Such were the great religious feminine uprisings and revolts in New England. Woman had proved that she was capable of establishing at least a partial independence, had shown that she was gradually coming to be a force that would have to be reckoned with in future estimates of the commonwealth. It is true that the fathers of the land did not read the signs of the times and believed the new movement of feminine progress to be but sporadic and of certain termination in the near future; but they had some excuse for their blindness in the existence and nature of another feminine movement which placed the female nature in a most unenviable light,--that of witchcraft.
Under the chronological system which has been adopted--though it has been stretched several times nearly to the breaking-point--it becomes necessary to treat of witchcraft in New England in two separate chapters, the Salem outbreak falling by date within the later period of colonization.
Before we too greatly blame our forefathers and foremothers for their superstition and cruelty in the matter of witchcraft, it may be well to remember a few facts in connection with the subject. Such men as Cranmer, Bacon, Luther, Melancthon, and Kepler have recorded their belief in witchcraft, and as late as 1765 Blackstone wrote: "To deny the possibility, nay, actual existence of witchcraft and sorcery is at once flatly to contradict the revealed word of God in various passages both of the Old and New Testaments; and the thing itself is a truth to which every nation in the world hath, in its time, borne testimony either by example, seemingly well attested, or by prohibitory laws which at least suppose the possibility of commerce with evil spirits." Blackstone was not unenlightened; and so we can see that a belief in the actual and present existence of witchcraft was not inexcusable in our New England forbears. Belief in witchcraft was prevalent in England down to the nineteenth century; and even in the English Church in the seventeenth century there was a canon which forbade clergymen to cast out devils without being duly licensed to do so, and such licenses were actually issued by the Bishop of Chester. It must also be remembered that America was considered, by virtue probably of the color of its aborigines, to be the peculiar domain of His Satanic Majesty, who delighted in dwelling within its shores. Hence it would have been rather strange if there had not arisen in the colonies accusation of witchcraft. This, however, does not preclude our sympathy with the victims or our conclusions as to the nature of the women who believed in such charges and as to the civilization which condemned the witches to death. For it was usually on charges brought by women against women that there came accusation of witchcraft; the men were rarely more than judges and executioners. Thus the subject falls well within our scope of discussion and narration.