A Quaker Story - The Southwicks

Sketch of Lawrence and Cassandra (Burnell) Southwick
and Their Persecutions

From: Descandants of Lawrence and Cassandra Southwick of Salem, Massachusetts

HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE CALLED QUAKERS.

By John Gough, published, 1790, in Dublin, Ireland. Vol. I: Lawrence and Cassandra Southick, their sufferings, p. 349, 361; Josiah Southick, p. 349, 361; Daniel and Provided ordered to be sold for slaves, 376 to 381.

"THE severities already inflicted on the members of this society had so affected many of the inhabitants of this colony that they withdrew from their public assemblies and met on the first day of the week, to worship quietly by themselves, for which they were fined 5 shillings per week, and imprisoned. Particularly Lawrence and Cassandra Southwick, an aged couple (who in the last year had been imprisoned and fined for entertaining Christopher Holder and John Copeland), with their son Joseph, were sent to the house of correction, whipped in like manner as those before mentioned, and had their goods taken to the value of œ4, 15 shillings, for not coming to church. For the same cause Edward Harnet, aged 69, and his wife, 73 years of age, had 37 shillings taken from them without regard to their circumstances, which were but mean, or their age, which would naturally excite tenderness. About this time (1658) there was a meeting at the house of Nicholas Phelps in the woods about five miles from Salem, and upon the information of one Butler, the six following residents were taken up and committed to prison: Samuel Shattock, Lawrence Southwick and Cassandra his wife, Josiah their son, Samuel Gaskin (or Gaskill), and Joshua Buffum, who being kept close in the house of correction during the heat of the Summer, from their husbandry, after three weeks confinement, represented their case to the court in the following letter:

'This to Magistrates at the Court in Salem. Friends:--Whereas it was your pleasure to commit us, whose names are under-written, to the house of correction in Boston, although the Lord, the righteous Judge of Heaven and Earth, is our witness that we have done nothing worthy of stripes or of bonds; and we being committed by your court to be dealt withal as the law provides for foreign Quakers, as ye please to term us; and having some of us suffered your law and pleasures, now that which we do expect is, That whereas we have suffered your law, so now to be set free by the same law, as your manner is with strangers, and not to put us on the account of one law, and execute another law upon us, of which according to your own manner we were never convicted, as the law expresses.

If you had sent us upon the account of your new law, we should have expected the jailer's order to have been on that account, which that it was not, appears by the warrant which we have, and the punishment which we bare, as four of us were whipped, among whom was one that had formerly been whipped; so now according to your former law, friends, let it not be a small thing in your eyes, the exposing as much as in you lies, our families to ruin. It is not unknown to you, the season and the time of year, for those that live of husbandry, and what their cattle and families may be exposed unto; and also such as live upon trade.

We know if the spirit of Christ did dwell and rule in you these things would take impression on your spirits. What our lives and conversations have been in that place is well known, and what we now suffer for, is much for false reports, and ungrounded jealousies of heresy and sedition. These things lie upon us to lay before you. As for our parts we have true peace and rest in the Lord in all our sufferings, and are made willing in the power and strength of God, freely to offer up our lives in this cause of God, for which we suffer: yea, and we do find (through grace) the enlargement of God in our imprisoned state, to whom alone we commit ourselves and our families, for the disposing of us according to his infinite wisdom and pleasure, in whose love is our rest and life.

From the house of bondage in Boston wherein we are made captives by the wills of men, although made free by the Son, (John 8, 36).

In which we quietly rest, this 16th of the 5th month, 1658.

LAWRENCE SOUTHICK, JOSIAH SOUTHICK, CASSANDRA SOUTHICK, SAMUEL SHATTOCK, JOSHUA BUFFUM."

The first victims to this severe law were Lawrence and Cassandra Southick, their son Josiah, Samuel Shattock, Nicholas Phelps and Joshua Buffum. They were called before the court 11th of 3rd mo., 1659, and on their trial (such as it was), the same arbitrary spirit of tyranny appeared in their manner of executing as in passing their laws. The prisoners making a rational objection to their proceeding against them by their law as being in custody when it was made, and therefore as to them an ex post facto law. To their query whether it was for an offence against that law which then had no existence, they were committed to prison and banished, they received no reply; then one of them desired the governor that he would be pleased to declare before the people the real and true cause of their proceedings against them.

He answered, it was for contemning authority in not coming to the ordinances of God. He further charged them with rebelling against the authority of the country in not departing according to their order; to which they answered they had no other place to go, but had their wives, children, families and estates to look after; nor had they done anything worthy of death, banishment or bonds, or any of the hardships or ignominious punishments which they had suffered in their persons, beside the loss of one hundred pound's worth of their property taken from them for meeting together. This remonstrance of their recent accumulated injuries silencing the Governor, Major General Denison made this unanswerable reply, that they stood against the authority of the country in not submitting to their laws, that he should not go about to speak much of the error of their judgements but added he, you and we are not able well to live together, at present the power is in our hand, and therefore the strongest must fend off.

After this the prisoners were put forth for a while, and being called in again, the sentence of banishment was pronounced against them, and no more than a fortnight's time allowed for them to depart on pain of death; and although they desired a respite to attend to their affairs and till an opportunity of a convenient passage to England might occur, the unrelenting malice of their persecutors would not grant them even this small and reasonable request; so Samuel Shattock, Nicholas Phelps, and Josiah Southick were obliged to take an opportunity that offered four days after, to pass for England by Barbadoes, in order to seek redress from the parliament and council of state there, but without success.

Lawrence and Cassandra Southick went to Shelter Island, where they soon died, within three days of each other; and Joshua Buffum retired to Rhode Island. The proceedings of these haughty rulers are strongly marked throughout with the features of self-importance, inhumanity and bitter malignity, but I know of no instance of a more persevering malice and cruelty, than that wherewith they persecuted the aforesaid Lawrence and Cassandra Southick and their family. First, while members of their church, they were both imprisoned for entertaining strangers, Christopher Holder and John Copeland, a christian duty which the apostle to the Hebrews advises not to be unmindful of; and after seven weeks imprisonment, Cassandra was fined 40 shillings for owning a paper written by the aforesaid persons. Next, for absenting from the public worship and owning the Quakers' doctrine, on the information of one Captain Hawthorne, they, with their son Josiah, were sent to the house of correction and whipped in the coldest season of the year, and at the same time Hawthorne issued his warrant to distrain their goods for absence from their public worship, whereby there were taken from them cattle to the value of œ4, 15 shillings. Again they were imprisoned, with others, for being at a meeting, and Cassandra was again whipped, and upon their joint letter to the magistrates before recited, the other appellants were released, but this family, although they with the rest had suffered the penalty of their cruel law fully, were arbitrarily detained in prison to their great loss and damage, being in the season of the year when their affairs most immediately demanded their attendance; and last of all were banished upon pain of death, as before recited, by a law made while they were imprisoned. Thus despoiled of their property, deprived of their liberty, driven into banishment, and in jeopardy of their lives, for no other crime than meeting apart and

dissenting from the established worship, the sufferings of this inoffensive aged couple ended only with their lives. But the multiplied injuries of this harmless pair were not sufficient to gratify that thirst for vengeance which stimulated these persecutors, while any member of the family remained unmolested. During their detention in prison they left at home a son Daniel and a daughter Provided; these children, not deterred by the unchristian treatment of their parents and brother, felt themselves rather encouraged to follow their steps and relinquish the assemblies of a people whose religion was productive of such relentless persecution; for their absence from which they were fined œ10, though it was well known that they had no estate, their parents having been reduced to poverty by repeated fines and extravagant d?? traints; wherefore to satisfy the fine they were orde ?? to be sold for bond-slaves by the following manda?? "Whereas Daniel Southick and Provided Southick, son and daughter of Lawrence Southick, absenting themselves from the public ordinances, having been fined by the courts of Salem and Ipswich, pretending they have no estates and resolving not to work, the court upon perusal of a law which was made upon account of debts, in answer to what should be done for the satisfaction of the fines, resolves, that the treasurers of the several counties are, and shall be fully empowered to sell the said persons to any of the English Nation at Virginia or Barbadoes, to answer the said fines." Pursuant to this order, Edward Butler, one of the treasurers, sought out for a passage

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for them to Barbadoes for sale, but could find none willing to take them thither. One master of a ship to whom he applied, in order to evade a compliance, pretended they would spoil the ship's company. Butler replied, no, you do not fear that, for they are poor harmless creatures that will not hurt anybody. The master rejoined, will you then offer to make slaves of such harmless creatures? and declined the invidious office of transporting them, as well as the rest. Disappointed in his designs and at a loss how to dispose of them, the winter approaching, he sent them home to shift for themselves till he could find a convenient opportunity to send them away.

Is it strange that a few people became excited unto insanity, after such terrible outrages upon themselves? friends, as to appear naked in public; rather is it not a wonder that more were not made insane? "

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