scholarly journals Laws, Courts and Communities in the Pennsylvania Backcountry, ca. 1750–1800

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-67
Author(s):  
Matthew C. Ward
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Local Conditions ◽  
Court Records ◽  
Frontier Settlers ◽  
Irish Migrants

Historians have commonly portrayed the Pennsylvania backcountry as a lawless, violent region. Many have attributed this these levels of violence to the influx of Scots Irish migrants to the province after the 1720. Examining several eighteenth-century Pennsylvania counties, this article demonstrates that earlier scholars have consistently overestimated levels of crime on the frontier. Moreover, court records shows that Scots-Irish individuals were no more likely to be prosecuted or convicted of crime than other ethnic groups. Overall, frontier settlers embraced the legal system, even as they insisted it be applied in ways that accorded with local conditions.

scholarly journals WOMEN, CRIME AND THE SECULAR COURT IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY CLUJ

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 33-42
Author(s):  
Andrea Fehér
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Narrative Strategies ◽  
Court Records ◽  
Female Crime ◽  
Female Criminality ◽  
The Law ◽  
Male Discourse ◽  
The Town

The purpose of this presentation is to address the issue of female criminality in early modern Cluj, and to analyze women’s position before the law. Our investigation is based on the records of the secular Court from the town Cluj, where we have identified more than 250 cases of women accused of fornication, adultery, witchcraft, infanticide, theft and drunkenness, poisoning, swearing and slander. There were a significant number of female convictions during the century, from which most ended with light sentences, such as banishment, corporal punishments, stigmatizations with hot iron, mutilations and only occasionally death. We would like to analyze in detail the types of crime  and their punishments presenting the legal background, the jurisdiction and the habitual practices of the Court. We would also like to underline the importance of the narrative strategies used in these inquisitorial trials, since our documents reveal female criminality from a male perspective, as in these times men ran the legal system, consequently the Court records, in our reading contain moral, legal and sexual elements of a male discourse on female crime.

The Taming of Highland Masculinity: Interpersonal Violence and Shifting Codes of Manhood, c. 1760–1840

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynn Abrams
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Interpersonal Violence ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
Indigenous Culture ◽  
Class Culture ◽  
Court Records ◽  
Scottish Highlands ◽  
The Law ◽  
Violent Assault

This chapter argues that male interpersonal violence provides a way in which divergent, conflicting and shifting codes of manliness in Scottish society can be discerned. Historians of masculinity have argued that the eighteenth century saw a change in the model of manhood as male interpersonal violence in defence of honour and reputation was replaced by the advocacy of self-governance and recourse to the law. Using court records of violent assault, this chapter focusses on a type of modernizing society – the Scottish Highlands 1760-1840 - in which a code of violence governed by an indigenous culture of manhood was gradually superceded by new cultural norms. An earlier association of masculinity with interpersonal violence in the Highlands was challenged increasingly from around 1800 by those who advocated civility and restraint amongst men, especially in the growing Highland town of Inverness, the centre of an emerging middle-class culture with changing social sensibilities

Going Public

2013 ◽  
pp. 102-145
Author(s):  
Natalie Naimark-Goldberg
Keyword(s):  
Women Writers ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Jewish Women ◽  
Going Public ◽  
Local Conditions ◽  
Female Authors ◽  
Writing Culture ◽  
Women Of Letters

This chapter investigates the literary activity of enlightened Jewish women, discussing their attitudes towards authorship and what the crucial decision to publish their writings meant in the context of their time. As female authors, these Jewish women of letters were part of a broader phenomenon in contemporary Europe. Throughout the eighteenth century and especially towards its end, a female writing culture was developing simultaneously in various lands. Although the pace and nature of this literary expansion differed from place to place, depending on specific local conditions, countries including Germany, France, and England all saw a dramatic increase in the number of women active in the field of literature. The chapter then looks at the literary careers and the attitudes towards publishing of four of the Jewish women writers from the period, namely Esther Gad, Dorothea Mendelssohn, Rahel Levin, and Sara Meyer.

Introduction to The Indonesian Legal System: Major Developments in the Past Decade

2006 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-72
Author(s):  
Hesti Setyowati ◽  
M. Harris S. Toengkagie
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
The Past ◽  
Legal Foundation ◽  
National Ideology ◽  
Customary Laws ◽  
The Law ◽  
Law And Justice

Abstract Indonesia is an archipelagic country that has endured 350 years of western colonization. Its people comprise diverse ethnic, cultural and religious backgrounds, all living in more than 17.000 islands spread throughout the archipelago. The development of the Indonesian legal system are considered as unique since it comprises the legacy of colonization, combined with the customary laws of various tribes. It is heavily infl uenced by Islam-the religion of the majority of its citizens, and the people’s own perception of law and justice following the colonial era. The undisputable fact on the variety of ethnic groups, cultures and religions formulate the desire for national ideology which promotes a unity of such diversity. As the result, each of the laws is formulated with reference to the principle of unity and democracy carried out in accordance with the national ideology. 60 years after its independence, the Law in Indonesia has shown great strides in its development. All of the developments are claimed to fulfi ll its goal of achieving a modern nation with solid legal foundation, without sacrifi cing its national identity.

Free Blacks and Coloreds and the Administration of Justice in Eighteenth-Century Curaçao

2010 ◽  
Vol 84 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 63-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Han Jordaan
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Daily Practice ◽  
Free Blacks ◽  
Administration Of Justice ◽  
The Law

Two case studies show the daily practice of justice regarding free Blacks and Coloreds in Curacao and the functioning of the early modern Dutch legal system pertaining to colonial and slavery-related matters. According to the author, both cases reveal that the application of the law, when free non-Whites were involved, was apparently open to interpretation and that there was a divergence in this respect between the colony and the metropole. Author assesses this conflict between the theory of the law and the practice of the administration of justice in the colonies.

Emissaries, allies, accomplices and enemies: married women's work in eighteenth-century urban Sweden

Urban History ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 394-414 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARIA ÅGREN
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Women's Work ◽  
Historical Records ◽  
Paid Work ◽  
Court Records ◽  
Women’S Work

ABSTRACTBased on so-called Excise court records, this article argues that in eighteenth-century urban Sweden much of middling women's work took place in the interstices between households, as ‘help’ given to other women, often across social divides. These forms of work are often difficult to track in the historical records and, consequently, they have remained unnoticed, creating the erroneous picture that women did not contribute to their households through paid work. The lack of attention to these kinds of work has also overemphasized the closed character of early modern households which were, in fact, both flexible and permeable units.

Provocative Wealth: Non-Muslim Elites in Eighteenth-Century Aleppo

2010 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 219-237
Author(s):  
Maurits van den Boogert
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Legal System ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
The Status ◽  
Common Notion ◽  
The Common ◽  
Shed Light

AbstractIn the Western sources, the Ottoman legal system is often portrayed as unreliable and incidents of Europeans or Ottoman protégés of Western embassies and consulates who claimed to have been maltreated abound. These reports strengthened the common notion in Europe that Ottoman government officials were rapacious and corrupt. The article challenges these views by analyzing two incidents from 18th-century Aleppo, which shed light not only on the dynamics of Ottoman-European relations on the ground, but also on the status of non-Muslim elites in the Ottoman Empire.

The “Chinese Confucian” and the “Chinese Buddhist” in British Burma, 1881–1947

1990 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 384-401 ◽  
Author(s):  
M.B. Hooker
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Religious Group ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Guiding Principle ◽  
Customary Laws ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
The Right

By the late nineteenth century British control over Burma had been firmly established and by 1893 a comprehensive legal system for its population put in place. The guiding principle of the judicial and legislative system was that each racial or religious group had the right to its own law in matters of religion and custom. Thus, Burmese “Buddhist law” for the Burmese, “Mohammadan law” for Muslims and Hindu law for the Hindus. In addition, the customary laws of other ethnic groups were also recognized.

When Good Little Debts Went Bad: Civil Litigation on the Virginia Frontier, 1745–1755

2015 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tinni Sen ◽  
Turk McCleskey ◽  
Atin Basuchoudhary
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Logit Model ◽  
Multinomial Logit Model ◽  
Multinomial Logit ◽  
Judicial System ◽  
Civil Litigation ◽  
Small Claims

The use of a multinomial logit model to analyze a hitherto unavailable dataset of 1,376 small-claims lawsuits in colonial Augusta County, Virginia, for information about debts, litigants, and procedures f inds no evidence of prejudice in the legal system. The magistrates’ consistently fair enforcement of legitimate contracts may have induced both plaintiffs and defendants to settle their disputes in court rather than in private. The evidence corroborates the view that by the mid-eighteenth century, Virginia’s frontier judicial system was sufficiently impartial to encourage creditors to draw up efficient contracts even for small debts.

Korea at the End of the Eighteenth Century

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Don Baker ◽  
Franklin Rausch
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Social Structure ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Religious Tradition ◽  
Choson Korea

This chapter explains the traditional philosophical and religious tradition of Korea in order to elucidate what a radical challenge Christianity posed when it entered Korea at the end of the 18th century. It also discusses the traditional social structure and legal system of Chosŏn Korea as well as the factionalism that was characteristic of its politics.

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