Witchcraft in North America
Despite changes in laws and perspectives over time, accusations of witchcraft persisted into the 19th century in some regions, such as Tennessee, where prosecutions occurred as late as 1833.
[4] Alan Kilpatrick writes in The Night Has a Naked Soul: Witchcraft and Sorcery Among the Western Cherokee "A cursory survey of the ethnohistorical literature indicates that death was the standard punishment among Native American societies.
[11]: 4-6 [12] The Cherokee have traditional monster stories of witches, such as Raven Mocker (Kâ'lanû Ahkyeli'skï) and Spearfinger (U'tlun'ta), both known as dangerous killers.
[11]: 5 In the twentieth century, many communities responded to allegations of witchcraft with mental health treatment, including medication.
To the Hopis, witches or evil-hearted persons deliberately try to destroy social harmony by sowing discontent, doubt, and criticism through evil gossip as well as by actively combating medicine men.
Witches are also the occult cause of unusual circumstances, such as hailstorms on a sunny day, extreme drought, or people suffering bad fortune.
The most common variety seen in horror fiction by non-Navajo people is the yee naaldlooshii (a type of 'ánti'įhnii),[15] known in English as the skin-walker.
In 1692, the royal governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, William Phips, created a special court in order to try the accused witches.
Derived from papal authority and enforced through a collaboration of church and state,[20] the judicial procedures embodied in the Inquisition were aimed at prosecuting heretics, among whom were initially the Catharists in southern France and the Waldensians in Germany and Italy.
[21] But by the emergence of the Spanish Inquisition in the late fifteenth century, Inquisitors targeted Conversos, Jews who had converted to Catholicism but were suspected of disloyalty to the faith.
[22] It was in this period that the Church began linking witchcraft to heresy, particularly in southwestern Germany where witch hunts intensified by the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
[24] It was not until the sixteenth century that the Inquisition fanned out to hold ex-Muslims and Lutherans accountable for suspected heresy,[22] with the latter deemed the primary threat.
Witchcraft in early colonial America was never overlooked because those who participated were thought to have an agreement with the devil, therefore choosing him over God and obtaining supernatural powers.
At America's first witch trial, Hugh was found innocent, while Mary was acquitted of witchcraft but sentenced to be hanged for the death of her child.
These witch trials were the most famous in British North America and took place in the coastal settlements near Salem, Massachusetts.
Prior to the witch trials, nearly three hundred men and women had been suspected of partaking in witchcraft, and nineteen of these people were hanged, and one was "pressed to death".
[32][citation needed][33] The Crucible by Arthur Miller is a dramatized and partially fictionalized story of the Salem witch trials that took place in the Massachusetts Bay Colony during 1692–93.
In Maryland, there is a legend of Moll Dyer, who escaped a fire set by fellow colonists only to die of exposure in December 1697.
Many local families have their own version of the Moll Dyer affair, and her name is spoken with care in the rural southern counties.
It is believed after her move her neighbors and towns people were jealous of her money and caused her of practicing dark arts.
She was blamed for the teenagers' death, and eleven of her neighbors accused her of poisoning their breast milk, leading to babies getting sick.
She was accused as a witch for wearing colorful clothing, she had a black cat and a talking parrot, and often collected herbs to soothe aliments.
[37] This occurred nineteen years after the Swedish territory became a British common law colony and subject to English Witchcraft Act 1603.
[37] A petit jury of twelve men was selected by Penn and an interpreter was appointed for the Finnish women, who did not speak English.
[40] Penn barred the use of prosecution and defense lawyers, conducted the questioning himself, and permitted the introduction of unsubstantiated hearsay.
[43][37] A popular legend tells of William Penn dismissing the charges against Mattson by affirming her legal right to fly on a broomstick over Philadelphia, saying "Well, I know of no law against it.
"[39] The record fails to show any such commentary, but the story probably reflects popular views of Penn's socially progressive Quaker values.
[18] Witchcraft in Virginia was less common compared to neighboring states, but nevertheless, evidence still shows that over two dozen trials were still taken place between 1626 and 1720.
