Elizabeth Richardson
- Raven Bishop
- Mar 10
- 7 min read
Updated: Mar 16
In 1658, four years after Mary Lee was murdered upon the ship Charity of London, a woman named Elizabeth Richardson set sail on the ship Sarah Artch, also bound for the colony of Maryland.
Like Mary Lee, Elizabeth never arrived in Maryland. She, too, was accused of witchcraft and killed aboard the ship.
Elizabeth's name appears in the historic record because John Washington, great-grandfather of president George Washington, filed a complaint against the ship's owner and merchant, Edward Prescott [1].
Washington was summoned to court that October, but was unable to attend the hearing as his young son was to be baptized that day [2]. He did ask for the court date to be moved forward by a day, but his request was not honored and Prescott's hearing went forward.
Prescott acknowledged that Elizabeth was hanged aboard his ship, but argued that the ship's master John Greene and its crew were ready to mutiny and that Greene, as master, was responsible for her death [2].
Since Washington was not able to attend the hearing and the law stated that the accused must face their accusers in court, Prescott was acquitted. No one was punished for Elizabeth's murder.
Why Elizabeth's Story Matters Today
So much of Elizabeth Richardson's story resembles that of Mary Lee, though we have less details about what came to pass on the Sarah Artch than we do aboard the Charity because Prescott's case was shortened due to Washington's absence. However, it's that very absence that resonates in the experience of women today.
What seems familiar is the prioritization a man's future over addressing past injustices inflicted on a woman.
John Washington prioritized his son's baptism over seeking justice for Elizabeth Richardson's murder; choosing the occasion for the boy "with all the company and gossips already invited" [2] over ensuring justice for the murdered woman.
When I reflect upon Elizabeth's story, my mind turns to moments in contemporary memory in which a man's future is prioritized above justice for the woman he harmed. Like the famous 2016 case in which Brock Turner was sentenced to only six months in prison after sexually assaulting a woman he had met at a party who was unconscious at the time of the assault. Much consideration was given to how his sentencing may impact his future "His life will never be the one that he dreamed about and worked so hard to achieve" his father wrote in a letter, arguing that prison time would be "a steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action out of his 20 plus years of life" [3].
What seems familiar is the tacit victim-blaming.
A letter written in Turner's defense states, "I don’t think it’s fair to base the fate of the next ten+ years of his life on the decision of a girl who doesn’t remember anything but the amount she drank," [4] blaming his victim's intoxication for potentially ruining his future, while at the same time, the judge presiding over the case stated, "There is less moral culpability attached to the defendant who is … intoxicated,” implying that Turner's intoxication meant that he should be treated differently than a sober defendant [4].
In the provincial court records, Elizabeth Richardson is labeled a witch before being referred to as a woman [1 & 2]. Sure, Elizabeth Richardson was hanged, but she was a witch, right? Did accusing her of witchcraft reduce the moral culpability of the men who were party to her murder?
What seems familiar is the procedural delay of justice for violence against women.
I am creating these artworks as the country reckons with the unfolding legacy of the Epstein files. Our nation recently watched as Attorney General Pam Bondi was questioned by congress. Rep. Nadler notes in his address to Bondi, "...it is shocking that the department did not redact the names of Epstein's abusers, but it did redact the names of their abusers" [5], another representative, Rep. Lieu, noted, "As we sit here today there are over 1,000 sex trafficking victims, and you have not held a single man accountable" [6]. We have a government that can start a war in an instant, but can't seem to muster the same urgency to seek justice for Eptstein's victims.
Elizabeth Richardson's story feels familiar because it is.
Elizabeth's story echoes the all-too-common modern reality that violence against women frequently encounters myriad barriers that shield the men responsible for such acts. It also reflects the truth that no legal punishment can genuinely deliver justice in cases of violence against women; a court ruling would not have resurrected Elizabeth Richardson, and no court sentence can rectify the lifelong trauma of a violent assault. This is also true for perpetrators who genuinely feel remorse for the harm they've caused another human being. Courts can dole out punishments, but punishment is not the same thing as healing. This is why we must look to the dispositions that underlie the violence in the first place. We must question the silent societal lessons that lead to violence and work to replace these unspoken social curricula with new ones. If violence against women is to be meaningfully reduced, the task before us is not simply a reliance on punitive systems to hold perpetrators accountable, but the examination and transformation of the cultural frameworks that produce and sustain such harm. I would argue that there is a tangled throughline between the disposition that makes it somehow more acceptable to kill a woman because she's a "witch" and the disposition that makes it somehow more acceptable to assault a woman because she's had too much to drink. If we begin to pull on these threads, we might begin to unravel misogynistic cultural norms that have, across centuries, made violence against women appear understandable, excusable, or even deserved.
Artist Statement
This artwork was crafted in memory of Elizabeth Richardson, who was accused of witchcraft in 1658 and hanged before she could arrive in Maryland. The digital collage is created with layered photographs of a recreated historic ship taken from the shoreline during my site of memory visit to Historic St. Mary's City. The layered photographs that make up this collage look upward at the sky while my self portrait (superimposed in all of the artworks in this series) is mostly transparent, both symbolic of the justice and transparency sought but not delivered for Elizabeth Richardson.
Site of Memory Visit
This series involves visiting sites of memory; places and spaces that the accused women these artworks honor would have known. I visited Historic St. Mary's City in 2025 as my first site of memory visit in this series.
Elizabeth Richardson, like Mary Lee, was killed aboard a ship headed for Maryland. I was fortunate to encounter a reconstructed 17th century ship which serves as a living history exhibit at the museum. Time spent on the ship and beholding it from shore served as a meaningful engagement with both Mary and Elizabeth's stories.
I also spent time in the reconstructed 17th century courthouse at Historic St. Mary's City. I imagined Elizabeth's case being presented in a space like this one (though I later realized that the historic record notes that Elizabeth's case would be held "att Patuxt, neare Mrs ffenwicks howse" [2] which I have come to learn is the current cite of a Maryland Century farm that sells lavender and u-pick flowers [7]. I look forward to visiting in the future and cutting a bouquet to honor Elizabeth while there.)
Ceremonialist Work
Spending time at a site of memory is a ritual unto itself. My ceremonialist work in this space was personal and quiet, meant for myself and the memory of the accused alone. It involved lighting the three battery-operated LED candles I'm using in this series to honor the accused. I placed these in an upper windowsill of the courthouse, only for a moment, while I sat overlooking the shoreline and meditating on Mary Lee and Elizabeth Richardson's fates.
At the shoreline, I left an offering of rose petals and tobacco for these women and collected a jar of water which I intend to use in paintings and sketches as I continue this work.
What is remembered lives.
Additional Historical Note
The court case following Elizabeth's in the Provincial Record (Attorney General vs. Barbery) is a land dispute, but the next one also resonates in the lived experiences of contemporary women. It involves a woman who became pregnant with a "bastard child" and concealed her pregnancy because she thought the men in her house would be angry with her. Her labor came on suddenly and she gave birth alone in the tobacco barn where she hid the baby but visited frequently to take care of him, intending to take him to his father in a few days after she recovered. The baby was discovered by one of the men living in the house and, though that discovery allowed her to bring the child into the house to care for it, the child passed away, perhaps due to an infection at the umbilical cord site, likely because the mother and child did not receive medical support at the birth. All who knew of the child were ordered to pay a fine of tobacco [8, 9, 10].
Though the woman in this case was not accused of witchcraft, her story appears on the same page of the historical record as Elizabeth's, and echoes with the same contemporary resonance. This story seems familiar because it is, women to this day feel pressured to conceal pregnancies and miss out on prenatal care for a whole host of reasons. With the repeal of Roe v. Wade, women across the nation have lost agency over their reproductive health, and now face the looming threat of prosecution for things like miscarriage.
This is why these stories matter. It's over 370 years later the world today looks much the same as it did then: reflecting a troubling paradigm that criminalizes the complexities of women's reproductive freedom and bodily autonomy.
References
Proceedings of the Council of Maryland, 1658-1662 (PDF). Vol. 41. Maryland Archives. p. 327. Retrieved March 12, 2026.
Proceedings of the Council of Maryland, 1658-1662 (PDF). Vol. 41. Maryland Archives. p. 328. Retrieved March 12, 2026.
Miller, M. E. (2016, June 6). ‘A steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action’: Dad defends Stanford Sex Offender. The Washington Post. Retrieved March 12, 2026. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/06/06/a-steep-price-to-pay-for-20-minutes-of-action-dad-defends-stanford-sex-offender/
Judge in Stanford sexual assault case faces recall effort after light sentence. (2016). The Guardian. Retrieved March 12, 2026. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/06/stanford-sexual-assault-judge-recall
Watch: Bondi and Nadler get into heated exchange over Epstein co-conspirators question. (Feb. 11, 2026) [Youtube] CBS News. Retrieved March 12, 2026. https://youtu.be/7lfG9baShZ0?si=EwIqIaLPdntjH_zI&t=15
Watch: 'You are in charge' of Epstein case, Rep. Lieu tells Bondi. (Feb. 11, 2026) [Youtube] PBS News. Retrieved March 12, 2026. https://youtu.be/gSsECjvnF8E?si=Tpygjse-LSgdQXhJ&t=216
Farm History. (n.d.) Dixon Family Farm [webpage]. https://dixon-family-farm.com/farm-history/#:~:text=Two%20men%20who%20recently%20had,on%20%E2%80%9Cthe%20malevolence%20of%20witches.
Proceedings of the Council of Maryland, 1658-1662 (PDF). Vol. 41. Maryland Archives. p. 329. Retrieved March 12, 2026.
Proceedings of the Council of Maryland, 1658-1662 (PDF). Vol. 41. Maryland Archives. p. 330. Retrieved March 12, 2026.
Proceedings of the Council of Maryland, 1658-1662 (PDF). Vol. 41. Maryland Archives. p. 331. Retrieved March 12, 2026.
