Social Reform and Identity Formation in the 17th Century - A Panel Discussion

Name: Social Reform and Identity Formation in the 17th Century - A Panel Discussion
Start: 2025-04-01T17:00:00-04:00
End: 2025-04-01T18:15:00-04:00
Location: 1154 Boylston St, Boston, MA, United States, Massachusetts 02215

Schedule

Tue Apr 01 2025 at 05:00 pm to 06:15 pm

UTC-04:00

Location

1154 Boylston St, Boston, MA, United States, Massachusetts 02215 | Boston, MA

This is a hybrid event. The in-person reception will begin at 4:30 PM. Please visit here to register: https://www.masshist.org/events/social-reform-identity-formation-17th-century
This panel investigates forms of social control in 17th century New England. Arthur George Kamya’s paper examines the regulation of distilled liquor in 17th century Massachusetts Bay Colony, exploring how authorities navigated competing moral, economic, and security imperatives. Initially targeting a cross-section of colonists, liquor laws evolved to focus on servants, Native Americans, and eventually African Americans. The colony's approach shifted from moral censure to pragmatic revenue generation, with officials using fines and licenses to fund government operations. Kamya’s study illuminates how alcohol regulation became a tool of social control, state-building, and the construction of racial hierarchies in colonial New England, offering insights into the complex interplay between commerce, governance, and identity formation in early America. As discussed in Alice King’s work, Connecticut adopted a notable strategy towards certain Indigenous populations during the initial decades of settlement, attempting to control and exploit Native communities by turning them into colonial tributaries who would provide essential supplies, wampum, and military aid. King’s paper considers the evolution of tributary politics at the end of the seventeenth century after the Dominion of New England and Glorious Revolution had destabilized colonial authority and left colonists vulnerable to attack by French and Native forces, including the Wabanaki Confederacy during King William’s War, 1689-1697, when Connecticut leaders sought to raise soldiers for New England’s defense from these historic tributary communities.