Massachusetts Witch Hysteria Precedent

1691

Cotton Mather published Memorable Providences Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions, describing the Goodwin children's bewitchment case in Boston. The book circulated widely in Salem and helped prime the village for the outbreak the following year. Preacherly anxiety had become an amplifier for folk panic, and the lethal combination of clerical authority and communal fear was about to produce one of America's darkest episodes.