Judith Catchpole, a young

maidservant A handmaiden, handmaid or maidservant is a personal maid or female servant. Depending on culture or historical period, a handmaiden may be of slave status or may be simply an employee. However, the term ''handmaiden'' generally implies lowly s ...

colonial America The colonial history of the United States covers the history of European colonization of North America from the early 17th century until the incorporation of the Thirteen Colonies into the United States after the Revolutionary War. In the ...

, was tried in 1656 for

witchcraft Witchcraft traditionally means the use of magic or supernatural powers to harm others. A practitioner is a witch. In medieval and early modern Europe, where the term originated, accused witches were usually women who were believed to have u ...

and

infanticide Infanticide (or infant homicide) is the intentional killing of infants or offspring. Infanticide was a widespread practice throughout human history that was mainly used to dispose of unwanted children, its main purpose is the prevention of resou ...

before one of the earliest all-female

juries A jury is a sworn body of people (jurors) convened to hear evidence and render an impartial verdict (a finding of fact on a question) officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment. Juries developed in England duri ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

. According to popular belief, all-female juries did not occur until much later. The state of

Wyoming Wyoming () is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the southwest, and Colorado to the sou ...

claims the first all woman jury was empaneled in Laramie on March 7, 1870. Even after the Nineteenth Amendment to the

U.S. Constitution The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, in 1789. Originally comprising seven articles, it delineates the nationa ...

was passed in 1920, not all states permitted all female juries. Catchpole was an

indentured servant Indentured servitude is a form of labor in which a person is contracted to work without salary for a specific number of years. The contract, called an " indenture", may be entered "voluntarily" for purported eventual compensation or debt repaymen ...

in the

colony In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the ''metropole, metropolit ...

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; ...

, arriving there by boat from the

Commonwealth of England The Commonwealth was the political structure during the period from 1649 to 1660 when England and Wales, later along with Ireland and Scotland, were governed as a republic after the end of the Second English Civil War and the trial and e ...

in January 1656. Upon her arrival she was accused of several

crime In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Ca ...

s, resulting in a

trial In law, a trial is a coming together of parties to a dispute, to present information (in the form of evidence) in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court. The tribun ...

on September 22, 1656 in the General Provincial Court in Patuxent County, Maryland. This trial was the first to have an all-female

jury A jury is a sworn body of people (jurors) convened to hear evidence and render an impartial verdict (a finding of fact on a question) officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment. Juries developed in England du ...

in colonial Maryland and one of the earliest in colonial America.

Circumstances

Catchpole was accused of murdering her child and of other bizarre acts, by the

of William Bramhall, a fellow passenger on the ship "Mary and Francis"; her accuser died after making the accusations. She was accused of killing her child, cutting the throat of a female passenger while the woman was asleep, and

stabbing A stabbing is penetration or rough contact with a sharp or pointed object at close range. ''Stab'' connotes purposeful action, as by an assassin or murderer, but it is also possible to accidentally stab oneself or others. Stabbing differs fr ...

seaman Seaman may refer to: * Sailor, a member of a marine watercraft's crew * Seaman (rank), a military rank in some navies * Seaman (name) (including a list of people with the name) * ''Seaman'' (video game), a 1999 simulation video game for the Seg ...

in the back. Before he died he made known his accusations to other passengers, stating that Catchpole had committed these acts while the other passengers were asleep. No other passengers substantiated these accusations, nor could any account for how Catchpole had hidden a

pregnancy Pregnancy is the time during which one or more offspring develops ( gestates) inside a woman's uterus (womb). A multiple pregnancy involves more than one offspring, such as with twins. Pregnancy usually occurs by sexual intercourse, but ...

during the voyage and given

birth Birth is the act or process of bearing or bringing forth offspring, also referred to in technical contexts as parturition. In mammals, the process is initiated by hormones which cause the muscular walls of the uterus to contract, expelling the ...

on a small ship without others seeing evidence of this. Catchpole claimed she had never been pregnant. It was decided that an all-female jury was needed because the issues of pregnancy and birth required female

expertise An expert is somebody who has a broad and deep understanding and competence in terms of knowledge, skill and experience through practice and education in a particular field. Informally, an expert is someone widely recognized as a reliable sou ...

. Composed of seven married women and four single women, the trial was ordered by the General Provincial Court at Patuxent for September 22, 1656. In order to determine if Catchpole had murdered her own infant, the jury was to inspect Catchpole's body to find

evidence Evidence for a proposition is what supports this proposition. It is usually understood as an indication that the supported proposition is true. What role evidence plays and how it is conceived varies from field to field. In epistemology, eviden ...

that she had been pregnant and given birth to a child. The jury inspected Catchpole's body and concluded that she had not recently given birth. Other

witness In law, a witness is someone who has knowledge about a matter, whether they have sensed it or are testifying on another witnesses' behalf. In law a witness is someone who, either voluntarily or under compulsion, provides testimonial evidence, e ...

es gave

testimony In law and in religion, testimony is a solemn attestation as to the truth of a matter. Etymology The words "testimony" and "testify" both derive from the Latin word ''testis'', referring to the notion of a disinterested third-party witness. ...

that the man making the accusations was "not in sound mind". Additional hearsay evidence was presented that the male accuser had spoken of

and told other bizarre stories. He had said that after slitting the woman's throat, she sewed it back up before the woman awoke, and that she rubbed grease on the back of the fatally wounded seaman and he came back to life. The jury gave little credence to the charges of witchcraft, and seeing no evidence of childbirth, acquitted Catchpole of all charges.

Significance

Judith Catchpole was tried before the first all-woman jury to serve in colonial Maryland. The judicial practices of

common law In law, common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions."The common law is not a brooding omniprese ...

in colonial America often arose from the need to accommodate to practical situations. In the case of Judith Catchpole, the expertise of women was needed to decide whether she had been pregnant and given birth to a child. In general however, women were not allowed to serve on juries in the

, even after the Nineteenth Amendment was passed in 1920 giving women the right to vote.

Footnotes

External links

Jury of Her Peers
{{DEFAULTSORT:Catchpole, Judith 17th-century American people 1656 in law 17th-century American women American indentured servants People acquitted of witchcraft People of colonial Maryland American domestic workers