. And, indeed, people did often move on, with a minimum of fuss and bother. Besides the smoke from your neighbor's chimney, another popular back country saying was, "When I get ready to move, I just shut the door, call the dogs, and start." But many of these moves were no more than a few miles. A sense of neighborhood formed, and neighbors regularly visisted, stayed over, and helped each other out. These neighborhoods were tight-knit enough to be able to freeze out and squeeze out (in their own words, "hate out") people who did not follow accepted social conduct. Outsiders were viewed with deep suspiciion.

Speech and place names

Fischer has an interesting insight here. All four cultures tended to give American places the names of places from back home. This means we can tell, by looking American place names, what part of England the colonists settling that area came from. Unfortunately, following the details required more knowledge of English and American geography than I have.

The four cultures chose other place names as well. Puritans used virtue names like Salem (a variant on Shalom) or Concord. Despite the Algonquin names of Massachusetts and Connecticut, Indian names were not widely used until later. Cavaliers used royalist names. Virginia is named after Elizabeth (the Virgin Queen), North and South Carolina after Charles II, and Georgia after George II. Quakers used Indian names. And backcountrymen chose place names with a rough and ready familiarity I had always regarded as archetypally American, such as Gordon's Meeting House, Hangover Creek, Hardbargian Branch, Hell's Half Acre, and Devil's Tater Patch.

Fischer also traces various American patterns of speech to parts of England although that, too, could be hard to follow. Most interestingly, the Quakers adopted “plain speech” and addressed everyone as “thou” instead of you. In the 17th Century, this was a shocking familiarity when addressed to social superiors. Quakers continued this well into the 19th Century, long after thou had become a quaint archaism. But the book did clear up a strange quirk I was aware of from historical novels – Pennsylvania Quakers said “thee is” instead of a more standard “thou art.” The Quaker migration came primarily from Yorkshire. It turns out “thee is” was a well-established pattern of Yorkshire speech. London Quakers said “thou art.”

Next: Family, marriage, sex and children

Albion's Seed

David Hackett Fischer's Albion’s Seed has been immensely influential in popular history and understanding of the origins of the United States and how we got to be what we are. Its thesis is that the 13 colonies were settled by three main migrations from England, the Puritans, Cavaliers, Quakers and back countrymen. These migrations took place at different historical times, from different part of England, different religions, and different social classes, and different sub-culturres. They built new societies that mirrored the societies they left behind. Fischer describes these four cultures in their origins; building styles, concepts of family; attitudes toward, marriage, sex, children, old age and death, religions, magic, food, clothing, recreation, attitudes toward time and work, “pattern of migration and settlement,” attitudes toward law and order, local government, and concepts of freedom. It is all written in a very accessible style, for the general public, not professional historians.

The book has its shortcomings. It is not strictly chronological, seeking to describe the four colonial cultures, but sometimes bringing in figures from later, like Andrew Jackson. It gives too much credit to England (ignoring, say, the Scandinavian origin of the log cabin or the strong Spanish influence on cowboy culture). The later parts attempt a brief tour of post-colonial history, and often become absurd, attempting to reduce absolutely everything to the influences of these four cultures. But it explains a lot. Many aspects of American culture suddenly make a lot more sense when viewed through the lens of the four migrations. (In particular, many things I thought were odd and contradictory about Southern culture make a lot more sense if you see it as actually the amalgam of two quite different cultures, cavalier and back country).

The first migration, from about 1629 to 1640 (the height of Charles I's power) were the Puritans. They came mostly from the eastern part of England, migrated to Massachusetts and other part of New England, and included a wide range of the middle class, from lesser gentry to more prosperous tenants and craftsmen, with plenty of merchants, yeoman farmers, and members of the learned professions. They had a powerful leader in John Winthrop, set out to build a Christian commonwealth, and actively sought to exclude people who were not like themselves. In religion they were strict Calvinists, believing that human nature is inherently evil, that most people are bound for hell and deserve it, and that God predestines everyone for heaven or hell and there is nothing we can do about it. Another important Puritan belief was the importance of the covenant. That meant not just society as a sacred covenant (as discussed in the last post), but in human relations – marriage, family, most voluntary associations – as a series of covenants. If a single word might be used to describe the Puritans, it would be tight-knit.

Once the Puritans won the civil war and established their own dictatorship in England, about 1642 to 1675, the Cavaliers (Royalists) began migrating instead, to Virginia. Jamestown colony already existed in Virginia, of course, but it was little more than an outpost. Not until after the Puritan colonies were established did Virginia start establishing anything like a normal, functioning society. Their leader was William Berkley, and the Cavalier set out to create a society something like the one they had before the Puritans seized power. They came mostly from southern and western England, were high church Anglicans (Episcopalians, semi-Catholics). The leadership came from English gentry, but many members of the lower classes also arrived, as deported convicts, debtors, or indentured servants. Slavery became widespread only later. (Incidentally, Fischer's work has a definite shortcoming here in that it focuses almost entirely on the aristocracy and ignore ordinary Virginians). They came to a land that was beautiful, but disease-ridden, rife with malaria, typhoid, dysentery and the like. If a single word might be used to describe the Cavalier culture, it would be hierarchical.

The Quaker migration took place around 1675-1695, in a calmer time, after the monarchy was restored under Charles II. Quakers came mostly from the northern parts of England, from remote and poor areas. They were mostly lower middle class, craftsmen and laborers. Many came over as indentured servants, but, unlike Virginians servants, they often advanced once they completed their terms. They were led by William Penn, a rare Quaker aristocrat, and moved to Pennsylvania. Like the Puritans, they sought to create a Christian commonwealth. The Quaker religion is hard to define because it has no creed, but it emphasizes the “inner light,” the voice of God within all of us. Quakers have no clergy and consider everyone’s inner light as their highest authority. Yet for all the individualism of their religion, Quakers were intensely conformist, submitting almost everything to the judgment of the meeting and expecting members to submit on penalty of excommunication. In their conformity and asceticism, they were often more puritan than the Puritans, except that their outlook was an optimistic one. Quakers also differed from Puritans in that their meetings had moral authority only and were not backed by the force of the state. Quakers granted freedom of religion to all monotheists and welcomed German pietists (such as Amish and Mennonites) who shared their values. I haven’t come up with a single word to describe the Quakers and welcome input.

The backcountrymen were the last migration. They came from the border area between England and Scotland, a land of constant war, as borders so often are. The backcountry migration took place around 1715-1775, when England in general had emerged from its turmoil and become calm. In the calm, the authorities began subduing the turbulent border, often with much resistance. Some borders were banished to America, where they settled in the Appalachian area. Others were banished to North Ireland and then to American, where they were referred to as the Scotch-Irish. The backcountrymen were generally Calvinists, but of a very different kind from the Puritans. They mostly came from the lower classes, though not so poor as to be unable to afford passage. They had no outstanding leader and no plan for the society they built. They also were generally banished to the “back” areas of the colonies by authorities who found them disruptive, and were excluded from political power. In turb, they distrusted the colonial authorities as much as they had distrusted the authorities in England. If a single word might be used to describe backcountry culture, it would be violent.

Over time, these four cultures changed. Puritans became Yankees. Royalists became Whigs. Whigs were the party that distrusted kings and royal prerogatives. The fiercest defenders of Charles I fully backed the overthrow of James II. The aristocracy (English and Virginian) discarded the divine rights of kings in favor of the theories of John Locke, the view that society is a contract between the people and themselves to submit to laws and a government in order to protect their natural rights. A universal “natural law” is higher than any manmade law. Any government that violates natural law and tramples on people’s natural rights has broken the term of the contract and forfeits its people’s obedience. If all this sounds familiar, it should. It is basically a secularized, do-it-yourself version of the Puritan’s theory of the sacred covenant. It is also the ideology Jefferson expressed (borrowed from Locke) in the Declaration of Independence.

Quakers also changed over time, slowly disengaging from the world and turning inward (and losing most of their influence as a result). Back settlers became frontiersmen. The distinction is subtle, but is the different between “retreating back” into the “back parts” of the colonies as opposed the pushing forward into new lands of promise. It is the difference, as Fischer puts it, in which direction the country was facing. Unfortunately, he does not describe any of these transformations. But he does describe the cultures they founded. More to follow.

17th Century England: Origin of the United States

The last post was a very brief and grossly oversimplified history of England in the Middle Ages (with an emphasis on law). English kings established both courts and Parliament in order to enhance their own power, but these bodies developed ther own institutional interests apart from the king, and their own concepts of law apart from the king's will. In addition, the nobility forced King John to sign the Magna Charta placing limits on the king's arbitrary power.

At this point someone in CHILP asked, did the king ever test the limits of his power. And the answer was, of course. During the later Middle Ages, there was an ongoing tug-of-war between the king and Parliament for power, with strong kings prevailing over Parliament, and Parliament prevailing over weak kings. Weak kings also tended to be overthrown and to die of unnatural causes. Invariably they were replaced by a royal cousin. Invariably, the overall balance between the king and Parliament continued to see-saw back and forth and never be resolved.

But it was in the 17th Century that the struggle truly came to head. Full-scale civil war broke out between the king and Parliament in the reign of Charles I (life 1600-1649, reign 1625-1649). Supporting him were the Cavaliers (Royalists); opposing him were the Roundheads (Puritans). Part of the war was secular (the king and Parliament fighting for supremacy) and part was religious. (Henry VIII had decisively broken with the Pope, but the Church of England seemed suspiciously semi-Catholic to the Puritans who were so-called because they wanted to “purify” of of Catholic influences). Besides, in the religious fervor that was common in the early 17th Century, both sides saw the secular side of the war in religious terms. Charles argued for the divine rights of kings – the king was chosen by God and answerable to God only. Disobedience to the king was disobedience to God. The Puritans saw the society as a sacred covenant between God and the nation (based on the covenants of the Old Testament). God gave the king power only on condition that he obey God’s law. When the ruler disobeyed God’s law, he brought God’s wrath on the entire nation.

Parliament and the Puritans won the war. In 1649, they deposed Charles, put him on trial for treason and cut his head off (almost 150 years before the French made such things popular). Oliver Cromwell, leader of the Puritan army, established a military dictatorship known as the “Protectorate.” Rule by Puritans soon proved unpopular, and the Protectorate failed soon after Cromwell died. Charles I’s son, Charles II returned to the throne, and the struggle continued, though in less violent form and (on the whole) with less religious fervor. Charles II kept his throne and his head, but his yo unger brother and successor, James II committed the unpardonable sin of being a Catholic and was bloodlessly overthrown in 1688. Parliament offered the throne to James’ daughter Mary and her husband, William of Orange, subject to the Bill of Rights.

Much of the British Bill of Rights should sound familiar to Americans. It forbids unilateal rule by the king without the consent of Parliament and guarantees the right of petition, the right to keep and bear arms, freedom of speech within Parliament, trial by jury for treason, a ban on excessive bail or fines or cruel and unusual punishment and free elections and frequent sessions of Parliament.

It was out of this turmoil and upheaval that the Thirteen Colonies were formed. The colonists were generally whoever was losing at any particular time during all this war and strife, Much of our distrust for governmet, and may of our concepts of freedom, set forth in our own Bill of Rights, spring not just from complaints about British colonial rule in the 18th Century, but struggles to curb the king's power in the 17th. Indeed, fear of a return to the 17th Century kingship haunted both our Revolution and the founding of the Constitution. These 17th Century struggles shaped the attitude of the colonists who formed the colonies that became the United States.

And so, before I get to the writing of the Constitution, I would like to give a review of Albions's Seed, the immensely popular and influential cultural history of the colonists who founded the 13 colonies and the culture and attitudes they brought over from England.

Introduction

A number of you (you know who you are) have suggested to me that I am making a mistake in letting my writing skills and my knowledge of history and law go to waste and that I should write something. My answer has always been that being published is hard and that, anyhow, anything I write is too obscure for the general public and too superficial for serious scholars. This blog, Obscure but Superficial is my compromise. It will be on US history, law and constitution. I intend to begin a decidedly selective stroll through our history with an emphasis on law, though other subjects will be allowed.

I will begin, though, by reviewing some of what Professor Fritz taught us in CHILP (Comparative Historical and Legal Perspectives). Americans are people of many ethnic origins, but our laws and institutions are mostly English in origin, so to understand the United States, we need some understanding of England. Fritz goes back to the Middle Ages when most decisions were made in manorial courts, under control of the local feudal lord with decidedly mixed standards of justice. The king began establishing royal courts. Royal justice proved superior to manorial justice, and more and more cases moved into royal courts. This was adventageous to the king in that trying more cases in royal courts enhanced his power at the expense of local lords. This was important to the king because maintaining domination over the nobility might decide whether the king held onto his throne -- and his life.

Royal courts made an important advance during the reign of Henry II, (life 1133-1189, reign 1154-1189). He introduced the practice of trial by jury and had judges follow precedents set by other judges to establish a common law throughout the realm. Henry II's son John was an example of a king who could not maintain his domination over the nobility. They revolted against him and forced him to sign the Magna Charta. Much of the Magna Charta deals with feudal relations, but some of the guarantees sound familiar to us.

(38) In future no official shall place a man on trial upon his own unsupported statement, without producing credible witnesses to the truth of it.

(39) No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except
by the lawful judgement of his equals or by the law of the land.

(40) To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice.

Other provisions stress the concept of a general law that is binding on all, even the king. It was in the time of John's grandson and Henry II's great-grandson Edward I that Parliament was established as an institution, with the power to pass its own kind of law called statutes.

This makes for several important points. One is that common law, i.e., judge made law, came first and statutes later. Another is that statutes have the power to override common law, but judges can only interpret statutes.* Another is that statutes have expanded and increasingly displaced common law, but that it was not always so. But perhaps most important is that, contrary to what most people believe, laws are NOT those things passed by the legislature. Those are statutes, which are a sub-category of law, but not the entirety of it. But don’t feel bad if you have difficulty with the distinction; many lawyers, judges and even Supreme Court justices use the terms law and statute interchangeably. Nonetheless, my attempt will be to use “law” broadly, to mean anything that is legally binding, “statute” to mean laws passed by the legislature, “common law” to mean judge-made law in the absence of any statute, and “case law” to mean judicial interpretation of statutes. If I slip up, correct me.

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*Of course, the U.S. Supreme Court can also strike down statutes as contrary to the Constitution, but that is a later development.