I am under the deepest obligations to the Hon. Mellen Chamberlain and Mr. Charles Deane.
The generosity of my friend Mr. Frank Hamilton Cushing in putting at my disposal the unpublished results of his researches among the Zuñis is in keeping with the originality and power of his mind. Without his aid my attempt would have been impossible. I have also to thank Prof. Henry C. Chapman, J. A. Gordon, M. D., Prof. William James, and Alpheus Hyatt, Esq., for the kindness with which they assisted me. I feel that any merit this volume may possess is due to these gentlemen; its faults are all my own.
BROOKS ADAMS.
QUINCY, September 17, 1886.
CONTENTS
PREFATORY NOTE TO FIRST EDITION.
THE EMANCIPATION OF MASSACHUSETTS.
CHAPTER I. — THE COMMONWEALTH.
CHAPTER II. — THE ANTINOMIANS.
CHAPTER III. — THE CAMBRIDGE PLATFORM.
CHAPTER IV. — THE ANABAPTISTS.
CHAPTER VI. — THE SCIRE FACIAS.
CHAPTER VII. — THE WITCHCRAFT.
CHAPTER VIII. — BRATTLE CHURCH.
CHAPTER IX. — HARVARD COLLEGE.
I wrote this little volume more than thirty years ago, since when I have hardly opened it. Therefore I now read it almost as if it were written by another man, and I find to my relief that, on the whole, I think rather better of it than I did when I published it. Indeed, as a criticism of what were then the accepted views of Massachusetts history, as expounded by her most authoritative historians, I see nothing in it to retract or even to modify. I do, however, somewhat regret the rather acrimonious tone which I occasionally adopted when speaking of the more conservative section of the c