Witchcraft

The widespread belief in witches and witchcraft was transported to the colonies from Europe. Colonists, especially in Massachusetts and Connecticut, believed in a very real devil and very real witches. It was common belief that some women and men signed the devil’s book, thereby gaining power over their neighbors through sorcery. Many colonial communities had a “wise” woman or man, someone who had a store of folk knowledge and traditional medicine, and these people often faced the possibility of persecution. Single women were particularly vulnerable to accusations of witchcraft, in part because they lacked much power and in part because some widows had inherited land and wealth from their husbands, placing them in an unusual situation in 17th-century New England.

Suspected witches in Europe were executed on a vast scale in both Protestant and Catholic countries. The English colonies in America copied Europe, but on a much smaller, more personal scale. Many authorities, particularly the Puritans, took the Biblical command “Thou shall not suffer a witch to live” literally. The New England colonies witnessed 57 trials for witchcraft between 1647 and 1691, although only a few cases were tried in New York and Virginia. Witchcraft cases began to occur sporadically in the colonies during the 1640s. The handful of accusations, indictments, and trials for witchcraft in Virginia and New York resulted in only one conviction, in 1655. The convicted Virginia warlock (male witch) was sentenced to 10 lashes and banishment. Authorities in Connecticut and Massachusetts, however, were more zealous, executing at least 14 people found guilty of witchcraft. The cases of witchcraft before 1692 were usually characterized by reasonably fair legal proceedings and a skeptical attitude. Even in the New England colonies, more than 70 percent of those brought to trial for witchcraft were acquitted. Trials in New England for offenses other than witchcraft usually ended in acquittal only 10 percent of the time.

The “supernatural” element of witchcraft cases made them popular topics for gossip and publishing. One particular case in Boston, that of the widow Glover (a Gaelicspeaking Irish Catholic) who was executed in 1688, attracted the attention of the Puritan reverend Cotton Mather. He published a detailed account of the case, complete with descriptions of the symptoms of possession, the following year in his Memorable Providences Relating to Witchcraft and Possessions. He warned the people of Massachusetts of the threat of a witchcraft epidemic as punishment for running away from their former religious conviction. Mather’s prediction soon came true.

The outbreak of the infamous witchcraft hysteria in Salem Village, Massachusetts, began in January 1692. A group of local girls gathered in the home of Reverend Samuel Parris, the minister of the parish. They listened to stories told by Tituba, a slave of the Parris household who arrived in the colonies from Barbados. The girls joined Tituba in rituals, then, fearful of being caught after acting possessed, accused Tituba of being a witch. Tituba in turn accused two other women of being witches. Events spiraled out of control as various factors, long-standing feuds, jealousies, and family rivalries made the situation more serious. The group of girls, the “afflicted children,” began

This 1876 engraving depicts a Salem witchcraft trial. (Library of Congress)

Accusing dozens of people, until finally more than 200 were arrested and jailed on charges of witchcraft.

Governor Sir William Phips, arriving home in Boston with Reverend Increase Mather (Cotton’s father) and the second Massachusetts charter in May, commissioned a special Court of Oyer and Terminer, hoping to put an end to the hysteria. The court began to try several of the accused witches, relying heavily on eyewitness testimony and “spectral evidence,” which manifested its presence in the fits of screaming and frenzied behavior of the girls. The court initially found all accused witches guilty and convinced many to confess to escape the gallows by identifying other witches. Most who maintained their innocence were convicted and sentenced to death.

Indictments during the hysteria ranged from a few social outcasts to prominent and wealthy colonists, including merchants and even a minister. Seventy-five percent of those accused of witchcraft were married or widowed women between the ages of 40 and 60 years old, while most of the accusers were single adolescent girls between 11 and 20. Fourteen women and five men were convicted and executed by hanging. One older man, Giles Corey, was pressed to death by stones for not entering a plea of guilty or not guilty at his trial; his final words reportedly were “more weight.” One man and three women died in jail.

Legal proceedings against 156 people from 24 towns had been initiated by the end of September. Several leading ministers, notably Increase Mather, began to doubt the legality of the proceedings in Salem, especially the use of the spectral evidence. Governor Phips, whose wife was among the accused, suspended the proceedings and dismissed the court. General pardons were soon issued. When the newly created Massachusetts Superior Court of Judicature (with many of the Salem court’s judges) convened in January, spectral evidence was not admitted. The remaining cases were quickly acquitted and the hysteria subsided. Many jurors publicly apologized for their verdicts four years later, and in 1714 the Massachusetts legislature officially exonerated the victims.

The Salem witchcraft hysteria was the final and largest outbreak of witchcraft in the colonies. Isolated accusations would occasionally appear afterwards, in Virginia in 1706 and in Philadelphia as late as 1787 (where one woman was killed), but nothing came close to the scale or the religious intensity that surrounded the Salem trials. By the mid-18th century, prominent colonists like Benjamin

Franklin made open fun of accusations of witchcraft. Skepticism marked legal proceedings against witches after 1692. The lessons of Salem had apparently been learned.

Further reading: Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974); John Demos, Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982); Mary Beth Norton, In the Devil’s Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692 (New York: Vintage, 2003).

—Stephen C. O’Neill and Billy G. Smith

Wolfe, James (1727-1759) soldier James Wolfe was the British general who captured Louisbourg and Quebec during the Seven Years’ War, thereby helping to ensure a British victory in that conflict. Wolfe was born in Westerham, England, the elder son of General Edward Wolfe. At the age of 14, James joined the British army, in which he served with honor during the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-48) and against the Scottish pretender to the throne, Charles Edward Stuart, in 1746. Early in the Seven Years’ War Wolfe was serving as a brigadier general under Major General Jeffrey Amherst when he captured the French fort at Louisbourg, Nova Scotia, in July 1758. In failing health Wolfe returned to England, where the British political leader William Pitt promoted him to the rank of major general and returned him to Canada to lead the expedition against the French at Quebec. In June 1759 Wolfe led about 9,000 troops up the St. Lawrence River and camped on the river island of Orleans, across from Quebec. Built on a high bluff overlooking the river, the city was easy to defend. General Marquis de Montcalm, the French commander, kept his troops inside the fortress city. As a result Wolfe ordered a frontal assault east of the city on July 31, but the French repelled it. For more than a month the British siege of Quebec lingered. Finally, on September 12, Wolfe surprised Montcalm by secretly moving 5,000 soldiers up the river and onto the Plains of Abraham west of the city. Montcalm realized that he must either face the British in an open battle outside the city or be cut off by land and river. The next day the British defeated the French, and the city surrendered a few days later. However, Wolfe died of a third wound suffered in the battle, his career cut short at the age of 32. This victory essentially won the war for the British in North America, although Montreal did not fall for another year. The Treaty of Paris officially ended the war in 1763.

Further reading: Christopher Hibbert, Wolfe at Quebec (New York: Cooper Square Press, 1999).

—Doug Baker