I found a curious item in researching daily events that is interesting in and of itself but also for what a small gathering in a tavern for an evening of entertainment reveals about the different characteristics of early American colonies. These differences may seem silly or even dangerous to the modern reader but they speak to the values people from another time held dear. Additionally, reviewing the events may provide insight into the ways American culture has evolved over the centuries.

On August 27, 1665 William Darby, Cornelius Watkinson, and Philip Howard performed the first known play in America entitled Ye Bare and Ye Cubbe (modern: The Bear and the Cub). Darby wrote the play and the troupe performed at the Fowlkes Tavern* in Accomack, Virginia. The play drew a strong and immediate reaction from one audience member, an Edward Martin, who claimed the play was profane and blasphemous. Martin was so distraught he went to the local magistrate providing a sworn statement in support of a criminal charge. Apparently, the play was immediately shutdown and on November 16, 1665, the magistrate charged Darby and his actors with blasphemy (known then informally by the more colorful phrase “public wickedness”). Darby was arrested and held for trial while the sheriff detained Watkinson and Howard until they could provide surety for their appearances in court.

The trial moved forward on December 18, 1665 in the local county court at the same Fowlkes Tavern. The panel of judges held that they could not rule on something they had not seen so they ordered the defendants to perform Darby’s play. After the performance, the panel dismissed the charge finding no offensive content. They then ordered Martin to appear to show cause why he should not be fined for filing a false charge. On January 16, 1666, the court ordered Martin to pay the costs of trial including the expenses of Darby’s incarceration. The final outcome must have felt like sweet justice for Darby.

So just what was it that offended Martin so much that he felt the need to seek criminal charges? Nobody today knows. The script has not survived nor have any descriptions of the play or the performance. For the 2007 celebration of the founding of Jamestown, a local group re-created the play with a political theme assuming the title was a reference to England as the mother country represented by the bear and Virginia as the cub. The modern writers claimed the play was an early protest to England’s overbearing colonial policies. Speaking or writing subversive content was a crime in 17th century Virginia. The potential criminal offenses were either treason (speaking out against the king) or blasphemy (speaking out against accepted religious values).

The modern writers’ interpretation is speculative at best. Virginians in the 1600s were generally pro-monarchy and the king had been returned to the throne by 1665. Authorities in Virginia would be far more likely to find royal dissent offensive at this time. Most likely Ye Bare and Ye Cubbe crossed a moral line for Martin. Several sources indicate that Martin was a Quaker. A few Quakers and Puritans lived in Virginia but they were a small minority. Most of these more stridently devout Christians lived in the north. Virginia was never a destination for religious minorities the way Massachusetts, Maryland, and Pennsylvania were.

No one should be surprised that the first known play in America took place in a southern colony. Theater in the Restoration Era trended towards increasingly ribald and coarse themes. (England discarded Cromwell’s Commonwealth a year after he died in 1660 returning Charles’ son Charles II to the throne). In the 17th century, many viewed theaters as dens of iniquity akin to brothels. A contemporary English commentator described the theater as a center of vice: “it was a place where playwright, player [actor], and audience met to collude in sin.” [1]

The Puritans and Pilgrims who dominated northern colonies undoubtedly frowned on stage productions. It is hard to imagine that Massachusetts which would be conducting witch trials by the end of the century would allow the production of any play. Theater productions were far more numerous in southern colonies until later in the colonial era. If Martin was a Quaker, it might explain why he seemed to be the only person offended in Virginia. That said, Virginians were not irreligious by any means. Virginia law required church attendance on Sunday, created similar morality codes banning gambling, prostitution, fornication, theft, murder, etc. and both enforced blasphemy as a crime.

In November of 1654 the General Court heard a case against William Hatcher who falsely accused Colonel Edward Hill, Speaker of the House of Burgesses of being an “atheist and blasphemer.” [2] Upon being found guilty, Hatcher was required to “make a humble acknowledgement of his offence” on his knees before Colonel Hill in the presence of the House of Burgesses. [3] Virginia passed its own blasphemy statute in 1657 that did not define what constituted an offense but set the punishment as the loss of the ability to appear in court as a witness and hold public office. This sanction may not at first sound harsh, but without the ability to be a witness, the offender could not file a lawsuit and legally enforce his rights. He would also be denied the right to participate directly in the creation of laws as a burgesses. The punishment in fact denied some key rights important to early Americans. In 1675, the Burgesses enhanced the sanction for blasphemy requiring a hot iron to be bored through the tongue of a convicted defendant. As harsh as these penalties may be though, Massachusetts’ blasphemy law enacted in 1641 carried the death penalty. Commonalities existed, but each colony probably had their own standards of what constituted blasphemy and the legal sanctions indicate different priorities.

Blasphemy was not confined to American colonies, it was a prohibited form of speech throughout the British Empire. Perhaps surprisingly, though blasphemy disappeared from American law books by 1789, the law the United Kingdom only repealed the law in 2008. The Burgesses may have intentionally omitted a definition of blasphemy because pinning down what statements were blasphemous proved difficult in English jurisprudence. One person’s blasphemy is another’s statement of faith. Even with over 400 years of judicial precedent, the UK Law Commission wrote in 1985:”there is no one agreed definition of blasphemy and blasphemous libel.” [4] Parliament struggled with creating a suitable legal standard beginning in the 1500s and continued unsuccessfully grappling with the problem well into the 20th century. They made attempts over the centuries which all failed to formulate a lasting solution.

England also did not have freedom of speech as we understand it today, but the concept existed in limited form in the 1600s. A provision of 1215’s Magna Carta guaranteed freedom of speech, however in the following 400 years the protection had all but disappeared. Freedom of speech remained a principle often asserted by opponents of authority but not a right in practice. The same could be said of religious freedom. England was the first European Christian nation to break away form the Catholic Church. Having opened Pandora’s Box to Protestant beliefs, England was more tolerant of religious dissent. Nevertheless, Anglicanism was (and still is) England’s official national religious denomination and although some variance of thought was permitted in the 17th century, there were limits.

Sometimes a novel historical event reveals much more than one might perceive at first. Today, the production of a subversive or immoral play would not raise an eyebrow. 350 years ago though the playwright and actors would be putting their rights, health and lives at stake. Blasphemy combines elements of freedom of speech and freedom of religion. The English established the idea of free speech and a right to follow one’s conscience. Their American cousins would advance these principles to their full fruition.

It is worth noting that a majority of human beings around the world today do not enjoy these basic freedoms. We are fortunate, our Founders enshrined these rights into the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights. They are now so ingrained in our culture, no one would even contemplate passing a law limiting political criticism or expression of diverse (or no) religious views. The legal case that sprung from the performance of the play may have been an early step in American tolerance of political and/or religious dissent. We may take these rights for granted these days but looking back at Ye Bare and Ye Cubbe illustrates just how different conditions were in 1665 and how far principles of individual liberties have come in the United States.

Footnotes

[1] Manning, David. “ʹThe Devilʹs Centres of Operationʹ: English Theatre and the Charge of Blasphemy, 1698-1708.” In Negotiating the Sacred II: Blasphemy and Sacrilege in the Arts, edited by Coleman Elizabeth Burns and Fernandes-Dias Maria Suzette, 23-36. ANU Press, 2008. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt24hb6q.8. p. 24.

[2] Hening’s Statutes at Large, Laws of Virginia: November 1654 http://vagenweb.org/hening/

[3] Ibid., Laws of Virginia: November 1657

[4] The United Kingdom Law Commission: Criminal Law, Offences Against Religion and Public Worship. London: Her Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1985, p. 10.

Sources

Bogart, Anne, A Director Prepares. New York: Routledge, 2001.

Campbell , Charles, History of Colony and Ancient Dominion of Virginia. Onancock, VA: The Eastern Shore News, Inc., 1964.

Hening’s Statutes at Large, Vol. I (1619-1660)

Manning, David. “ʹThe Devilʹs Centres of Operationʹ: English Theatre and the Charge of Blasphemy, 1698-1708.” In Negotiating the Sacred II: Blasphemy and Sacrilege in the Arts, edited by Coleman Elizabeth Burns and Fernandes-Dias Maria Suzette, 23-36. ANU Press, 2008. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt24hb6q.8

Johnson, Odai and Burling, William J., The Colonial American Stage, 1665-1774: A Documentary Calendar. London: Associated University Presses, 2001

Pestana, Carla Gardina. “The Social World of Salem: William King’s 1681 Blasphemy Trial.” American Quarterly 41, no. 2 (1989): 308-27. doi:10.2307/2713027.

Turman, Nora Miller, The Eastern Shore of Virginia 1603-1964. Onancock, VA: The Eastern Shore News, Inc. 1964.

The United Kingdom Law Commission: Criminal Law, Offences Against Religion and Public Worship. London: Her Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1985

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