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date: 29 June 2022

Abstract and Keywords

This article discusses the history of witchcraft in British America. The fear of witches was embedded within the culture which English migrants brought with them as they crossed the Atlantic to settle in North America, and so it is not surprising that witch-hunting became a part of the colonial experience. Over sixty trials for witchcraft took place in seventeenth-century New England, omitting the infamous Salem witch-hunt of 1692, which resulted in over 150 formal charges. Accusations of witchcraft occurred throughout the British colonies, but there were far fewer prosecutions in the middle and southern colonies than in New England.

Keywords: witchcraft prosecutions, British colonies, witchcraft, English migrants, witch trials, New England

Richard Godbeer

Richard Godbeer, is Professor of History at the University of Miami. He is author of The Devil's Dominion: Magic and Religion in Early New England (1992), Sexual Revolution in Early America (2002), Escaping Salem: The Other Witch Hunt of 1692 (2005), The Overflowing of Friendship: Love between Men and the Creation of the American Republic (2009), and The Salem Witch Hunt: A Brief History with Documents (2011).

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