The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England

The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England PDF Author: Carol F. Karlsen
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393347192
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
"A pioneer work in…the sexual structuring of society. This is not just another book about witchcraft." —Edmund S. Morgan, Yale University Confessing to "familiarity with the devils," Mary Johnson, a servant, was executed by Connecticut officials in 1648. A wealthy Boston widow, Ann Hibbens was hanged in 1656 for casting spells on her neighbors. The case of Ann Cole, who was "taken with very strange Fits," fueled an outbreak of witchcraft accusations in Hartford a generation before the notorious events at Salem. More than three hundred years later, the question "Why?" still haunts us. Why were these and other women likely witches—vulnerable to accusations of witchcraft and possession? Carol F. Karlsen reveals the social construction of witchcraft in seventeenth-century New England and illuminates the larger contours of gender relations in that society.

The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England

The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England PDF Author: Carol F. Karlsen
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393347192
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
"A pioneer work in…the sexual structuring of society. This is not just another book about witchcraft." —Edmund S. Morgan, Yale University Confessing to "familiarity with the devils," Mary Johnson, a servant, was executed by Connecticut officials in 1648. A wealthy Boston widow, Ann Hibbens was hanged in 1656 for casting spells on her neighbors. The case of Ann Cole, who was "taken with very strange Fits," fueled an outbreak of witchcraft accusations in Hartford a generation before the notorious events at Salem. More than three hundred years later, the question "Why?" still haunts us. Why were these and other women likely witches—vulnerable to accusations of witchcraft and possession? Carol F. Karlsen reveals the social construction of witchcraft in seventeenth-century New England and illuminates the larger contours of gender relations in that society.

The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England

The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England PDF Author: Carol F. Karlsen
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393317595
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 393

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Book Description
In this work, Carol Karlsen reveals the social construction of witchcraft in 17th century New England and illuminates the larger contours of gender relations in that society. "A pioneering work in . . . the sexual structuring of society. This is not just another book about witchcraft".--Edmund S. Morgan, Yale University.

The Devil in the Shape of a Woman

The Devil in the Shape of a Woman PDF Author: Carol F. Karlsen
Publisher: Peter Smith Publisher
ISBN: 9780844670201
Category : Witchcraft
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
In this work, Carol Karlsen reveals the social construction of witchcraft in 17th century New England and illuminates the larger contours of gender relations in that society. "A pioneering work in . . . the sexual structuring of society. This is not just another book about witchcraft".--Edmund S. Morgan, Yale University.

Damned Women

Damned Women PDF Author: Elizabeth Reis
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501713337
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
In her analysis of the cultural construction of gender in early America, Elizabeth Reis explores the intersection of Puritan theology, Puritan evaluations of womanhood, and the Salem witchcraft episodes. She finds in those intersections the basis for understanding why women were accused of witchcraft more often than men, why they confessed more often, and why they frequently accused other women of being witches. In negotiating their beliefs about the devil's powers, both women and men embedded womanhood in the discourse of depravity.Puritan ministers insisted that women and men were equal in the sight of God, with both sexes equally capable of cleaving to Christ or to the devil. Nevertheless, Reis explains, womanhood and evil were inextricably linked in the minds and hearts of seventeenth-century New England Puritans. Women and men feared hell equally but Puritan culture encouraged women to believe it was their vile natures that would take them there rather than the particular sins they might have committed.Following the Salem witchcraft trials, Reis argues, Puritans' understanding of sin and the devil changed. Ministers and laity conceived of a Satan who tempted sinners and presided physically over hell, rather than one who possessed souls in the living world. Women and men became increasingly confident of their redemption, although women more than men continued to imagine themselves as essentially corrupt, even after the Great Awakening.

Narratives of the Witchcraft Cases, 1648-1706

Narratives of the Witchcraft Cases, 1648-1706 PDF Author: George Lincoln Burr
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Witchcraft
Languages : en
Pages : 584

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Book Description


Witchcraft in Early North America

Witchcraft in Early North America PDF Author: Alison Games
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
ISBN: 9781442203594
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
Witchcraft in Early North America investigates European, African, and Indian witchcraft beliefs and their expression in colonial America. Alison Games's engaging book takes us beyond the infamous outbreak at Salem, Massachusetts, to look at how witchcraft was a central feature of colonial societies in North America. Her substantial and lively introduction orients readers to the subject and to the rich selection of documents that follows. The documents—some of which have never been published previously—include excerpts from trials in Virginia, New Mexico, and Massachusetts; accounts of outbreaks in Salem, Abiquiu (New Mexico), and among the Delaware Indians. This fascinating topic and the book's broad geographic and chronological coverage make this book ideally suited for readers interested in new approaches to colonial history and the history of witchcraft.

Six Women of Salem

Six Women of Salem PDF Author: Marilynne K. Roach
Publisher: Da Capo Press
ISBN: 0306822342
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 472

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Book Description
The story of the Salem Witch Trials told through the lives of six women Six Women of Salem is the first work to use the lives of a select number of representative women as a microcosm to illuminate the larger crisis of the Salem witch trials. By the end of the trials, beyond the twenty who were executed and the five who perished in prison, 207 individuals had been accused, 74 had been "afflicted," 32 had officially accused their fellow neighbors, and 255 ordinary people had been inexorably drawn into that ruinous and murderous vortex, and this doesn't include the religious, judicial, and governmental leaders. All this adds up to what the Rev. Cotton Mather called "a desolation of names." The individuals involved are too often reduced to stock characters and stereotypes when accuracy is sacrificed to indignation. And although the flood of names and detail in the history of an extraordinary event like the Salem witch trials can swamp the individual lives involved, individuals still deserve to be remembered and, in remembering specific lives, modern readers can benefit from such historical intimacy. By examining the lives of six specific women, Marilynne Roach shows readers what it was like to be present throughout this horrific time and how it was impossible to live through it unchanged.

A Fever in Salem

A Fever in Salem PDF Author: Laurie Winn Carlson
Publisher: Ivan R. Dee
ISBN: 1566633397
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
This new interpretation of the New England Witch Trials offers an innovative, well-grounded explanation of witchcraft's link to organic illness. While most historians have concentrated on the accused, Laurie Winn Carlson focuses on the afflicted. Systematically comparing the symptoms recorded in colonial diaries and court records to those of the encephalitis epidemic in the early twentieth century, she argues convincingly that the victims suffered from the same disease. A unique blend of historical epidemiology and sociology. —Katrina L. Kelner, Science. Meticulously researched...the author marshalls her arguments with clarity and persuasive force. —New Yorker

The Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America

The Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America PDF Author: Brian P. Levack
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191648833
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 646

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Book Description
The essays in this Handbook, written by leading scholars working in the rapidly developing field of witchcraft studies, explore the historical literature regarding witch beliefs and witch trials in Europe and colonial America between the early fifteenth and early eighteenth centuries. During these years witches were thought to be evil people who used magical power to inflict physical harm or misfortune on their neighbours. Witches were also believed to have made pacts with the devil and sometimes to have worshipped him at nocturnal assemblies known as sabbaths. These beliefs provided the basis for defining witchcraft as a secular and ecclesiastical crime and prosecuting tens of thousands of women and men for this offence. The trials resulted in as many as fifty thousand executions. These essays study the rise and fall of witchcraft prosecutions in the various kingdoms and territories of Europe and in English, Spanish, and Portuguese colonies in the Americas. They also relate these prosecutions to the Catholic and Protestant reformations, the introduction of new forms of criminal procedure, medical and scientific thought, the process of state-building, profound social and economic change, early modern patterns of gender relations, and the wave of demonic possessions that occurred in Europe at the same time. The essays survey the current state of knowledge in the field, explore the academic controversies that have arisen regarding witch beliefs and witch trials, propose new ways of studying the subject, and identify areas for future research.

Tituba, Reluctant Witch of Salem

Tituba, Reluctant Witch of Salem PDF Author: Elaine G. Breslaw
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814713076
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
Tituba, a young house servant from the West Indies, allegedly influenced and encouraged occult activities among teenage girls in 17th century Massachusetts, which led to the infamous witch hunts of Salem. This book offers "an imaginative reconstruction of what might have been Tituba's past".--TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT. "A valuable probe of how myths can feed hysteria".--THE WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD. 15 photos.