Cotton Mather: Importance Of Gender In Colonial Identities

Alexandra von Paris
ENGL221 0801
9/28/2010

Cotton Mather: Women Possessed by the Devil

Importance of Gender in Colonial Identities

One cannot discuss the gender role of women in America without talking about the misogynistic craze of burning witches in Salem in the 1690’s. Cotton Mather was a paramount figure during this time, whose writings on witchcraft, particularly in The Wonders of the Invisible World, fed the hysteria that led to many women being persecuted, and for some, put to death. Mather, labeling himself as simply a “historian” (310), was able to poison his text with propaganda while keeping himself clean, in hopes to spur a hunt for witches. He focused on certain types of women in particular in order to further his agenda to sustain a Puritan way of life, serve as an explanation to the community for previous misfortunes and calamities, and control women’s independence.
Cotton Mather, being related to two of the most influential first-generation Puritans in Massachusetts, had grounded Puritan beliefs and a reputation that he had pressure to maintain.
According to Mather, witches had been sent as divine judgment against a sinful people. Therefore, witches – or sin – had to be destroyed before the Puritans could fulfill their destiny as “a people of God” in America (308). He writes that the lands “were once the devil’s territories,” and believes that the devil possessed individuals in hopes to “overturn this poor plantation” (308). He prophesizes, “we (the Puritans) shall soon enjoy halcyon days with all the vultures of hell trodden under our feet,” meaning that only once their community is devoid of all witches will they enjoy eternal happiness (309). In New England, the forces that drove Salem were God and the devil. Belief in Puritanism meant fear of the devil, so by opposing witchcraft he hoped for a spiritual awakening to counteract religious disinterest and unify the
colony. Mather uses “factual evidence” to support his claim that the devil was at work in his community. Land issues and human sickness were some of the many hardships that colonists faced, and he had an easy explanation for them. For example, he blames the witches for “bewitching and ruining our (the Puritan) land” (309). In the trial of Martha Carrier, witnesses accuse her of killing their cattle after having discrepancies with her (311-312). Women became an easy scapegoat because they already did not have much of a voice within the community and the power to fight the accusations in trial. They either had to confess or face the death penalty. The only way of being protected as a woman is to accuse someone else of being a witch, in which case many women did. Although certain women were accused of causing the Puritans hardship, some were an easy target because they did not fit into the societal norms of Puritan woman. For example, in the case of Martha Carrier, her established reputation of a witch and as a disagreeable woman made her a perfect target once the momentum of accusations got out of control in Salem. Mather documents that during her trial, testimonies labeled her as “malicious” and expressed that she had many differences with her neighbors (312). He supports these kinds of acts of being those of a witch when writing “…witches have driven a trade of commissioning their confederate spirits to do all sorts of mischief’s to their neighbors…” (310). Cotton Mather would target women in this way because he was a patriarchal elitist with strong Puritan values. Any woman who does not accord herself in the ways of Puritan structure was seen as unfit. Keeping in mind his agenda to unify his community under Puritan beliefs, he would want to rid his community of any women such as these who would only hinder this plan. It is clear in The Wonders of the Invisible World that Cotton Mather had a plan in mind to expunge the “evil” in his community in order to unify the Puritans under his power. Writing and publishing material was the most commanding form of propaganda in colonial times, and Mather used this to his advantage to push his own ideals onto those who blindly followed him.