biography
pronunciation:
[sooel]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1652–1730)
|
| biography:
| Judge and merchant, born in Bishopstoke, Hampshire, S England, UK. He went to Boston in 1661, married the daughter of a wealthy shipowner, served as a superior court justice, and became the colony's chief justice (1718). In 1697 he confessed his error in having been partly responsible for sending people to the gallows during the Salem witch trials (1692). He wrote one of the first anti-slavery tracts and left a diary (1674–7, 1685–1729) that remains an incomparable record of the life, mentality, and world of a Puritan of his era. |
|
|
