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Excerpt from the "Examination of Sarah Good"

Reprinted from The Salem Witchcraft Papers: Verbatim Transcripts of the Legal Documents of the Salem Witchcraft Outbreak of 1692, edited by Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum

Published 1977

Seventeenth century colonists believed in witches, as did their European ancestors. The Great European Witch Hunt occurred from the fifteenth through the seventeenth centuries. Belief in magic and witchcraft was widespread in the American colonies. It was normal to profess a strong faith in the Almighty God and at the same time to employ magical charms and potions to ward off witches and the devil. Relatively few individuals, however, were accused of witchcraft and fewer still were prosecuted and executed. Accusations were often dismissed, or those convicted received light sentences. The exception played out in New England in...