The Scarlet Letter The Scarlet Letter takes place in the mid-seventeenth century Boston, which had a small population by English standards, and a large one by colonial measures. The town, based on historical records, had a very devout puritan population. These people formed their lives about the church, which also was the government. The church controlled schools as well as matters of the law. This gave the Puritan moral system great strength in the society, and the city's rules were based upon it. Therefore, anything that the bible indicated as frivolous or petty was illegal. The city in Hawthorne's