It is easy to find assertions of reputable scholars in the sense that the United States was the first country in the world to enact legislation aimed at protecting animals from cruel and abusive treatment. In fact, authors such as Emily Stewart Leavitt, and Diane Halverson have documented in their work Animals and Their Legal Rights: A Survey of American Laws from 1641 to l990 (l990) that, as early as 1641, the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay Colony forbade cruelty against “any brute creature kept by man.”