Witchcraft and Patriarchy in Colonial North America

“Women as Witches, Witches as Women”: Witchcraft and Patriarchy in Colonial North America Matthew Dennis and Elizabeth Reis (2015) 1642ofconventionally “In early America, witchcraft was a serious matter. The Connecticut statute designated it as a capital crime—defined in part by the Bible, but proscribed and prosecuted as a secular, criminal offense, punishable by death.” (66) Argument: “... but as this essay demonstrates, a brief history of witch-hunting offers us a partial but useful lens for surveying patriarchal power, how it was developed and where it was absent or underdeveloped. The consideration of witchcraft and its alleged practice helps us assess the status of women, their prescribed roles, and their place within the new, shifting, cross-cultural social worlds of early America.” (66) Carol Karlsen -- “The history of witchcraft is the history of women” (66) “It suggests how the histories of women and witch-hunting were embedded in the history of power, especially patriarchy, a social order pervasive in the early American era that assigned women unique social and spiritual roles, which were often oppressive, but which cannot be reduced simply to misogyny —the hatred of women. Patriarchy and its alternatives, as well as misogyny, have varied over time, place, and circumstances.” (66-67) Definitions of Normativity/Creating Normal: “The abnormal or unacceptable helped determine the normal and prescribed, offering a negative reference that shaped ideas and practices that were deemed conventional or exemplary. Transgressive acts defined standard behavior in part by demonstrating how not to be, and what not to do, while prosecution of transgression policed the boundaries between legal and illegal, benign and evil, approved and forbidden, male and female, Christian and non-Christian, European and Native.” (67) Throughout early American history, the concept of the “witch” and charges of witchcraft helped set and police the boundaries of female normality and acceptability. Women who challenged cultural notions of appropriate conduct, whether intentionally or unintentionally—even women who wholeheartedly embraced conventional social rules—were vulnerable to apprehension and mistrust and in extreme cases to accusations of witchcraft. Although “witches” in early America could be either male or female, witchcraft, witch-hunting, and womanhood are inextricably linked in American history, as we can see even when looking beyond Salem.” (75-76) “Nonetheless the extraordinary prosecutions of “witches” set normative boundaries for behavior in ordinary times, and they deterred potential transgressors. Because witchcraft was conventionally gendered female within patriarchal orders, these prescriptions and warnings helped define acceptable female behavior, shaping the parameters of womanhood itself. “Witches” loomed as a negative reference against which all that was right and decent for women could be delineated.” (90) “Whether functioning internally or externally, witch-hunting throughout the colonies, even if rarely employed, carried a veiled threat. Its implicit intimidation helps explain the hegemony of patriarchy built not simply (or primarily) through external force, but through the internalized control women and others imposed on themselves, as they sought to survive and prosper by “playing by the rules.” Indeed, without conscious misogyny women and men could embrace a world that was profoundly unfair (even oppressive) for most women (and many men), and women and men both could justify their existence and get along by cooperating in the enforcement of the negative prescriptions of witchcraft. It is not surprising therefore to see women condemning other women perceived to be transgressive.” (91) Witch Craft for Social Mobility: “In some instances, witchcraft could allow the socially disenfranchised to claim power (at times, the only power available to them). More important, through the practice of witchcraft marginalized individuals—and sometimes, through them, marginalized classes—could gain some access to power and earn the respect, or fear, of their social superiors.” (70) “If the practice of witchcraft could embody the hope of social power among the socially disempowered, witchcraft accusations more often embodied the fear generated among elites and authorities over the real or imagined discontent of the unprivileged or lower sorts.” (71) “Nonetheless the extraordinary prosecutions of “witches” set normative boundaries for behavior in ordinary times, and they deterred potential transgressors. Because witchcraft was conventionally gendered females within patriarchal orders, these prescriptions and warnings helped define acceptable female behavior, shaping the parameters of womanhood itself. “Witches” loomed as a negative reference against which all that was right and decent for women could be delineated.” (90) “The specter of witchcraft haunted North America, infiltrating the worlds of both Natives and newcomers. Witchcraft helped explain the otherwise unfathomable calamities that Indians, colonists, and their slaves sometimes faced, individually and collectively. And under the right circumstances they pursued witch hunts that demonized those who struck them as odd, marginal, transgressive, or threatening.” (90) “Good Wives” and “Nasty Wenches”: Gender and Social Order in a Colonial Settlement Kathleen Brown (1996) “In 1629, the gender identity of servant Thomas Hall stirred controversy among the residents of Warraskoyack.” (75) Women’s Interest/Concerns w/ Hall: “While justices inquired politely into Hall's past, seeking historical answers to the question of his identity, neighbors responded to his fluctuating personae with aggressive curiosity. The first to lay hands on Hall was a group of women whose interest had been piqued by reports of Hall's sex.” (76) “Hall's case reveals the importance of gender to social order in early Virginia. By shifting his identity more frequently than some individuals in Virginia changed their clothes, Hall challenged the fit between gendered social identities and the physical attributes of sex upon which divisions of labor and traditions of sexual regulation depended. Hall's gender identity may have influenced Master Atkins in the work he assigned, the sexual intimacies he did or did not attempt, and the company he allowed his servant to keep.” (78) “As Warraskoyack residents mobilized their personal networks to address Hall's transgression, several distinct interest groups emerged to defend the boundary between male and female identities. Three different constituencies—the plantation commanders, Hall's present and former masters, and the married women—participated actively in the efforts to classify Hall sexually. In the absence of a county court and church, these groups represented the community's stake in determining Hall's sex.” (78) “The married women of Warraskoyack had perhaps the greatest interest in determining Hall's identity, for Hall's changes of clothes threatened to undermine the categories of sexual difference upon which their limited influence depended.” (79) “These colonial innovations, however, did not fundamentally alter the terms of the debates about women's nature and behavior. Concepts of female domesticity proved remarkably resilient because they remained useful to promoters of Virginia as well as to the settlers themselves.” (83) “The questions about gender and colonial identity that reverberated in the cases of Thomas/ine Hall and good wife Wright pervaded the promotional literature. John Hammond's "good wives" and "nasty wenches" reflected elite English judgments about differences between moral and respectable women— married and domestically employed —and depraved, degenerate wenches who were barely fit for the manual labor of men. These distinctions between classes of women reflected the importance of marriage for turning women into good wives and regulating their sexual activity to promote social order. In addition, "good wives" reflected women's constructions of power in relation to other women. Through acts of speech and assignments of work, women themselves gave meaning to the distinction between wives and wenches. Crucial to the foundations of social order in the colony and to the ongoing process of English colonial identity formation, the opposition of "good wives" and "nasty wenches" would figure significantly in the legal definitions of racial difference that were to emerge over the next fifty years. Yet it also portended the potentially subversive impact of female influence and speech upon forms of colonial authority and the questions that would be raised 'about women's labor in a society dedicated to the production of tobacco.” (104) Healing Housework Kathleen Brown (2009) “