Samuel Sewall was a 1600’s-1700’s puritan judge in early America. He is interesting, however, because he both adheres to and deviates from customary puritan conduct.
To begin, take a look at how Samuel is an archetypal puritan. One typical trait of puritans is that in the face of misfortune, puritans would look to themselves and ask what they had done wrong to elicit a punishment from god or guidance from Jesus. Samuel exhibits this trait a number of times in his diary. One such example is when his house is broken into. He describes it as such: “My house was broken open in two places, and about twenty pounds worth of plate stolen away, and some Iinen; my spoon and knife and neckcloth was taken. I said, is not this an answer to prayer? Jane came up and gave us the alarm betime in the morn. I was helped to submit to Christ's
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During Samuel’s time period, puritans supported slavery just as they believe Abraham did. Samuel, on the other hand, strayed from classic puritan beliefs and found slavery to be a non-puritan practice. He equates owning slaves to man stealing which is “ranked amongst the most atrocious of capital crimes.” Being that a capital crime is punishable by death, and Samuel feels slavery is a capital crime, it is clear he against commonly held puritan beliefs. To even further digress from customary puritan stances on equality, he questions at one point if blacks will become white and women will become men after the resurrection. Additionally, Samuel differs from his puritan brethren in the fact that he was the only person to publically apologize for the Salem witch craft trials. In a public speech Samuel said “Samuel Sewall… more concerned than any that he knows of, desires to take the blame and shame of [the Salem witch trials]…” His speech set him strides apart from any other puritan because he owned up to his