Poet’s Note

Poet’s Note

The Massachusetts Bay Colony hanged four Quakers, two of them – William Robinson and Marmaduke Stevenson – in 1659, then Mary Dyer in 1660 and finally, William Leddra in 1661.

Puritan rulers were convinced that all Quakers were dangerous heretics who carried a spiritual disease that might infect the common people of Massachusetts. The Massachusetts General Court jailed Quakers, whipped then, burned Quaker books and pamphlets and banished Quakers upon pain of death. When these Quakers continued to defy sentences of banishment, the Puritans hanged them.