Authors: John Ruston Pagan
ISBN-13: 9780195144796, ISBN-10: 0195144791
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Date Published: November 2002
Edition: 1st Edition
John Ruston Pagan is a Professor in the School of Law at the University of Richmond, Virginia.
In 1663, an indentured servant, Anne Orthwood, was impregnated with twins in a tavern in Northampton County, Virginia. Orthwood died soon after giving birth; one of the twins, Jasper, survived. Orthwood's illegitimate pregnancy sparked four related cases that came before the Northampton magistrates who coincidentally held court in the same tavern between 1664 and 1686. These interrelated cases and the decisions rendered in them are notable for the ways in which the Virginia colonists modified English common law traditions and began to create their own, as well as what they reveal about cultural and economic values in an Eastern shore community. Through these cases, the very reasons legal systems are created are revealed, namely, the maintenance of social order, the protection of property interests, the protection of personal reputation, and personal liberty. Through Jasper Orthwood's life, the treatment of the poor in small communities is set in sharp relief.
Introduction | 3 | |
1 | Anne Orthwood, Indentured Servant | 11 |
2 | William Kendall, Parvenu | 27 |
3 | William Waters, Gentleman | 39 |
4 | John Stringer, Presiding Justice | 51 |
5 | Robert Hutchinson, Clerk of Court | 65 |
6 | Eleanor Gething, Midwife | 81 |
7 | John Waterson, Trial Jury Foreman | 91 |
8 | John Kendall, Putative Father | 103 |
9 | John Stockley, Grand Jury Foreman | 117 |
10 | Jasper Orthwood, Free Man | 131 |
Conclusion | 147 | |
Notes | 151 | |
Bibliography | 193 | |
Index | 212 |