How we cite our quotes:
Quote #7
“Quakers cause trouble wherever they go. They speak out against our faith. Of course, we don’t torment them here in Connecticut. In Boston I’ve heard they even hanged some Quakers. This Hannah Tupper and her husband was branded and driven out of Massachusetts. They were thankful enough just to be let alone here in Wethersfield.” (10.18)
As Aunt Rachel tells Kit, the Quakers were not tolerated by the Puritans. In some areas, they were even tortured, branded, and killed.
Quote #8
“People are afraid of things they don’t understand.” (11.58)
Kit says this to Prudence in order to explain why Hannah, as a Quaker, is isolated from the Puritan society of Wethersfield. What does Kit mean? How are her words true?
Quote #9
That for stealing pumpkins from a field, and for kindling a fire in a dwelling they three shall be seated in the stocks from one hour before the Lecture till one hour after. That they shall pay a fine of forty shillings each, and they be forbidden hereafter, on certainty of thirty lashes at the whipping post, to enter the boundaries of the township of Wethersfield. (16.31)
The town’s punishment for Nat’s vandalism is a day in the stocks; he is then to be banished from Wethersfield. Why is it important that Nat is publicly punished in this manner? What do these punishments mean?