The Quaker Executions as Myth and History

Pestana, Carla Gardina

doi:10.2307/2079866

Cited by 28 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Richard Greaves, writing about the origins of the movement in terms of seventeenth-century Protestant sectarianism, has argued that from an initial view of members of the Society of Friends as dangerous sectaries, "Quaker success in commerce and industry [during the 1660s and 1670s] coupled with the renunciation of violence and plotting paved the road to respectability" (Greaves 2001). Carla Pestana discussed the outspoken, confrontational style of the first generation of Quakers, including women like Mary Dyer, and the Quaker transformation during the Restoration era into peaceful quietists (Pestana 1991;Pestana 1993). Fox's 1672 visit to the colonies and those of later Quaker missionaries like John Bowater came as part of a campaign to create greater theological unity and the unity of purpose among widely scattered Quakers.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Fox's 1672 visit to the colonies and those of later Quaker missionaries like John Bowater came as part of a campaign to create greater theological unity and the unity of purpose among widely scattered Quakers. Pestana has also suggested that the first phase of this effort was to recast the more confrontational Quakers of the 1650s as passive martyrs for their faith (Pestana 1993). Richard Allen and Rosemary Moore have focused on the development of Quaker faith and practice under the later Stuarts, the "Second Period" of Quakerism.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

“Our Antient Friends … Are Much Reduced”: Mary and James Wright, the Hopewell Friends Meeting, and Quaker Women in the Southern Backcountry, c. 1720–c. 1790

Knight

2021

Genealogy

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Although the existence of Quakers in Virginia is well known, the best recent surveys of Virginia history devote only passing attention to them, mostly in the context of expanding religious freedoms during the revolutionary era. Few discuss the Quakers themselves or the nature of Quaker settlements although notably, Warren Hofstra, Larry Gragg, and others have studied aspects of the Backcountry Quaker experience. Recent Quaker historiography has reinterpreted the origins of the Quaker faith and the role of key individuals in the movement, including the roles of Quaker women. Numerous studies address Quaker women collectively. Few, however, examine individual families or women of different generations within a single family, and Robynne Rogers Healey has argued for “more biographies of less well-known Quaker women”. This essay uses a four-generation genealogical case study of the Quaker Bowater-Wright family to analyze the development of the Quaker faith in the Virginia backcountry and the lower South and its spread into the Old Northwest. In the backcountry environment, with its geographically isolated settlements and widely dispersed population, early Quaker migrants found fertile ground for both their economic and religious activities. The way of life that developed there differed significantly from the hierarchical Anglican structure of the Tidewater region and the more vocal evangelical groups with their independent congregational structure in the southern backcountry. This article argues that Quaker women played a critical role in shaping Quaker migration and institutional growth in eighteenth and nineteenth century America. It also suggests that the Quaker institutional structure reinforced family connections by creating a close bond that united southern Quakers across a great geographical area.

show abstract

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%