"A Fondness for Freedom": Servant Protest in Puritan Society
1962; Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture; Volume: 19; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/1921923
ISSN1933-7698
Autores Tópico(s)American Constitutional Law and Politics
ResumoOA N May 25, 1721, the prison on Boston's Queen Street lost a star boarder to the gallows: Joseph Hanno, emancipated Negro slave, was hanged for doing his wife in a very barbarous manner. Hanno had received a religious education, he had been baptized, and he had become a candidate for communion. Not unnaturally, the act of bashing his wife's head spoiled his chances of joining the elect this world, but almost to the last and fatal moment hope was held out for his chances the next. Earlier May, the Reverend Cotton Mather of North Church had noted Hanno's impending execution as an opportunity to do a good deed, and he thereupon visited, instructed, and counseled the poor prisoner an attempt to lead him to salvation. 'While Hanno died repentant but unsaved, Providence so ordered it that his execution date coincided with Mather's midweek lecture. Following well-established custom, Mather preached an execution sermon, which he titled Tremenda. The Dreadful Sound with which the Wicked are to be Struck . . . and which, along with the hanging, attracted a large audience including Hanno and many slaves. The occasion demanded animadversions on the wicked sin of murder and exhortatory remarks on the proper behavior of husbands toward their wives. But Hanno's former status as a slave, the composition of the audience, and the fact that marriage and servitude both fell under family government led Mather to observations on slavery itself. Sorrowfully, he pointed out that Hanno had been emancipated into a Liberty, which he had been too unthankful for. Turning to the slaves his audience, he went on, There is a Fondness for Freedom many of you, who live Comfortably a very easy Servitude; wherein you are not so Well-advised
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