In 1844, young people of Massachusetts were treated to a new board game: Pope and Pagan, or Siege of the stronghold of Satan by the Christian army.
The game had simple rules. It needed two players. One player assumed the role of Pope and Pagan, described in the game’s rules as a “papal and pagan Antichrist.” The other represented a Christian army of missionaries trying to conquer Satan.
The missionaries had 15 board pieces and the Pope and Pagan had one. The players alternated moves on a series of squares. The missionaries tried to maneuver the Pope and Pagan into a corner where he could not move. The Pope and Pagan, meanwhile, could capture the missionaries’ pieces, with a goal of capturing all of them.
Pope and Pagan
The game, probably inspired by characters Pope and Pagan in the book Pilgrim’s Progress, was played along the lines of an older game, Fox & Geese. But the theme was pure Massachusetts Know-Nothing.
The Know-Nothing political party had its roots in the 1830s and 1840s, when the influx of Catholic immigrants alarmed Protestant Americans. The Know-Nothings started as a secret association. If members were asked about it, they were to reply that they knew nothing, hence its name.
The Mansion of Happiness game board
The most dramatic act by the Massachusetts Know-Nothings was the burning to the Ursaline Convent in Charlestown in 1834. The movement grew into more of a mainstream political party until it petered out in the mid-1800s.
The 1844 board game, meanwhile, reflected the rising popular sentiment against the Catholic Church in America. The W. and S.B. Ives Company published it. W. and S.B. were William Ives and Stephen Bradshaw Ives, brothers who went into publishing in Salem, Mass. Game making belonged to the many publishing ventures they undertook. The company published a children’s magazine, books and the Salem Observer newspaper, in addition to board games.
William Ives, a pious man, published another game designed to instruct the players in morality. The Mansion of Happiness game had players trying to advance around a board to a mansion by landing on spaces with labels such as Humility and Chastity, while avoiding landing on squares with labels such as Drunkard, Perjurer or Robber.
The Salem Observer was eventually published next to the city’s City Hall
Parker Brothers
William Ives would continue in the board game and publishing business until he died, in 1874. Stephen Baldwin Ives broke off and went into business in Boston importing luxury goods, though he remained a Salem resident and was active in politics until his death in 1883. The Ives’s greatest influence, however, was perhaps on a young man, George Parker, who took a liking to the games produced by the Ives brothers.
Parker would grow up and buy the Ives’ game company, but he found their moralizing a bit heavy handed. His new company, Parker Brothers, would keep the game board format, but instead of reinforcing anti-Irish prejudice or morality, Parker made greed the focus of his best-selling game, Monopoly.
This story updated in 2022.
Images: Salem City Hall By John Phelan – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11190544.
