Witchcraft 1687: The Deposition of
Thomas Knowlton against Rachel Clinton

Reprinted in Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and
the Culture of Early New England in 1982

Long before the Salem witchcraft trials in 1692–93, Puritans had been blaming witches for problems—economic hardship, epidemic illnesses, political conflict, and social unrest. In fact, during the second half of the seventeenth century charges of witchcraft became rampant in New England communities. Usually, but not always, women were the targets of the charges, and frequently these women lived alone either because they were unmarried, had been widowed, or had been deserted by their husbands. Some had been prosperous citizens who fell on hard times and thus became outsiders. One such woman was Rachel Clinton (see biography entry) of Ipswich, Massachusetts, who was accused of witchcraft in the mid-1680s, around the time prominent Boston...