Margaret Moore vividly conveys the "bad blood" that existed between Quakers
and Puritans and the kinds of cruel punishments Puritans visited upon Quakers
who refused to comply with Puritan practices.
"Another dispute in Salem concerned the Quakers. The early Quakers did not
conduct themselves in a way to guarantee peace. John Higginson (1616-1708),
Salem's minister, had put into the covenant of the church that 'The Quaker
light was a stinking vapour from hell.' The Quakers were people who believed
. . . that 'one did not need the preachings of a learned, salaried ministry
to cultivate the Light and be saved.' But in cultivating the Light, they used
methods that horrified the Puritans. The Salem Quaker group was never large.
It met in the woods on the west of town in the home of Nicholas and Hannah
Phelps and entertained visiting missionaries. The Quakers were repeatedly
fined for not attending the established church, and some were banished. Four
visitors were hanged in Boston. When Charles II ascended the English throne,
the order was given not to kill any more Quakers. Yet the sect continued to
outrage many colonists, and beatings were decreed. The guilty were tied to
a cart, stripped to the waist and whipped through town; even women were punished
in this way by William Hathorne and others. Another Quaker, Thomas Maule of
Salem, was whipped in May 1669 for saying, 'Mr. Higginson preached lies' and
'his instruction was the doctrine of devils'" (13-14).
