“I would carry fire in one hand,” a fervent early American preacher warned his flock, “to burn all the Quakers in the world.” Ironically, these very Puritan colonists had fled England seeking religious liberty, only to unleash a reign of terror on the very dissenters they claimed to protect. Here are the 10 horrifying ways Puritans tormented Quakers in America.
10 Horrifying Ways Puritans Persecuted Quakers
When Mary Fisher and Ann Austin, two English missionaries, stepped onto New England soil in 1656, they were met not with curiosity but with cruelty. The Puritan leadership, already jittery about any dissent, immediately branded the pair as dangerous agitators and set about making an example of them.
Within hours of their arrival, the women were hauled before a magistrate and charged with holding “dangerous, heretical, and blasphemous opinions.” The sentence was swift: they were to be stripped of clothing, beaten mercilessly, and thrown into prison solely for their Quaker identity.
The Puritans took the stripping literally, demanding the women be laid bare in the hopes of uncovering evidence of witchcraft. A group of townspeople was tasked with pulling off their garments and probing their bodies for the tell‑tale “witch’s teat.” Ann Austin later recalled that at least one of the interrogators was “a man in woman’s apparel,” underscoring the grotesque nature of the spectacle.
Finding no “witch” evidence, the colonists resorted to a slower, more insidious death: starvation. The two were denied even basic sustenance such as bread, forced to survive on meager rations while chained in a damp cell for five weeks.
Salvation arrived in the form of Nicholas Upsall, a local sympathizer who slipped food to the women in secret. His covert bribery kept them alive long enough for the authorities to abandon their punishment, eventually shipping Fisher and Austin off to Barbados on a one‑way voyage.
9 Puritans Fined Anyone Who Brought A Quaker To America
After the first two women were expelled, the Puritan legislature tightened its grip. A new ordinance declared that any vessel docking with a Quaker aboard would be slapped with a £100 fine, and the offending passenger would be forced to fund his own return.
Defiance of this law meant imprisonment until the offender renounced his faith, while the Quakers themselves faced twenty lashes, hard labor, and a forced exile back to Europe. The colonists even went so far as to banish every Quaker book, ordering citizens who saw one to deliver it to magistrates for immediate incineration.
These draconian measures failed to halt Quaker missionary zeal. When no ship would carry them across the Atlantic, the Quakers built their own vessel, the Woodhouse, and set sail under their own banner, defiantly breaching the Puritan edict.
8 Women Were Stripped Naked And Beaten
Puritan cruelty took a disturbingly sexual turn when they began publicly humiliating Quaker women. Stripped down to their waists, the women were paraded through town squares while men whipped their backs, turning punishment into a grotesque spectacle.
Three women—Ann Coleman, Mary Tompkins, and Alice Ambrose—suffered the worst of these ordeals. In the dead of winter, they were stripped, shackled to the back of a cart, and dragged through eleven towns over a stretch of roughly 130 kilometers (80 miles). At each stop, a local woman was forced to disrobe them again while a constable beat them until they bled.
These barbaric processions were not isolated incidents. Countless other Quaker women endured similar stripping and beating, often while their husbands were forced to watch helplessly as their wives were subjected to public violence, all under the guise of defending “true” Christianity.
7 Quakers Caught In Massachusetts Had Their Ears Cut Off
From 1656 onward, the Massachusetts Bay Colony enacted a gruesome ordinance: any male Quaker caught within its borders would have his right ear severed. A repeat offender faced the loss of his other ear, and a third return would earn a tongue pierced with a red‑hot iron.
Christopher Holder and John Copeland became the first victims of this law. After arriving aboard the self‑built Woodhouse, they were hauled to prison on July 17 1658, where Puritan officials sliced off both men’s right ears before subjecting them to nine weeks of relentless whipping.
Following their brutal punishment, the duo was shipped back to England under threat of execution should they ever set foot in Massachusetts again. The Puritans warned that any future return would be met with immediate death.
6 Four Quakers Were Murdered For Their Beliefs
Holder and Copeland escaped execution, but the Puritan regime soon turned its wrath on other Quakers. Five days after the two were expelled, three more Quakers arrived to protest their mistreatment.
Marmaduke Stephenson and William Robinson were seized, dragged to a public gallows, and hanged before a cheering crowd. Their companion, Mary Dyer, was spared only after her son begged the governor to spare her life in exchange for a promise never to return.
Mary Dyer, however, could not abandon her convictions. Within a year she defied the governor’s terms, returned to Boston, and was executed alongside William Leddra—making them the final Quakers to die at the hands of the Puritans.
5 Dead Quakers’ Bodies Were Desecrated And Humiliated
Before her execution, Mary Dyer suffered a personal tragedy: a stillborn child. Though a few compassionate locals helped her give the infant a dignified burial outside Boston, Governor John Winthrop seized the tragedy for propaganda.
Winthrop ordered the baby’s corpse to be exhumed and displayed publicly, branding the infant a “monster” and insinuating that Dyer was a witch. This grotesque spectacle was intended to further demonize her faith.
After her death, the Puritans denied Dyer a proper burial. Though Nicholas Upsall petitioned to fence a respectable grave for her, the authorities refused, leaving her body to rest without ceremony or protection.
4 The Puritans Threatened Rhode Island For Harboring Quakers
Not every colony shared the Puritan zeal for persecution. Native American tribes generally treated Quakers kindly, and one indigenous ally famously remarked, “What a God have the English, who deal so with one another about their God?”
The greatest sanctuary for Quakers was the colony of Rhode Island, which steadfastly refused to punish them for their beliefs. As Puritan pressure mounted, they threatened to cut off trade and communication unless Rhode Island began torturing, exiling, and executing Quakers.
Governor Benedict Arnold (not the Revolutionary‑war traitor) replied defiantly, declaring, “We have no laws among us, whereby to punish any for only declaring [their views] by words.” Rhode Island’s resolve provided a crucial haven for beleaguered Quakers.
3 People Who Spoke Out In Their Defense Were Arrested
The Dutch colony of New Netherlands was no sanctuary either. Governor Peter Stuyvesant enacted a law forbidding anyone from sheltering a Quaker in their home, and violators were promptly imprisoned.
When a group of citizens, led by Edward Hart, drafted a protest letter denouncing the persecution, the authorities responded harshly. Every signer was arrested; those holding government positions were dismissed on the spot. The imprisoned signatories were fed only bread and water and told they would remain jailed until they renounced their support for the Quakers.
Edward Hart was the lone steadfast defender; while the others eventually recanted, Hart endured imprisonment until the colony feared he might die under their watch. Ultimately, he was banished, highlighting the severe cost of dissent.
2 Two Quaker Children Were Almost Sold Into Slavery
In 1659, the Salem magistrates devised a chilling plan to settle the Southwick family’s mounting fines. Daniel and Provided Southwick, the children of Quaker converts, were slated to be shipped to Barbados and sold into slavery to cover the debt.
The Southwick parents had endured repeated beatings, imprisonment, and crippling fines aimed at forcing them to abandon their faith. When their assets were seized and still insufficient, the governor ordered the children to be sold to satisfy the remaining balance.
Fortunately, no captain volunteered to transport the youngsters, and the forced sale never materialized. Instead, the family was expelled from Salem; the parents soon died, leaving the children to fend for themselves in exile.
1 Europe Had To Intervene To Save The Quakers
American colonies never voluntarily ceased their persecution of Quakers. The turning point arrived when John Bowne, a New Netherlands resident, was arrested for sheltering a Quaker in his home.
Bowne refused to pay the imposed fine or submit to local trial, demanding instead to be tried in Holland. The colonial governor, lacking authority to defy the Dutch crown, released Bowne and sent his complaint across the Atlantic.
Bowne’s testimony shocked the European courts, prompting them to order New Netherlands officials to end Quaker persecution. A similar decree followed from the English government in 1689, finally mandating religious tolerance throughout the colonies.