It’s easy to look at the Virginia landscapes of past through a filter – to see the differences between then and now, for better or for worse. Yet despite the troves of educational material on the daily life of the early Virginia settler, and despite (or perhaps because of) the great living history sites here in Virginia, we see the histories of Jamestown and Henricus as an idyll.
Harsh conditions perhaps, but a rustic simplicity nonetheless – where virtue was still valued, and neighbors could be trusted.
But the problem with humanity is its habit of acting like humans. If we dare to look honestly at the actions and motives of our predecessors, we will always see more of ourselves in them – or see more of them in us.
On March 6, 1626, a case was heard in James City in the Governor’s council and General Court involving rumor, rape, slander, and ulterior motives. The governor’s body of councilors at the time also served as the colony’s supreme court, and heard matters both civil and criminal on a frequent basis.
We find in the Minutes of the Council and General Court that Joanna Vincent – wife of William Vincent (remember this name) – made an accusation that in the church at Henricus, “there were ffowerteene women in the Church, And that seven of them were Thomas Harris his whoores…” and that “Thomas Harris made faste the doore and would have layne wth a woman in the Plantacione [Bermuda Hundred] against her will.”
In short, Ms. Vincent was spreading rumors – true or not – that Mr. Harris was a pimp and a rapist, and that 50% of the women in their church were his whores.
Thomas Harris had probably been in Virginia since May 1611, and was considered and “Ancient Planter”. He served as a burgess for Bermuda Hundred (modern-day Chester/Enon, VA), and had at least 400 acres of land in this area.
Joanna Vincent had come to Virginia in 1621 or 1622, and fell into legal trouble shortly thereafter. She falsely accused a Ms. Alice Boyse publicly of having a child out of wedlock, seducing a married neighbor, and driving an “arswarde bargane” with her future husband, for which she was convicted and sentenced to apologize in a white sheet in front of the church congregation. She was, in other words, a known gossip.
William Vincent – Joanna’s Husband – was likewise a recent arrival to Virginia. To add another dimension to this story, Mr. Vincent had recently sued both Thomas Harris and his wife over an alleged debt. On March 13, a week after the original case, Thomas Harris, his wife, and another witness appeared once more before the court. William Vincent, however, was did not appear, and was fined to pay 30 pounds of tobacco to each (90 pounds total) for their time and expenses coming to James City.
We can speculate that this suit was brought upon Mr. Harris prior to the case involving Mrs. Vincent’s slander. Mrs. Vincent refused to appear in front of the congregation at Henricus, causing Mr. Harris essentially to appeal to the General Court. A favorable judgment for William Vincent would compromise Harris’s testimony. But Vincent never appeared, and Joanna was indeed convicted and ordered to make restitution for her slander.
This was no patriarchal oppression, in which the word of the man was believed over the word of the woman. The General Court took seriously charges of rape and fornication, and a woman’s testimony was just as valid as a man’s. John Littell was punished with three hours in the stocks in neck and heels (we would consider this torture today) simply for lying consensually with a neighbor’s maid. John Phillips and Joan White were both sentenced to 40 lashes for adultery. John Ewins was given 80 lashes for consensual fornication with Jane Hill, who was likewise convicted, but her punishment was merely to apologize to the congregation. Charles Maxey was, as punishment, forced to execute a 19-year old rapist Thomas Hayle for a lesser sexual offense toward a minor – and then be whipped both at the place of court and the place of offense.
We don’t know what Joanna Vincent’s ultimate punishment was. She was probably ordered by the court to return to Henricus to apologize to the congregation there. But that was not the end of the story. Some modern genealogical records indicate that in 1635, Thomas Harris’s wife died, and he remarried to none other than Joanna Vincent nee Osborne, the same who had accused him earlier of pimping and raping girls in the church.
It is a tangled web worthy of modern headlines – an elected official accused of rape and selling women; an elected official sued by the accuser’s husband; the elected official and accuser eventually marrying.
Likely there was much more to the story than court records suggest, but any explanation would be pure speculation. Motives are elusive, but we can at least take some pleasure in knowing that, despite the idyllic nature of Colonial Virginia, their motives and actions were no less depraved than our own. Perhaps the only difference is it was harder then to invest in, capitalize upon, and profit from the depravity of man.
