If you know of a profile representing someone hanged in Colonial America, please add to this project. Additional resource links welcome for the "overview."
- from Wikipedia
John Billington is thought to be one of the first men to be hanged in New England. Billington was convicted of murder in September of 1630 after he shot and killed John Newcomen.
During the Salem witch trials, most of the men and women convicted of witchcraft were sentenced to public hanging. It is estimated that seventeen women and two men were hanged as a result of the trials. However, modern scholars maintain that thousands of individuals were hanged for witchcraft throughout the American colonies.
Hangings during the colonial era of America were mostly performed publicly in order to deter the behavior for which the criminals were hanged. Thousands of townspeople would gather around the gallows to hear a sermon and observe the hangings of convicted criminals. Such experiences were deemed as good lessons on morality for the children and townspeople.
- 6. Bradford, William. Of Plymouth Plantation. The Vision Forum, Inc, 1999
- 7. Stack, Richard A. Dead Wrong: Violence, Vengeance, and the Victims of Capital Punishment. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006.