Genealogy information and records concerning 
ancestors in the thirteen original American colonies.

 

                                                 

  

 

The Witchcraft Delusion

One of the most fearful delusions recorded in history is that of the general belief in witchcraft which prevailed in Europe down to the seventeenth century. 

Its baleful shadow all too soon fell upon New England. Massachusetts and Connecticut made laws against witchcraft and hanged a number of persons on the charge of being witches. In 1692 the town of Salem went crazy over the belief that the diabolical spirits were at work among them. Two little girls, who were simpletons that ought to have been spanked and put to bed, declared with bulging eyes that different persons had taken the form of a black cat and pinched, scratched, and bitten them. 

The people, including the great preacher Cotton Mather, believed this stuff, and the supposed wizards and witches were punished with fearful severity. Suspicion in many cases meant death; evil men disposed of their creditors and enemies by charging them with witchcraft; families were divided and the gentlest and most irreproachable of women suffered disgraceful death. Everybody, including ministers and judges, lost their wits. 

The magistrates crowded the jails, until twenty had been put to death and fifty-five tortured before the craze subsided. Then it became clear that no one, no matter what his station, was safe, and the delusion, which forms one of the blackest pages in New England, passed away.

Source:  A New History of the United States, The Greater Republic by Charles Morris, LL.D., W. E. Scull, 1899. 

 

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