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Colonial America bastardy laws were laws, statutes, or other legal precedents set forth by the English colonies in North America.This page focuses on the rules pertaining to bastardy that became law in the New England colonies of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania from the early seventeenth century to the late eighteenth century.
Throughout the 1700s, even as England's "Bloody Code" took shape, incarceration at hard labor was held out as an acceptable punishment for criminals of various kinds—e.g., those who received a suspended death sentence via the benefit of clergy or a pardon, those who were not transported to the colonies, or those convicted of petty larceny. [14]
The execution of Hugh Despenser the Younger, as depicted in the Froissart of Louis of Gruuthuse. To be hanged, drawn and quartered was a method of torturous capital punishment used principally to execute men convicted of high treason in medieval and early modern Britain and Ireland.
Senator (and future Chief Justice) Oliver Ellsworth was the drafter of the Crimes Act. The Crimes Act of 1790 (or the Federal Criminal Code of 1790), [1] formally titled An Act for the Punishment of Certain Crimes Against the United States, defined some of the first federal crimes in the United States and expanded on the criminal procedure provisions of the Judiciary Act of 1789. [2]
The earliest mention of the punishment appears in orders that Richard I of England issued to his navy on starting for the Holy Land in 1189. "Concerning the lawes and ordinances appointed by King Richard for his navie the forme thereof was this ... item, a thiefe or felon that hath stolen, being lawfully convicted, shal have his head shorne, and boyling pitch poured upon his head, and feathers ...
Gibbeting was a common law punishment, which a judge could impose in addition to execution. As a sentence for murder, this practice was codified in England by the Murder Act 1751 . It was most often used for traitors , robbers , murderers , highwaymen , and pirates and was intended to discourage others from committing similar offenses.
The Piracy Act 1717 (4 Geo. 1.c. 11), sometimes called the Transportation Act 1717 or the Felons' Act 1717 (1718 in New Style [2]), [3] was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain that established a regulated, bonded system to transport criminals to colonies in North America for indentured service, as a punishment for those convicted or attainted in Great Britain, excluding Scotland.
Whipping was the most commonly used form of punishment, especially in the American South with slaves. Other frequently used punishments included branding, cutting off ears, and placing people in the pillory. These punishments were sometimes harsher, depending on the crimes committed. In Colonial America, executions were less common than in Europe.