Child Witches in Colonial America

It is perhaps unsurprising that the figure of the child in colonial witchcraft cases has been accorded relatively little critical attention; the persecution by and of children in European cases—such as Mora, Sweden; Augsburg and Wurzburg in Germany; and Pendle in Lancashire—all predated and outnumbered even those in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692. Yet given the predominance of child accusers in Salem and in other New England witch accusations, the number of accused children in Salem, and the citing of children as victims of witchcraft across colonial America, it seems there is still room for further investigation of their role. Yet discussing children is always difficult in these cases, as the definition of what a child is varies significantly across time and geographical location, and even frequently within those boundaries. What is more certain is that, as in earlier European accusations, children and young people were often the instigators of witch accusations, either directly (in that they accused specific people of witchcraft) or indirectly (in that adults assumed witchcraft to be the cause of their ailments or in adult accusations against midwives whose roles were, by definition, bound up with children). The illnesses and accusations of children were at the heart of many Connecticut cases between 1647 and 1697; children played a major role as accusers in the 1688 Boston case against Ann Glover; and they were central to the proceedings in Salem as both accusers (at least 27 accusers were under the age of 18) and accused (24 under-18s were accused of witchcraft and six were tried in a full court; at least three of those were tortured; and one was found guilty and sentenced to death although the execution never took place). Even some of the very few cases that came to court in Virginia mentioned children in relation to midwives and/or as victims. By far the majority of historical works on colonial witchcraft focus on the role of children as accusers; very few consider children as witches. And while many view Salem as the end of colonial witch trials, 1692 only marks the end of witchcraft-related executions; accusations continued up to and beyond the end of the colonial era in 1763, as did the role of children.