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About eighty people throughout England's Massachusetts Bay Colony were accused of practicing witchcraft; thirteen women and two men were executed in a witch-hunt that occurred throughout New England and lasted from 1645 to 1663. [67] The Salem witch trials followed in 1692–1693. Once a case was brought to trial, the prosecutors hunted for ...
An estimated 75% to 85% of those accused in the early modern witch trials were women, [10] [126] [127] [128] and there is certainly evidence of misogyny on the part of those persecuting witches, evident from quotes such as "[It is] not unreasonable that this scum of humanity, [witches], should be drawn chiefly from the feminine sex" (Nicholas ...
The history of Wicca documents the rise of the Neopagan religion of Wicca and related witchcraft-based Neopagan religions. [a] Wicca originated in the early 20th century, when it developed amongst secretive covens in England who were basing their religious beliefs and practices upon what they read of the historical witch-cult in the works of such writers as Margaret Murray.
Ronald Hutton says that healers and cunning folk "were sometimes denounced as witches, but seem to have made up a minority of the accused in any area studied". [13] Likewise, Davies says "relatively few cunning-folk were prosecuted under secular statutes for witchcraft" and were dealt with more leniently than alleged witches. [20]
These texts exemplify the witch stereotype, more specifically the female nature of it, that was integrated into society at the time. Principally, most of the legal authorities prosecuting witchcraft were male-staffed with mostly female being prosecuted. Even with male-dominated crime, women were being prosecuted left and right.
And, of course, there was the dark chapter in America's own history when, in 1692, dozens of men and women (as young as four years old) were arrested and charged with suspicion of witchcraft in ...
"The Manningtree Witches" by poet A. K. Blakemore tracks 17th-century witch trials through the eyes of the accused and their perverse accusers. Review: How weird women became 'witches' in a fierce ...
The women accused were said to be "often the poor, elderly women of a Community ‘whose poverty, sour temper or singular habits made them an object of dislike or fear to their neighbours". [4] The Justice Court which presided over these women's trials, consisted of the Provost of Aberdeen, four baillies and a jury.