In 1686, a year after Dorcas Morse turned forty, the English monarch James II ordered the unification of New York, New Jersey, and the New England colonies into a single province, the Dominion of New England. Just two years before, the Massachusetts charter had been revoked. He decreed this because the colonial merchants had largely ignored the Navigation Acts and also because they expressed an independent attitude toward Britain. James’ decree was met with colonial resistance. For example, Connecticut and Rhode Island refused to yield their charters to royal governor Edmund Andros. In Massachusetts, armed rebellion broke out in 1689, following the Glorious Revolution in England. The Boston population arrested Andros, seized control of the colonial government, and dispatched emissaries to William II and Mary II, who were the new monarchs. Even New York City rebelled, led by Jacob Leisler.

Just six years later, the Salem Witchcraft Trials took place. The idea was ignited by philosopher Cotton Mather. Nineteen people were hanged, and one was pressed to death by heavy stones. About a hundred were accused of witchcraft. And all this was initiated by little girls playing silly games with egg whites with which they hoped they could predict the future. As it progressed, it was increasingly used as a political and social tool to exterminate family enemies. Interestingly, most of the accused were the socially undesirable, e.g., old women, paupers, etc.

About five years before Dorcas Morse’s death, the Great Awakening began in New England in 1720, marking a new wave of religious enthusiasm. Ministers around the country told people to return to the old faith. In New England, the leader of the Great Awakening was Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) from Northampton, Massachusetts. He was a minister, a philosopher, and one of the leading intellectuals of his day. He was born in Connecticut, entered Yale College at the age of 12, and became a congregational minister in Northampton. In his later years, he served as a missionary to Indians in western Massachusetts and held the respectable position of President of Princeton University. His fiery “fire and brimstone” preaching was intended to scare people away from the Devil and onto the path of Salvation.

       

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