Witchcraft in the Anglo-American Colonies Author(S): Mary Beth Norton Source: Magazine of History, Vol
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Witchcraft in the Anglo-American Colonies Author(s): Mary Beth Norton Source: Magazine of History, Vol. 17, No. 4, Witchcraft (Jul., 2003), pp. 5-10 Published by: Organization of American Historians Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25163614 Accessed: 05/10/2009 16:23 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=oah. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Organization of American Historians is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Magazine of History. http://www.jstor.org Mary Beth Norton Witchcraft in the Q)lonies Anglo-American Students today bring to the classroom both an intense inter ties, slavery, and Indian relations through the prism provided by est inwitchcraft and a peculiar blend of relevant images and witchcraft episodes. Accordingly, after a brief introduction to acces ideas. The cackling, nasty old woman flying on a broom sible overviews of European and English witchcraft, this essay will stick, as embodied in the Wicked Witch of the West in The concentrate on describing studies of the phenomenon in the seven Wizard ofOz, comes from teenth-century English colo many television rebroad nies inNorth America. casts. Situation comedies Contemporary treat old and new bring us the ments of witchcraft con timeless Samantha of in tinue to be influenced by numerable Bewitched re Sir Keith Thomas's Religion runs and the more recent and the Decline of Magic: Sabrina the Teenage Studies in Popular Beliefs in Witch and her aunts. De Sixteenth and Seventeenth scriptions of Harry Potter Century England (1971), a and his friends studying study of changing English magic and witchcraft at belief systems. Thomas, the Hogwarts School, later seconded by other au ^ from the immensely popu 'H^Hhl- N6?* rt ???-??~~-???-.I. thors, argued that many lar books and movies, pro witchcraft accusations vide another set of images. arose in small villages be And from popular culture cause of conflicts among 1^ * arrive both the so-called Mf-^ .: ..uL.: .__JJ_?..HI- ^^^^^B & ^^^r V neighbors that were inten N^H ^^^^^^^^H ^^^^r *< lilt "ancient" religion of HHHIIHHIH I^B) ^^HL..' JB^^ W sified by alterations in the Wicca, with its magic early modern English circles, solstice ceremo economy. Thomas con nies, and benevolent femi tended that as traditional nine spirits, and, in some communal ties broke down, quarters, the belief that poorer villagers' requests for Harry Potter, Samantha from television's Bewitched, and theWicked Witch of the hundreds of thousands of charitable assistance West from The Wizard of Oz, represent images of witches with which most began women were burned to Americans are familiar. to be refused. Those who death in a misogynistic failed to offer aid under such orgy of persecution that lasted for centuries. With such contradic circumstances then felt guilty for not honoring neighborly tradi tory notions all simultaneously claiming a place in their students' tions. When they subsequently experienced misfortunes such as minds, how can teachers introduce them to the reality of witch the loss of livestock or the unexplained death of a child, they craft in the past? projected their own feelings of guilt onto those whose requests Because most American students will have heard references to they had rejected, attributing their adversities to the malevo "Salem" or perhaps to witchcraft trials in colonial New England lence of a witch. For that reason, Thomas concluded, witches generally, one ofthe best ways to interest them in the historical roots tended to be identified as poor, elderly widows living on the of witchcraft is to study the subject in the context of Early American margins of society, precisely because they were the villagers who history. It is also a good way to interest students in colonial history by most often asked for help from their neighbors. approaching such general topics as the history of families, communi OAH Magazine of History July 2003 5 Later scholars have largely accepted Thomas's focus on Englanders established the sorts of small, relatively self-contained investigating the dynamics of exchanges among residents of communities that in Europe tended to generate witchcraft charges. small communities as a primary cause of witchcraft accusations, By contrast, Virginians and Marylanders lived primarily on isolated while simultaneously modifying and broadening his interpreta farmsteads. Other colonies were founded later in the century, when tion of those interactions. witchcraft prosecutions were Some have pointed out already beginning to decline women occa that older in number and frequency. sionally seem to have de Hegni iA iV 9>fJE Reginx Decimo. Accordingly, many have liberately flaunted concluded that the absence as reputations witches in of numerous witchcraft: cases order to extort assistance outside of New England from their neighbors or could be attributed to causes have noted that the women other than the absence of accused of malefic acts had Puritanism in those jurisdic often violated community tions. It is important to note norms, thus singling them here that because most of selves out for negative at the court records of colonial tention. Other historians Virginia were destroyed by have examined sources of fire in the Civil War, it is conflict that had little or impossible to know how nothing to do with a chang f^rotrtticeof tHe many witchcraft: cases were ing economy?a childless actually heard in that colony. a woman's reputed envy of Students must under mother's healthy young stand the pre-Enlighten or ment sters, for example, fami AN ACT. worldview that lies' over or witchcraft arguments Made and Paffed by die Great and General Court underlay suspi property boundaries. of Her 8 Province of the cions in order to compre AffemUy h^jefty Maff?Owfetts. Robin Briggs's Witches & Bay in/ISettetfngJattD, Held atftoftotl *e 17th hend the processes of Neighbors: The Social and accusation and prosecu Cultural Context of Euro tion. In the centuries be pean Witchcraft (1996) fore the rise of modern has extended such analy Jin A& to Reverie the Atuindears of scientific thinking in the ses to cases arising on the B?rr<ag?/andothers forWitchcraft late seventeenth century, European continent, al ^oig* natural phenomena or ill though scholars once be ^r^\QRASMJ7 H<ointbcTcar eftmrl*ri OncTbeifmtd nesses often lacked any ob Several Uums wHtti* tkhPro lieved that the English m_j ShtHmaredHimtyTxo^ vious cause. Prior to the ^ne^ were JnftMedtoith dbernMeWhebersfterfepffim patterns outlined by Tho fi a invention of weather satel tfDevils; And at Special Ceurt eftycr and Terminer mas were to that unique *M~ fa**&memt htke Ctuntyfmx in tbefame Tea* lites, for instance, hurri culture. Brian Levack's Onen^andSiMNtmaredNhetyTmPyG^rgt Burroughs #fFPefc, canes or other destructive <W The Witch-Hunt in Early J*l?ifttfAir, George Ja<^Jbta WiUard,GtfesCoi^ storms could appear from Air Pf%,Rebecca Nurfe, W Sarah Good, <tf #/ Sakmafaefaidx Modern Europe (1995) is nowhere and disappear just * HizafetiiHw^ #?**, Mary Eaftey, SarahWfld WAH an excellent, brief over : as Before germs and gaU HoMjs <dt *f Tefsfeld Samuel Wardell, Mary Parker, quickly. were view of English and Euro Martha Carrier, AttgaU Faftaer*Am* f ofter, Rebecca Barnes, viruses identified, chil 4^ ^?^t?r : pean witchcraft. Mary Poft, WMary Lacey, ^ Mary Bradbury dren, adults, and valuable end Darca* Hoar ****** i Win bf Most works studying the c/ Salhbmyt V faertiy farm animals could quickly <&aed>G#t>i8*<i**<tAttained efWitchcraft, and feme / ** ?/** American context have fo sicken and die for no appar *? /mciH Offcrr tying JHMndcr the like Sentence ef tbcJkidQwt, cused on New t* ent reason. Under such cir exclusively andUdUe have tbefame Executed 'fife* tbem. " vastma ' "" ' WA"^ ' England because the - * *? cumstances, the putative jority of known witchcraft j actions of a malevolent In the General of the Massachusettes reversed the cases arose in Massachusetts 1711, Assembly Bay Colony witch could supply seem court's decision against many of the accused witches, including George Burroughs. orConnecticut or developed ingly logical reasons for (Libraryof Congress, Printed Ephemera Collection; Portfolio 33, Folder 40) among Puritan New En someone's misfortunes. glanders who had resettled elsewhere (on Long Island, for example). Consequently, a person enduring "strange" losses or illnesses (the Therefore, some historians argue that Puritan beliefs made colonists word "strange" was frequently employed in such cases) would particularly prone to offer witchcraft accusations, although they search his or her memory for past clashes with a possible witch and disagree about the specific aspects of Puritanism that might have then identify the malicious enemy responsible for the afflictions. triggered such behavior. Others point out, however, that only New Two books are especially useful in helping modern Americans to 6 OAH Magazine of History July 2003 understand this alien, early-modern tendency to attribute other Two comprehensive studies of New England witchcraft stand wise inexplicable events towitchcraft: Richard Godbeer, The Devil's out above the rest.