Witchcraft in Early North America (American Controversies)

232 Pages·2010·7.39 MB·English

by  Alison Games

Witchcraft in Early North America
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American Controversies Series
Series Editor: Douglas R. Egerton, Le Moyne College
Students love debate. They love contention, which they see all about them
in modern society. Yet too many monographs or biographies erase the
controversies that existed in earlier decades. Slavery and institutionalized
sexism, for example, strike modern readers as being so clearly wrong that they
cannot understand why rational Americans endorsed slavery or thought it
foolish to enfranchise women. How could a politician as brilliant as Thomas
Jefferson believe that forced assimilation was the best policy for Native
Americans? Why did Americans allow Hitler to become so powerful before
confronting him? Why were many of the so-called Greatest Generation
indifferent to social justice at home? How did the Vietnam War become
such a political and cultural powder keg? Hindsight is often the enemy of
understanding, and what strikes us as obvious was often anything but simple
to earlier generations.
This series deals with major controversies in American history. The
events depicted in this series were either controversial at the time (such as
militant abolitionism) or have sparked modern historiographical controver-
sies. (Did slave conspiracies actually exist, for example? Why did witch trials
in Salem spiral out of control in 1692?) Each volume in the series begins with
an extensive essay that explains the topic, discusses the relevant historiogra-
phy, and summarizes the various points of view (contemporaneous as well as
modern). The second half of the volume is devoted to documents, but each
is annotated and preceded by a brief introduction. By contextualizing each
document, this series pulls back the curtain, so to speak, on the process of
writing history, even as the essays, letters, laws, and newspaper accounts that
follow allow important American actors to speak in their own voices. Most
of all, by examining both sides in these debates, and by providing documents
that see each issue from different angles, the American Controversies Series
will bring history alive—and enliven history classrooms.
Volumes Published
Slavery and Sectional Strife in the Early American Republic, 1776–1821
Gary J. Kornblith
Antebellum Women: Private, Public, Partisan
Carol Lasser and Stacey Robertson
Witchcraft in Early North America
Alison Games
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Witchcraft in Early North America
Alison Games
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.
Lanham (cid:129) Boulder (cid:129) New York (cid:129) Toronto (cid:129) Plymouth, UK
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Cover illustrations: Witch riding the Devil, from Richard Bovet, Pandaemonium,
or the Devil’s Cloyster (London, 1684); English witch, from The Wonderful discoverie
of the witchcraft of Margaret and Phillip Flower, daughters of Joan Flower neere Bever
Castle: executed at Lincolne, March 11, 1618 (London, 1619), both items reproduced
by permission of The Huntington Library, San Marino, California; The Conjurer, from
Thomas Hariot, A Brief and true report of the new found land of Virginia (Frankfort-
am-Main, 1590), plate XI, reproduced by permission of the Folger Shakespeare Library;
Isaac Jogues, from François Ducreux, Historiae Canadensis (Paris, 1664), The Library of
Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-49877.
Published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
http://www.rowmanlittlefield.com
Estover Road, Plymouth PL6 7PY, United Kingdom
Copyright © 2010 by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any
electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems,
without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote
passages in a review.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Games, Alison, 1963-
Witchcraft in Early North America / Alison Games.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4422-0357-0 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-4422-0359-4
(electronic : alk. paper)
1. Witchcraft—United States—History. I. Title.
BF1573.G36 2010
133.4'30973—dc22 2010014423
(cid:2) ™
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper
for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Printed in the United States of America
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(cid:2)
Contents
Preface xi
Section I. Witchcraft in Early North America:
An Introduction 1
Beliefs: Europeans 7
Beliefs: West and West-Central Africans 18
Beliefs: Native Americans 21
Colonization, Witchcraft, and Resistance 25
New Mexico 32
New France 36
British North America 39
Africans and Their Descendants in North America 48
Outbreaks: Putting Salem in Context 55
Confession 63
Possession 65
Prophets and Witch Hunts in the New United States 76
Skepticism 83
Notes 93
vii
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viii Contents
Section II. Primary Documents 107
First Impressions 109
Document 1 Fray Benavides Sees Wizards, Sorcerers, and the
Demon in New Mexico, 1625–1627 109
Document 2 Making Sense of the Sickness in Huron
Country, 1636–1637: Who’s a Witch? 111
Document 3 The Execution of Isaac Jogues, 1646 118
Resistance and the Devil 120
Document 4 Andrés Pérez de Ribas Explains the Origins
of the Tepehuan Revolt, 1616 120
Document 5 Witchcraft, Sorcery, and the Pueblo Revolt,
1680–1681 123
English Witch Beliefs Cross the Atlantic 127
Document 6 The English Act against Conjuration, 1604 127
Document 7 The Law of the Colony of Connecticut, 1642 129
Document 8 The Case of Goodwife Wright, Virginia, 1626 129
Document 9 The Execution of Mary Lee en route to
Maryland, 1654 133
Document 10 The Case of Grace Sherwood, Virginia, 1706 137
Document 11 Governor Kaine Pardons Grace Sherwood, 2006 142
New Worlds 143
Document 12 A Case of Witchcraft in New Mexico, 1708 143
Document 13 Willem Bosman Explains the Ritual Use of Poison
in Guinea, 1704 152
Document 14 South Carolina Strengthens Its Laws against
Poisoning and Slave Doctors, 1740, 1751 153
Document 15 Items about Poisoning from the South Carolina
Gazette, 1749, 1769 157
Document 16 Poison at Monticello, 1800 158
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Contents ix
Two Cases of Possession 160
Document 17 The Possession of Elizabeth Knapp, Massachusetts,
1671–1672 160
Document 18 Possession at Abiquiu, New Mexico, 1763–1764 166
Outbreaks 175
Document 19 The Examinations of Tituba and Sarah Good,
Salem, March 1, 1692 176
Document 20 Nathaniel Cary’s Account of His Wife’s
Examination, May 1692 181
Document 21 The Examination of Candy, July 4, 1692 184
Document 22 The Petition of John Proctor, July 23, 1692 185
Document 23 The Examination of Mary Toothaker, July 30, 1692 186
Document 24 The Examinations of Abigail Faulkner, August 1692 189
Document 25 Thomas Brattle’s Skepticism, 1692 190
Document 26 Ann Putnam’s Confession, 1706 195
Document 27 The Code of Handsome Lake 196
Document 28 The Code of the Shawnee Prophet, circa 1812 197
Document 29 The Witch Hunt at the White River Mission, 1806 199
Index 205
About the Author 217
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