Witch Trials of Connecticut, 1647 - 1697
Wednesday, October 25 at 7pm
Milford Public Library
In the fall, many Connecticut residents become infatuated
with its dark seventeenth-century past. They indulge in decorating their homes
with spider webs, witches, and cauldrons, watching movies like Hocus Pocus, and
visiting seemingly spooky villages such as Salem, Massachusetts. Yet, such
accessibility to and immersion in witch-related pop culture has actually
created a misunderstanding. Salem was not the first community to try and hang
witches in the New World. Instead, Connecticut, over forty years before the
events in Salem, had its own witch trials that were just as tumultuous, if not
more so.
In
this presentation, Patrick Cumpstone will explain why he thinks many of the
women tried for witchcraft in Connecticut Colony between 1647 and 1669 were
accused. By fitting the trial details into the cultural context of the period,
he suggests an explicit connection between the women’s speech and their
accusations. He will also review the scholarship that has since been done on
the Connecticut Witch Trials and its influence in driving legal change in the
state.
Patrick
Cumpstone is an avid young historian and educator. He is a history teacher at
Amity Regional High School and will be graduating with his Master’s degree in
American Studies from Trinity College in May. He graduated with a Bachelor of
Science in History and his teaching certification from Southern. He is
currently researching nineteenth-century portraits from New England,
approaching the topic from a material and class studies perspective.
