9 Saloman, “Community and Hierarchy,” 37-42. Michael Hindus found that differences between Massachusetts and South Carolina in the relative frequency of crimes persisted into the 18th century.

 

Percent of Total Criminal Prosecutions

 

Middlesex Co., Mass.

Charleston, S.C.

 

1760-74

1769-76

Crimes against persons (murder, assault, rape)

9.5%

53.6%

Crimes against property (larceny, arson)

13.2%

37.8%

Crimes against sexual mores (fornication, bastardy)

57.6%

1.6%

Crimes against order (contempt of authority, riot, vagrancy, church offenses, etc.)

18.4%

1.6%

Slave-related crimes

0.0%

3.1%

Counterfeiting, fraud

1.2%

2.4%

Total

99.9%

100.1%

Similar contrasts continued in the 19th century; see Michael S. Hindus, Prison and Plantation: Crime, Justice and Authority in Massachusetts and South Carolina, 1767-1878 (Chapel Hill, 1980), 64-65. Another important study is David H. Flaherty, “Crime and Social Control in Provincial Massachusetts,” HJ 24 (1981), 339-60.

10 Dwight, Travels, I, 141.

11 Edwin Stone, History of Beverly (Boston, 1843), 307.

12 Stowe, Oldtown Folks, 1208.

13 For evidence of a major difference between Massachusetts and Maryland in prosecutions for burglary, see Saloman, “Community and Hierarchy,” 107-31.