"Trick or treat" is perhaps the oddest and most American
addition to Halloween, and is the unwilling contribution of English Catholics.
During the penal period of the 1500s to the 1700s in England,
Catholics had no legal rights. They could not hold office and were subject to
fines, jail and heavy taxes. It was a capital offense to say Mass, and hundreds
of priests were martyred.
Occasionally, English Catholics resisted, sometimes foolishly. One
of the most foolish acts of resistance was a plot to blow up the Protestant
King James I and his Parliament with gunpowder. This was supposed to trigger a
Catholic uprising against their oppressors. The ill-conceived Gunpowder Plot
was foiled on Nov. 5, 1605, when the man guarding the gunpowder, a reckless
convert named Guy Fawkes, was captured and arrested. He was hanged; the plot
fizzled.
Nov. 5, Guy Fawkes’ Day, became a great celebration in England,
and so it remains. During the penal periods, bands of revelers would put on
masks and visit local Catholics in the dead of night, demanding beer and cakes
for their celebration: trick or treat!
Guy Fawkes’ Day arrived in the American colonies with the first English
settlers. But, buy the time of the American Revolution, old King James and Guy
Fawkes had pretty much been forgotten. Trick or treat, though, was too much fun
to give up, so eventually it moved to Oct. 31, the day of the Irish-French
masquerade. And in America, trick or treat wasn’t limited to Catholics.
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