The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England

The witch was an ominous specter that hung over Puritan society; indeed, witches encompassed all of Puritans’ foremost fears into one being. As Karlsen illustrates in her book, studying the witch and those women accused of being one illuminates social, political, and economic aspects of Puritan life that are rarely explicitly described in sources from 17th-century New England. Understanding the witch—both as a mythological figure and as a real presence in Puritan society, as seen through the women who were accused as being witches themselves—is a vital component to understanding colonial America as a whole. Further, as Karlsen ultimately argues in her book, studying the witch is to study women’s history in America because it enlightens the structures of oppression still facing women to this day.

The witch a human who consorted with the Devil, straddling the natural and supernatural world. To the Puritan society, which relied heavily on nature to survive (e.g., crops, farm animals, etc.), threats to this natural order were taken very seriously. Witchcraft accusations were often linked to farm animal diseases and crop failures. Women who were thought to be witches were also blamed for infant deaths and miscarriages, reflecting Puritans’ anxieties over population levels and surviving in their new colonies. Meanwhile, the witch’s supernatural threat to Puritan spirituality was clear. Not only was she a woman who defied the power of the church, but it was believed that she dealt with the Devil to escape wifely duties and domestic responsibilities. Witches were dangerous because they denied the proper roles that the Puritan power structure relied on.

The witch was also a figure that Puritans used to draw “othering” lines in their society. Any individual who was deemed unacceptable, for any reason, drew witchcraft accusations. The basis of Karlsen’s book rests on the observation that it was mostly women who garnered accusations, highlighting the misogynistic foundations of 17th-century New England. However, it wasn’t just behavior that caused women to be accused of witchcraft. For instance, Karlsen points out in Chapter 2 that women over 40 were the main targets for accusations because they were “not only beyond their childbearing years but were also no longer likely to be responsible for the care and maintenance of children” (71). This example makes it clear how witches were figures that captured not simply the fears, but the resentments of Puritan society. Witchcraft accusations were used to both control the behavior of colonists and to communicate what qualities of a person were acceptable. Anybody who laid outside of these strict boundaries were deemed “other” and more likely to be labelled as a witch.