{"title":"可怜的婴儿,绝望的母亲:弗吉尼亚早期死亡新生儿的隐藏","authors":"J. Pagan","doi":"10.1353/hlq.2021.0024","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"abstract:In 1624, Parliament passed An Act to Prevent the Destroying and Murdering of Bastard Children. The Virginia General Assembly enacted a similar law in 1710. Those statutes treated the concealment of a nonmarital newborn's death as presumptive murder. The essay argues that colonial Virginians' main objective in enforcing these acts was to scare pregnant servants into revealing their condition so that their masters could extract additional service without pay. Convictions for concealment alone, and not willful murder, rarely, if ever, resulted in execution. Deterrence was achieved through show trials and the criminal process, mitigated by a liberal pardon policy.","PeriodicalId":45445,"journal":{"name":"HUNTINGTON LIBRARY QUARTERLY","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4000,"publicationDate":"2022-02-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"Poor Babes, Desperate Mothers: Concealment of Dead Newborns in Early Virginia\",\"authors\":\"J. Pagan\",\"doi\":\"10.1353/hlq.2021.0024\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"abstract:In 1624, Parliament passed An Act to Prevent the Destroying and Murdering of Bastard Children. The Virginia General Assembly enacted a similar law in 1710. Those statutes treated the concealment of a nonmarital newborn's death as presumptive murder. The essay argues that colonial Virginians' main objective in enforcing these acts was to scare pregnant servants into revealing their condition so that their masters could extract additional service without pay. Convictions for concealment alone, and not willful murder, rarely, if ever, resulted in execution. Deterrence was achieved through show trials and the criminal process, mitigated by a liberal pardon policy.\",\"PeriodicalId\":45445,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"HUNTINGTON LIBRARY QUARTERLY\",\"volume\":null,\"pages\":null},\"PeriodicalIF\":0.4000,\"publicationDate\":\"2022-02-22\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"\",\"citationCount\":\"0\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"HUNTINGTON LIBRARY QUARTERLY\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"1085\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://doi.org/10.1353/hlq.2021.0024\",\"RegionNum\":3,\"RegionCategory\":\"社会学\",\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"Q4\",\"JCRName\":\"MATERIALS SCIENCE, CHARACTERIZATION & TESTING\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"HUNTINGTON LIBRARY QUARTERLY","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1353/hlq.2021.0024","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"MATERIALS SCIENCE, CHARACTERIZATION & TESTING","Score":null,"Total":0}
Poor Babes, Desperate Mothers: Concealment of Dead Newborns in Early Virginia
abstract:In 1624, Parliament passed An Act to Prevent the Destroying and Murdering of Bastard Children. The Virginia General Assembly enacted a similar law in 1710. Those statutes treated the concealment of a nonmarital newborn's death as presumptive murder. The essay argues that colonial Virginians' main objective in enforcing these acts was to scare pregnant servants into revealing their condition so that their masters could extract additional service without pay. Convictions for concealment alone, and not willful murder, rarely, if ever, resulted in execution. Deterrence was achieved through show trials and the criminal process, mitigated by a liberal pardon policy.