Jeremy Bangs on Geoffrey Stone

Friend-of-the-blog Dr. Jeremy Dupertuis Bangs, author of the new Strangers and Pilgrims, Travellers and Sojourners---Leiden and the Foundations of Plymouth Plantation, sends along an objection to Prof. Geoffrey R. Stone's reading of history:

Professor Stone wrote, "In 1636, for example, only sixteen years after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, they adopted the 'judicials of Moses,' which provided that any person 'shall be put to death' who 'shall have or worship any other God, but the Lord God.'

The 1636 constitution of Plymouth Colony is published in:
David Pulsifer (ed.), Records of the Colony of New Plymouth in New England, Printed by Order of the Legislature of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Laws, 1623-1682.
Boston: William White, 1861.
constitution of 1636, pp. 6-26.

Nowhere in it is found the text or sentiment given by Professor Stone. Instead, the following general statement (spelling modernized):

p. 12: "That all trials whether Capital or between man & man be tried by Juries according to the precedents of the law of England as near as may be."
...

Capital offences liable to death.
Treason or rebellion against the person of the King State or Common wealth either of England or these Colonies.
Willful Murder.
Solemn Compaction or conversing with the devil by way of witchcraft conjuration or the like.
Willful & purposed burning of ships houses.
Sodomy, rapes, buggery."

Religious disagreement was not a capital offense.

p. 57-8:
6 June 1651
"It is ordered
That Whatsoever person or persons shall neglect the frequenting the public worship of God that is according to God in the places where they live or do assemble themselves upon any pretence whatsoever in any way contrary to God and the allowance of the government tending to the subversion of Religion and churches or palpable profanation of Gods holy ordinances being duly convicted; videlecet every one that is a master or dame of a family or any other person at their own disposing to pay ten shillings for every such default.

It is ordered That if any in any lazy slothful or profane way doth neglect to come to the public worship of God shall forfeit for every such default ten shillings or be publicly whipped."

[repealed also in 1651, p. 99-100]

p. 64
5 June 1655
"It was Enacted That such as shall deny the Scriptures to be a rule of life shall receive Corporal punishment according to the discretion of the Magistrate so as it shall not extend to life or Limb."

_____________

Late add---To several objections in the comments section, Dr. Bangs replies:

There is an important difference between Plymouth Colony (Pilgrims, "Mayflower," and the mythical Plymouth Rock landing) and that colony's laws of 1636 mentioned by Stone, on the one hand, and, on the other, Massachusetts Bay Colony (Puritans, Winthrop, et al.) and laws there in 1641 or in the colony of New Haven. To conflate the three may result in a convenient and usable narrative leading up to an admirable Enlightenment, but such oversimplification of colonial attitudes remains historically inaccurate.