Making Sense of History: Connecting Quebec to Freedom of Religion

In Baie Comeau, Quebec, when I was growing up, there was an old cannon with a historical plaque that told this cannon had belonged to the American forces defeated by the French in 1690, under the command of William Phipps. What was missing was some of the background of the story. Strangely enough, this defeat for Phipps was almost directly connected to the first Amendment in the American constitution, which guarantees freedom of religion.

In 1690, the Massachusetts colony was still largely Puritan, and still executed people for witchcraft.
Williams Phipps was appointed commander of an expedition in 1690 to conquer Quebec, but was defeated. In 1692, after his defeat at the hands of the French, his next big claim to fame was appointing a commission to try the Salem witches. Nineteen people were executed, and in the revulsion that followed this travesty of justice, came the virtual end of the Puritan religion in America.

Less than a hundred years later, the US constitution was written and by connecting just a few historical dots, you can assume the "Separation of Church and State" owed much to the fear of religious extremism following Salem.

But though the Puritan name has disappeared, the core values of Puritanism have not really disappeared in the USA. In the year 2009, we still have several major religious groups in the USA, who inherit much of their core beliefs to the Puritans.

If you would like to see how similar your own religion is to the Puritans, try this questionnaire. If your church scores full points on every question, you might as well be fresh off the Mayflower.

• You believe in faith healing
• You believe that prayers are answered with material gain involving some supernatural force
• You believe that witchcraft exists
• You believe that the cure for witches is execution.
• You do not believe that doing good work is necessary for going to heaven
• You believe that every word of the Bible is true

Now interpret these passages according to your religion, what do they mean?
Psalms 2:8:
"Ask of me, and I shall give thee, the heathen for thine inheritance,
and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession."

• Do you believe this gives God's chosen people the right to dominate all the Earth?
• Do you believe you are God's chosen people mentioned in this passage?
• Do you believe this gives the chosen people the right to use superior firepower to exercise this domination?
• That this word "domination" permits massacres of native women and children.

First Chronicles 16:30
"Fear before him, all the earth: the world also shall be stable, that it be not moved."

• Do you believe this quotation means the Earth does not move through space?
• You believe the end of the world is coming with the return of Jesus
• You believe that the Earth is less than 7000 years old.
• You believe that God created man in his image, and Adam was the first man (explanation, this took place before the age of Darwin, and there was no theory of evolution., But but if they had know about it, the Puritans would almost certainly have disapproved of Darwin.)
• You believe that women were created to serve men and obey them.
• You believe that dancing is evil
• You do not believe in the separation of Church and state

Generally, when teaching history, the events of the invasion of 1690, the witch trials, and the writing of the US constitution are treated as entirely unrelated. But if Phipps had succeeded in his invasion, there would never have been any witch trials. I suppose this is debatable, but typically a victorious people tend to behave differently from a people who upon losing a war, are now required to pay for it. I would argue that the Americans would have been far too busy revelling in their victory than stewing about their defeat. So, in my opinion, if Phipps had succeeded in taking Quebec, there would be no witch trials. With a military victory behind them, the Puritans would have been a force in American politics for the next 50 years at least. Also, quite possibly no American revolution would have taken place. But instead some people in Salem retreated into extremism and what you might even call some delusional behaviour.

The modern, conventional view is that the Salem Witch trials were a weird anomaly of American history. They were quaint, and the only lessons we can take from them are the McCarthy anti-communist campaign, and the anti-gay campaign when AIDS first appeared. Both were referred to as "Witch Hunts". But no mention is made of the fact that many existing right wing religious groups are based on Puritan ideas, and still believe in witchcraft.

People today find it amazing that back then they believed in witchcraft in this video

Parallels are made to the McCarthy era communist-hunt, and persecution of homosexuals
http://www.salemwitchmuseum.com/education/index.shtml
http://www.salemwitchmuseum.com/about/exhibit.shtml

William Phips who tried to conquer Quebec and was defeated.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Phipps

The following history web page tries to explain why the witch hunting frenzy took place, mentions everything but the fact that they were Puritans.

"Why did this travesty of justice occur? Why did it occur in Salem? Nothing about this tragedy was inevitable. Only an unfortunate combination of an ongoing frontier war, economic conditions, congregational strife, teenage boredom, and personal jealousies can account for the spiraling accusations, trials, and executions that occurred in the spring and summer of 1692."