ABSTRACT
After 1650, witnesses in Massachusetts Bay Colony courts were required to provide written depositions of their testimony prior to the trial. These depositions survive only in a minority of fornication cases. They provide documentary evidence on a person-by-person basis of the relationship between the defendants, the circumstances in which illegitimate pregnancies occurred, childbirth rituals, and details about work routines. The most common surviving document is the magistrate’s paperwork prior to trial in which he recorded the female defendant’s complaint and the accompanying denial (in the majority of cases involving an illegitimate pregnancy) of paternity by the male defendant. Depositions filed by midwives are the second most common surviving record, reflecting the legal role the midwife played in recording the female defendant’s childbirth declaration of paternity. The third most common survival, and the most detailed in terms of describing sexual activity, is the female defendant’s deposition recorded during her pregnancy at the time she visited the local magistrate to lay a charge of paternity.
