Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Separation of Church and State in Virginia: A Study in the Development of the Revolution; Special Report of the Department of Archives and History
The instructions given Gates as governor in 1609 included regulations concerning religion. The council admonished the governor to christianize the Indians and advised him to seize the medicine men in order to destroy the heathen ceremonies. He was also ordered to maintain the worship' of the established church and to require the regular attendance of the colonists.
Religious observance occupied a great place in the first code of Virginia laws. Dale's Code, as it is known, went into effect with the arrival of Gates in 1610 and continued to be the law of the colony until Sir George Yeardley became governor in This rigid and bloody code was probably not enforced to the letter, but narrative and tradition testified to Dale's stern rule.
Dale's Code has been chie?y remembered because of the penalty for blasphemy, which was the thrusting of a bodkin through the blasphemer's tongue. Sabbath observance was enforced by whipping, and speaking against the Trinity or the Christian religion by death.
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