From Remarkable Providences (1684)

Reprinted in Major Problems in American
Colonial History in 1993

In 1684 the prominent Boston minister Increase Mather (1639–1723) wrote An Essay for the Recording of Illustrious Providences, the first work published in the American colonies on the subject of witchcraft. Most commonly referred to as Remarkable Providences, it was also the document that helped spark the witch-hunts in New England. Mather was the son of Richard Mather, an English Puritan minister who settled in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1635. Increase was born in 1639, his unusual name a product of an era of religious fervor, when Puritans gave their children religiously significant names. "Increase" refers to the belief that God increased his favor for the world by sending his son, Jesus of Nazareth, to save sinners. In 1663, Increase had a son whom he named Cotton after his father-in-law...