Rachel Clinton

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Rachel Clinton (née Haffield; c. 1629 – 1694/95), born in Sudbury, Suffolk, England to Richard and Martha Haffield, was a survivor of the Salem witch trials.

Sudbury, Suffolk town in Suffolk, England

Sudbury is a small market town in the English county of Suffolk. It is located on the River Stour near the Essex border, and is 60 miles (97 km) north-east of London. At the 2011 census, the parish has a population of 13,063, rising to 21,971 including the adjoining parish of Great Cornard. It is the largest town of Babergh district council, the local government district, and is represented in the UK Parliament as part of the South Suffolk constituency.

England Country in north-west Europe, part of the United Kingdom

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to the west and Scotland to the north-northwest. The Irish Sea lies west of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south. The country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain, which lies in the North Atlantic, and includes over 100 smaller islands, such as the Isles of Scilly and the Isle of Wight.

Salem witch trials Whatchu mean fam?

The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. More than 200 people were accused, 19 of whom were found guilty and executed by hanging. One other man, Giles Corey, was crushed to death for refusing to plead, and at least five people died in jail. It was the deadliest witch hunt in the history of the United States.

Contents

Early years

In the spring of 1635 the Haffield family emigrated to New England and sailed upon a ship named The Planter. [1] Rachel was one of five daughters and her mother had been a maid-servant who was later deemed to be mentally insane. Rachel grew up in an affluent household although the Haffield family fortune was ever dwindling.[ citation needed ]

New England Region of the United States

New England is a region composed of six states of the northeastern United States: Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and north, respectively. The Atlantic Ocean is to the east and southeast, and Long Island Sound is to the south. Boston is New England's largest city as well as the capital of Massachusetts. The largest metropolitan area is Greater Boston with nearly a third of the entire region's population, which also includes Worcester, Massachusetts, Manchester, New Hampshire, and Providence, Rhode Island.

In 1639 Rachel's father died and her mother rented out sections of their property to tenants as well as earning an income from spinning (textiles). Her father's will stipulated that his estate be divided evenly among his wife and five daughters. The will triggered years of quarrels and bitterness in the family, particularly in regard to the children of his first marriage. Rachel therefore passed her later childhood years in the absence of an older male in the family as she had no brothers, an atypical situation for the era. The mental condition of her mother continued to deteriorate in the ensuing years and she was declared "non compos mentis" in 1666 by local magistrates. [1]

Spinning is the twisting together of drawn-out strands of fibers to form yarn, and is a major part of the textile industry. The yarn is then used to create textiles, which are then used to make clothing and many other products. There are several industrial processes available to spin yarn, as well as hand-spinning techniques where the fiber is drawn out, twisted, and wound onto a bobbin.

The Latin non compos mentis translates as "of unsound mind": nōn ("not") prefaces compos mentis, meaning "having control of one's mind". This phrase was first used in thirteenth-century English law.

Marriage

Rachel, at age 36, married Lawrence Clinton, who was some fourteen years her junior. [1] Legal proceedings during this entire period were still underway regarding the estate of her late father and Rachel became an unfortunate loser. It was never made clear whether she ever received monies from her rightful inheritance and solicitation was acrimonious to the extent that she descended into destitution having fallen out of favour with her husband.

In 1671 Rachel accused her husband of not providing her with regular maintenance and he was sentenced to prison until he "hath paid her 40 shillings for times past". Rachel herself was ordered "to entertain him as her husband when he comes to her". Further legal problems presented themselves when in September 1676 the court convicted Mary Greeley, a maidservant, of "committing fornication with Lawrence Clinton". [1]

Prison place in which people legally are physically confined and usually deprived of a range of personal freedoms

A prison, also known as a correctional facility, jail, gaol, penitentiary, detention center, remand center, or internment facility, is a facility in which inmates are forcibly confined and denied a variety of freedoms under the authority of the state. Prisons are most commonly used within a criminal justice system: people charged with crimes may be imprisoned until their trial; those pleading or being found guilty of crimes at trial may be sentenced to a specified period of imprisonment. In simplest terms, a prison can also be described as a building in which people are legally held as a punishment for a crime they have committed.

Fornication Unmarried sexual intercourse

Fornication is generally consensual sexual intercourse between two people not married to each other. When one of the partners to consensual sexual intercourse is a married person, it may be described as adultery.

Soon after, Rachel petitioned for divorce but was herself imprisoned for pursuing an extra-marital affair with a man called John Ford. Both were incarcerated on "suspicion of uncleanliness and other evil practises". [1] The two were bound to maintain 'good behaviour' and the relationship with Ford ended. She renewed her efforts to obtain a divorce from Lawrence Clinton, who married again although not divorced from Rachel, sired children, and continued to come before the courts on minor charges of fraud.

Divorce, also known as dissolution of marriage, is the process of terminating a marriage or marital union. Divorce usually entails the canceling or reorganizing of the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage, thus dissolving the bonds of matrimony between a married couple under the rule of law of the particular country or state. Divorce laws vary considerably around the world, but in most countries divorce requires the sanction of a court or other authority in a legal process, which may involve issues of distribution of property, child custody, alimony, child visitation / access, parenting time, child support, and division of debt. In most countries, monogamy is required by law, so divorce allows each former partner to marry another person; where polygyny is legal but polyandry is not, divorce allows the woman to marry another person.

Allegations

From this point on Rachel was forced to beg for money to support herself and it is at this stage in her life that allegations of witchcraft begin to appear. A variety of Ipswich, Massachusetts residents were called to give sworn depositions against her in 1692. Allegations were made by a Mary Fuller that Rachel had caused the death of a neighbour simply by passing her by. Another witness, Thomas Boreman, described an incident in the Ipswich meeting-house where "Some women of worth and quality" had accused Rachel of "hunching them with her elbow". [1] Boreman further alluded that Rachel was able to shape-shift into creatures including a dog and a turtle.[ citation needed ]

William Baker, a third deponent, attributed the loss of a quantity of beer to Rachel by supernatural means. These are a few examples of dozens of allegations made against Rachel which established her infamy as a practicant of witchcraft. She was alleged to have passed people in the street and yelled "hellhound" [1] and "whoremasterly rogue" [1] at them.

Last Years and Death

Rachel's vulnerabilities made her a target for predators of the day, including her husband Lawrence, who made use of the Salem Witch Trials to exploit and vilify impoverished women who had fallen through the social classes and from grace when entering the arena of poverty.

Rachel Clinton died destitute in late 1694 or during the first week of January 1695 at Ipswich, Essex County, Massachusetts. Although the date of her death does not appear in formal records, on January 7, 1695 the administration of her estate was granted to a Ruth White [ who? ] of Wenham. [1]

Footnotes

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Putnam Demos, John (1983), Entertaining Satan: witchcraft and the culture of early New England, Oxford University Press US, ISBN   978-0-19-503378-6

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