Thomas Danforth
Thomas Danforth (baptized November 20, 1623 – November 5, 1699) was a politician, magistrate, and landowner in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. A conservative Puritan, he served for many years as one of the colony's councilors and magistrates, generally leading opposition to attempts by the English kings to assert control over the colony.
Thomas Danforth
William Stoughton (as deputy president of the Dominion of New England)
Francis Nicholson (as lieutenant governor of the Dominion of New England)
William Stoughton (as lieutenant governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay)
bapt. November 20, 1623
Framlingham, Suffolk, England
November 5, 1699 (aged 76)
Province of Massachusetts Bay
Magistrate
He accumulated land in the central part of the colony that eventually became a portion of Framingham, Massachusetts. His government roles included administration of territory in present-day Maine that was purchased by the colony.
Danforth was a magistrate and leading figure in the colony at the time of the Salem witch trials, but did not sit on the Court of Oyer and Terminer. Despite this, he is inaccurately depicted in Arthur Miller's 1953 play The Crucible and its movie adaptations as doing so. He is presented as a harsh and domineering governor, apparently conflated with William Stoughton, who does not appear in Miller's play (although he and Samuel Sewall are mentioned briefly by Danforth in Act 3, Scene 1). In reality, Danforth is recorded as being critical of the conduct of the trials, and played a role in bringing them to an end.[1]
Early life[edit]
Thomas Danforth was born in Framlingham, Suffolk, England, and baptized on November 20, 1623.[2] He was the eldest son of Nicholas Danforth (1589–1638) and Elizabeth Symmes (1596–1629).[3] Danforth immigrated with his father, brothers Samuel and Jonathan, and sisters Anna, Elizabeth, and Lydia to New England in 1634, probably aboard the Griffin.[4]
The family, along with the 200 or so other passengers aboard, left England to escape persecution for their Puritan beliefs. William Laud had become archbishop of the Church of England in 1633 and begun a crackdown on Nonconformist religious practices (such as those practiced by the more Calvinist Puritans) that prompted a wave of migration to the New World.[5][6]
Fictional character in The Crucible[edit]
In Arthur Miller's 1953 play The Crucible, Thomas Danforth is depicted as the leading judicial figure overseeing the Salem trials. William Stoughton is not a character in the play, and Miller portrays Danforth as an honest but domineering and selfish judge, under whose authority many are imprisoned and sentenced to hang.[40][41] When John Proctor, an accused, defies his authority at the end of the play by refusing to lie and sign a public confession saying that he is a wizard and accusing others, he is mercilessly sentenced to hang.[42]
In an introduction to the play, Miller wrote that he had combined several persons and made other changes to the historical characters for dramatic purposes.[43]
Miller also wrote the screenplay for the 1996 film version of the play, in which the name Danforth was retained (portrayed by actor Paul Scofield) as the principal judicial antagonist.[44] In the 1957 film adaptation of the play, whose screenplay was written by Jean-Paul Sartre, Danforth (portrayed by Raymond Rouleau, who also directed the picture) is portrayed the same way.[45]
; Fiske, J., eds. (1888). "Danforth, Thomas". Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.
