The Witchcraft Delusion in Colonial Connecticut (1647-1697)

Fifty years of witchcraft hysteria consumed colonial Connecticut, turning neighbors into accusers and courtroom testimony into a weapon of terror. John M. Taylor's meticulous 1908 study reconstructs this dark chapter through the colony's own records: grand jury presentments, indictments, and the devastating testimonies that sent men and women to their deaths. We witness the cases of Mary Staple, John Carrington, and dozens of others whose lives were destroyed by a perfect storm of Puritan theology, popular superstition, and legal procedures that confounded accusation with guilt. Taylor does not merely document the tragedy; he dissects the machinery of persecution, showing how fear of the devil became fear of the woman next door, how spectral evidence held more weight than character witnesses, and how a colony built on religious freedom became a place where belief itself was grounds for execution. This is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand how ordinary people, operating within their own logic and law, can commit extraordinary injustice.