>From Jenny Gibbons: >So to summarize, I think that our ancestors were terrified of a >non-existant Satanic conspiracy. The witches they feared didn't exist; >the witches that existed weren't feared. Moreover the real witches (cunning folk) feared and hated these non-existant witches as much as everybody else. If this were true, then Elizabeth Morse would never have been accused, prosecuted, and convicted. She was a folk healer who was turned to for help when people or animals were ill. But when her help didn't work, when children or animals died after she visited instead of getting well, people claimed she had deliberately done harm. As most scholars of magic point out--as well as those who have looked at what happened to midwives--people were quick to accuse "white witches" if their methods didn't produce the desired result. As Northwest Coast native healer Johnny Moses says, in the old days, if a medcine man or woman tried to help, and the person died instead of getting well, then sometimes the luckless healer was killed on the spot. In Puritan New England, the process was a little slower: the person was accused of witchcraft, tried, convicted, and then killed. In practice (as Owen Davies has pointed out), the distinctions between those who used what we call magic to do good vs. those who used it for harm often blurred. For example, cunning folk (as opposed to charmers) were credited with the ability to identify when illness was the result of a witch's curse, and cunning folk were enlisted to reverse the effect by harming the witch. A number of scholars have pointed out that the general public often felt ambivalently towards those who could wield magical power: they turned to them when they were desperate, but they also feared their abilities. While I agree that many of the modern historical studies of New England witchcraft accusations often lack much knowledge of what witchcraft meant, I also would suggest studies other than the ones you recommended. I think Keith Thomas' studies were important as pioneering studies (the subject has only recently become "respectable" in scholarly circles), but his studies are largely confined to England and France, and they have become dated. Robin Briggs' study has been criticized for drawing broad conclusions based on a rather narrow geographic scope. My own feeling is that while studies of England, France, and Germany are interesting, they do not tell us what was happening in New England. Although New England was like England in some respects, it was also unique in others. I'm hoping someone will do a thorough examination of the court records, the local histories, and the books people were reading to examine what people in New England actually thought and how their ideas determined their actions. I'd especially recommend the work of Owen Davies, for example his article in History Today, August 1999 v49 i8 p7 WITCHCRAFT THE SPELL THAT DIDN'T BREAK, and his articles on the differences between charmers and cunning folk that appeared in the English journal, _Folklore_. David D. Hall has published several good studies of Puritan attitudes towards "wonders", a subject that touches closely on how they regarded witchcraft. I also recommend the article, "The Devil Hath Laughed at the Physicians”: Witchcraft and Medical Practice in Seventeenth-Century New England" by NORMAN GEVITZ which appeared in Journal of the History of Medicine Vol. 55, January 2000 (Oxford university press issn 0022-5045 volume 55 pages 5 to 36). I also recommend, in a general way, Claire Fanger (ed.), _Conjuring Spirits_, the various books written or edited by Karen Jolly, and Richard Kieckhefer's _Magic in the Middle Ages_. A while ago, I read an article on Puritan perceptions of Indians and how it affected the Salem trials (the article predated Norton's book by several years). The author pointed out that "John Indian" was used to detect witches. The unstated presumption seemed to be that since he was an Indian, John had the ability to discern spirits. I've been trying to find the reference but no luck so far. Francine Nicholson _________________________________________________________________ Protect your PC - get McAfee.com VirusScan Online http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963

Being a white witch, like being elderly, was one of the things that could increase a person's chances of being accused of witchcraft. But Elizabeth Morse's experiences were not typical for a white witch -- any more than Rebecca Nurse's experiences were those of the typical elderly woman. It would be very wrong to say that the New England witch trials were caused by prejudice against or intolerance of white witches. The people New Englanders feared were the cow- and child-killing "black" witches who didn't exist. There are several strands of evidence that support this conclusion. 1) Contemporary accounts. Religious leaders, particularly Puritans, stress the popularity that white witches enjoyed. Almost all contemporary guides to witch-hunting discuss this. New England Puritan clergy mounted a major campaign in the 1680s to try to convince people that helpful magic was evil, like harmful magic. If most people feared/hated white witches, they wouldn't have needed to do that. (Richard Godbeer's book that I mentioned has a good discussion of the New England sermons and books which attacked popular acceptance of helpful magic.) 2) Studies of lists of white witches and midwives. These unfortunately come from England (where churches were supposed to keep lists of notorious sinners) and may not be completely applicable to America. But where we have lists we can see that white witches were extremely common. The churches in Essex County, for instance, reported 41 practicing white witches living in their county alone, and another 20 operating in the county area. Few of these people seem to have been accused of witchcraft. (Thomas summarizes this material.) Anecdotal evidence suggests that something similar happened in America. Many anonymous white witches appear in the accounts of colonial life; only a few ended up accused of witchcraft. 3) Witchcraft laws and the populace's reactions to them. If people hated all magic equally, all forms of magic would have been illegal. Witches would have been prosecuted, whether or not there was "evidence" of them causing harm. Neither of these things were true. Even New England, which had some of the most "clerical" laws around, did not class all magic as witchcraft. Witchcraft was defined as having a familiar spirit and lay people did not believe that you needed to have a familiar to do magic. Even some clergy, like John Hale, admitted that some magic users might not have a compact with Satan. Some people, Hale said, did what they did "ignorantly, in misbelief." The trials themselves demonstrate that people generally limited their accusations to perceived magical criminals. In England and New England there are almost no trials where a witch was accused simply because she was a magical healer. I don't know the exact statistics for American trials off-hand, but I believe they all contained accusations of harmful magic. There are approximately six cases from England that involved pure healing. (The cases are listed in Thomas, pg 246) I am not arguing that being a healer had no impact on your chances of being accused. It did -- like marital status, like sex, like age. However white witches like Elizabeth Morse were the exceptions, not the norm. People might harbor ambiguous feelings towards white witches. How could they not, with their clergy raving about how evil these people were? But contemporary accounts show that most colonial New Englanders believed in the possibility of morally neutral magic, and of good witches. Being considered a white witch did not automatically lead to being hated. >>I'm hoping someone will do a thorough examination of the court records, the local histories, and the books people were reading to examine what people in New England actually thought and how their ideas determined their actions.<< Richard Godbeer's _The Devil's Dominion: Magic and Religion in Early New England_ (Cambridge University Press, 1992) is a great start. Very similar to David Hall's excellent works, which you mentioned. Godbeer discusses the differences between popular and clerical attitudes towards white magic in New England. He then explores how Puritans justified this apparent intellectual dichotomy. Jenny Gibbons