Why Women Were Accused: The Social Anatomy of Witchcraft Panic

Why were certain women accused of witchcraft in the 1600s? This mini-"between the seasons"- episode of Legacy Lore explores how fear, gender, religion, and social control shaped witchcraft accusations across Colonial America and England. Learn how coverture laws, the domestic sphere, and community suspicion made widows, midwives, healers, and outspoken women vulnerable during the witch trials. Witchcraft wasn’t about magic. It was about power and patriarchy.Sources:Karlsen, Carol F. The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England. Norton, 1987.Norton, Mary Beth. In the Devil’s Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692. Alfred A. Knopf, 2002.Willis, Deborah Malevolent Nurture: Witch-Hunting and Maternal Power in Early Modern England, 1995.Roper, Lyndal Witch Craze: Terror and Fantasy in Baroque Germany 2004. Gibson, Marion Reading Witchcraft: Stories of Early English Witches 1999Cott, Nancy F. The Bonds of Womanhood: “Woman’s Sphere” in New England, 1780–1835Erickson, Amy Louis Women and Property in Early Modern England 1991Rediker, Marcus Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates, and the Anglo-American Maritime World 1987