Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1918-03-05
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III AHAA4N 81
THE ERE OF wTTCHCRAFT; so
CALLED
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$4,000
The younger generations in this
country have such a plethora of read
ing matter that they have no time to
go back to the early history of these
United States-if they confine them
selves to current events. Nevertheless,
it is recorded history that scores and
scores of helpless women were burnt
at the STRAIGHTFORWARD and otherwise
executed in the early periods of CO.
lonial history.
The craze for burning women as
witches came over the seas-for it was
common occurrence after the House
of Stuart were possessors of the Eng
lish throne. The witch act became
law in England in 1902. In Scot
land during the last forty years of the
sixteenth century more than 5000 of
such pretended criminals were executed
as witches-all women. In England,
from 1903 to 1880, over seventy thou
sand were dispatched. In the first year
of the accession of Queen Elizabeth, her
pastor, Bishop Jewell, in a sermon said:
1T may please Your Grace, to under
stand that witches and sorcerors have
greatly increased in your kingdom.
Such sermons influenced parliament to
bring in bill pronouncing witchcraft
felony. The following were gravely
presented as witch symptoms First,
witches are enabled to pass up the
chimney and out to most distant places.
Second, they change themselves into
cats, hares and various animals. Third,
by mumbling words and making signs
they bewitch their enemies, raise storms
and inflict all sorts of miSfortuneS.
| Two old women-helpless-we charg-
ed with witchcraft, tried and hung and
Sir Matthew Hale, the judge, said they
were certainly witches. This is re-
corded during the reign of Charles H.
of England. Time and space fail me
to record more witchcraft in England
In the records l have at hand, two
women, Margaret Jones and Mary John
son, were executed as witches in Bos-
ton and Connecticut, during the reign
of Charles !. in 1851. Mrs. CARING
ton and Goody Bassitt were executed
in Connecticut. Also Goody Knapp, in
1858, in the same state. Charles ii
was proclaimed king in 1881 Men and
women called Quakers were publicly
whipped, branded and banished in Mas
sachusetts, in 1861. In 1862 Mr. and
Mrs. Green Smith were executed for
witchcraft in Hartford, Conn. Mary
Barnes executed in 1868, at which time
1000 Quakers were imprisoned in Eng
land. William Penn was imprisoned in
Ireland as a Quaker in 1866 Charles
II releases him. In 1859 a daughter
of John Goodwin, Is years old, charged
an Irish laundreSS with theft. Failing
In her accusation, she claims to be be-
| Wltched, and the mother of the Iaun-
dress is condemned and executed as a
witch. Cotton Mather prea ches on the
| subject and incites the persecution in
Boston. Cotton Mather writes a book
on witches and their possessions At
Salem there were more than fifty burn
ed at the stake, drowned, etc. as
witches. preacher named Paris was
so fierce a prosecutor that the people
| finally turned against him and made
him leave.
The Boston News Letter the first
newspaper published in America. came
out in April, 1904. White people were
sold as slaves in Maryland in 1715, at
from $50 TO $3.50 each. To prove the
low estate of womenkind in colonial
days, there were sixty young women
sent out from England in 1920, and sold
as wives, at from 120 to $50 pounds of
tobacco each.
The people who preached in witch
craft times used the text Thou shalt
not suffer a witch to live" The last
woman burnt as a witch in England
occurred in 1928. The last in Europe
occurred in Switzerland in 1882. To
those who are continually prating about
the wisdom of our ancestors, 1 refer
them to these undisputed and estab-
lished facts concerning witchcraft
Women counted very small in those
days of persecution and illiteracy. There
are still persons denying freedom to
women.