Witchcraft in Early North America - Alison Games [127]
27th. On this and the following days we continued to hear of all sorts of the most terrible murders and burnings. . . .
April 1. We heard again that the savages had taken one of their numbers, a peaceable Indian, hacked him to pieces and burned him up, and that 7 others were held as prisoners. The general supposition is that these will meet a similar fate. . . .
9th and 10th. We heard that the savages were about to put to death their last remaining chief, old Hockinpomsga, besides the Chief of the Nanticokes and 6 other Indians of both sexes, and burn them. Just as they laid hands on the unfortunate victim, the friends of the Chief took their weapons, sprang in the midst of the people and threatened to kill anyone who should take part in this murder. This put a check on further slaughter. Nevertheless, those who had been set apart for the brutal sacrifice did not feel themselves safe before the rage of the young people. For this reason the most well-to-do among them secretly sent the Indian teacher or lying prophet several hundred strings of wampum, besides gifts of silver and cows, with the request that their lives might be spared. This pleased the instruments of the Devil. The result was that the unfortunate victims who had been condemned to death were released under all sorts of pretexts. It was announced that they had bought their release as prisoners. . . .
13th. We passed the day quietly, for we could have no public service both from lack of an interpreter and hearers. The heathen no longer care to hear anything of the Word of God. Yes, it has come so far that they immediately fly into a rage when one tells them that they are not on the right path and should be converted to the Saviour of mankind, and forsake all their evil ways. For the time being we can do nothing more than pray, weep, and debate what should be done further. . . .
15th and 16th. We heard that there was a famine among the assembled Indians in Woapicamikunk. On this account they intend to have a sacrificial festival and pass a number of nights and days with dancing. With this, their supposed worship of God is brought to a close.
Note
1. Harry Emilius Stocker, A History of the Moravian Mission Among the Indians on the White River in Indiana (Bethlehem, PA, 1917), 25–26.
Source: Lawrence Henry Gipson, ed., and Harry E. Stocker, Herman T. Frueauff, and Samuel C. Zeller, trans., The Moravian Indian Mission on White River: Diaries and Letters, May 5, 1799, to November 12, 1806 (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Bureau, 1938), 412–421.
Figure 18. Interior view, San José de Gracia Church, Las Trampas, Taos County, New Mexico. The church in which the possessed women of Abiquiu disrupted services likely resembled this one.
Source: Jack E. Boucher, 1961. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, HABS NM,28-TRAMP,1-8.
Figure 19. English witches with their familiars.
Source: From The Wonderful discoverie of the witchcraft of Margaret and Phillip Flower, daughters of Joan Flower neere Bever Castle: executed at Lincolne, March 11, 1618 (London, 1619). This item is reproduced by permission of The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
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About the Author
Alison Games is the Dorothy M. Brown Distinguished Professor of History at Georgetown University, where she has taught since 1995. She is the author of Migration and the Origins of the English Atlantic World (1999), which won the Theodore Saloutos Prize in Immigration and Ethnic History, and The Web of Empire: English Cosmopolitans in an Age of Expansion, 1560–1660 (2008), which won the Roland H. Bainton Book Prize in History. She is coauthor, with Douglas R. Egerton, Kris Lane, and Donald R. Wright, of The Atlantic World: A