Some historians say the Puritans were the masters of torture, other historians say they were crazy peasants with no sense of logic or morality, but most historians say they were pure evil. The Puritans were a small society of people whose beliefs branch from the Catholic faith. They were given the name in the 16th century from the Church of England because they were considered to be a more extreme form of the Protestants. Their thirst for eliminating any trace of Catholic influence made them harsh on punishment and strict with laws. They often imprisoned people for crimes that the Puritan beliefs saw to be defying God's law. They based the way they lived strictly from the bible. Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote the book, The Scarlet Letter, and in it he mentions some forms of punishment practiced by the Puritans. The three most deadly and common punishments were: the stocks, the pillory, and the scarlet letter.
             The stocks are one of the earliest forms of punishment to be popularized by the British. In Puritan society the prison was often built first, along with other torture methods. It was a frame made from wood, with holes in which the feet of criminals were firmly confined by locks. They used the stocks to punish petty thieves, unruly servants, vagrants, Sabbath-breakers, revilers, gamblers, drunkards, ballad-singers, Quakers,
             fortune-tellers, and traveling musicians. The stocks often came in pairs so two that people could be punished at the same time, while the others laugh and threw fruit or vegetables at them. It was also made so that every village had them and in some Puritan villages they were movable and often kept on the front steps of the church.
             The pillory was a frame of two adjustable wooden boards, which stood on a tall post, having three holes through which the head and hands of the offender were put. Along with the punishment offenders were often beaten, while the town folk watched. It was an ancient form of punis...