John Godfrey and His Neighbors

T N the long roster of early New Englanders accused of witchcraft, John | Godfrey invites attention for one special reason: he was male. To be sure, other men were accused at various times, and four or five were executed, but most of them were husbands of female witches.' Given the overall prominence of women in witchcraft cases, it thus seems probable that the charges against these men arose as a secondary or derivative matter. Traditional' lore suggested that the power to effect witchcraft was most easily transmitted from one family member, or close friend, to another; there was, in short, a literal process of guilt by association.2 And among such associations, clearly the marital one was most telling. To recognize this is not, of course, to foreclose all questions, for many husbands of convicted witches were never the object of similar suspicions. It seems that some men, more

Archaeology · Colonialism · Political science · American History and Culture · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · History

• Masculinity and Male Witches in Old and New England, 1593-1680

  E J Kent•History Workshop Journal•2005

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• Microhistory and Mass Repression

  Open Access•William Chase, William J Chase•The Russian Review•2008

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