The Massachusetts Body of Liberties was the first legal code established in

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the Can ...

, compiled by

Puritan The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become more Protestant. ...

minister

Nathaniel Ward Nathaniel Ward (1578 – October 1652) was a Puritan clergyman and pamphleteer in England and Massachusetts. Biography A son of John Ward, a noted Puritan minister, he was born in Haverhill, Suffolk, England. He studied law and graduated fr ...

. The laws were established by the

Massachusetts General Court The Massachusetts General Court (formally styled the General Court of Massachusetts) is the State legislature (United States), state legislature of the Massachusetts, Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The name "General Court" is a hold-over from th ...

in 1641. The Body of Liberties begins by establishing the exclusive right of the General Court to legislate and dictate the "Countenance of Authority". In 1684, King Charles II revoked the Body of Liberties and reinstated English law over the Commonwealth.

King James II James VII and II (14 October 1633 16 September 1701) was King of England and King of Ireland as James II, and King of Scotland as James VII from the death of his elder brother, Charles II, on 6 February 1685. He was deposed in the Glorious Re ...

established the Massachusetts Colony, and the Body of Liberties took effect and remained so until it was replaced by the 1691 Provincial Charter.Encyclopedia of American civil liberties, Volume 1, Ed. Paul Finkelman, entry written by Sherrow Pinder, CRC Press, 2006, , page 979. Though towns such as Dedham and

Watertown Watertown may refer to: Places in China In China, a water town is a type of ancient scenic town known for its waterways. Places in the United States *Watertown, Connecticut, a New England town **Watertown (CDP), Connecticut, the central village ...

had already established them, the Body of Liberties recognized boards of selectmen for the first time.

Rights acknowledged

The Body of Liberties was one of the earliest protections of

individual rights Group rights, also known as collective rights, are rights held by a group '' qua'' a group rather than individually by its members; in contrast, individual rights are rights held by individual people; even if they are group-differentiated, which ...

in America.Bernard Schwartz, ''The great rights of mankind: a history of the American Bill of Rights'', Rowman & Littlefield, 1992, 0945612281, page 51. Unlike many of the English sources of the time, the Body of Liberties was express in many of its grants and far more supportive of individual rights. Despite the grants, the rights were modifiable by the General Court. To varying degrees, the document contained rights that would later be included in the

Bill of Rights A bill of rights, sometimes called a declaration of rights or a charter of rights, is a list of the most important rights to the citizens of a country. The purpose is to protect those rights against infringement from public officials and pr ...

. Many of the other rights are now considered fundamental components of

procedural due process Procedural due process is a legal doctrine in the United States that requires government officials to follow fair procedures before depriving a person of life, liberty, or property. When the government seeks to deprive a person of one of those in ...

, such as rights to notice and hearing before the court. The rights also contained in the Bill of Rights included freedom of speech, a right against uncompensated takings, a right to bail, a right to jury trial, a right against cruel and unusual punishment, and a right against

double jeopardy In jurisprudence, double jeopardy is a procedural defence (primarily in common law jurisdictions) that prevents an accused person from being tried again on the same (or similar) charges following an acquittal or conviction and in rare case ...

. There is a partial prohibition of

monopolies A monopoly (from Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situation where a speci ...

: In addition, the Body of Liberties also contained other individual rights, including a prohibition of a compulsory

draft Draft, The Draft, or Draught may refer to: Watercraft dimensions * Draft (hull), the distance from waterline to keel of a vessel * Draft (sail), degree of curvature in a sail * Air draft, distance from waterline to the highest point on a vesse ...

except for territorial defense; prohibition of an

estate tax An inheritance tax is a tax paid by a person who inherits money or property of a person who has died, whereas an estate tax is a levy on the estate (money and property) of a person who has died. International tax law distinguishes between an es ...

; the freedom of all "house holders" to fishing and fowling on public land; and a declaration that a married woman should be "free from bodilie correction or stripes by her husband."The Massachusetts Body of Liberties (1641)
at Hanover Historical Texts Project. The Body of Liberties also contained regulations against "Tirranny or Crueltie" toward domestic animals, which were the first American modern animal protection laws.

Slavery

Some of the liberties legislated are explicitly cited as originating from biblical sources. Many of the liberties established still exist in both and law and practice in the Commonwealth today, but some do not. The justification for slavery of Africans in Passage 91 of the Body of Liberties was likely based on an interpretation of scriptural passages of the

New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Chri ...

, such as Ephesians 6:5 and Titus 2:9. Full liberties and political rights were extended only to men who had been approved as members of their local

church. Native Americans taken prisoner during wars were shipped to the

West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greate ...

, where they would be slaves on the sugar cane plantations. Returning ships brought African-born and -descended slaves to New England.Gallay, Alan. (2002) ''The Indian Slave Trade: The Rise of the English Empire in the American South 1670–1717''. Yale University Press: New York. , pg. 7, 299-320 Slavery was legal in Massachusetts until 1780 and ended with the passage of the

Constitution of Massachusetts The Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is the fundamental governing document of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, one of the 50 individual state governments that make up the United States of America. As a member of the Massachuset ...

External links

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Massachusetts Body Of Liberties 1641 in law Body of Liberties Body of Liberties Political charters Civil liberties in the United States Thirteen Colonies documents