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--- gasser_vexed_with_devils [2026/01/22 22:03] – [Vexed with Devils] 96.241.34.91
+++ gasser_vexed_with_devils [2026/01/23 17:03] (current) – [Trial and Execution of George Burroughs] nrutkows
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 ====== Vexed with Devils ======
 Erika Gasser is posing the argument that witchcraft and possession in the 17th century was a language of power where gender can be validated through disorder. Ministers were able to reaffirm the patriarchy by turning these "irrational episodes" into moments of religious and patriarchal authority.(Tea Aliu)
+Gasser shows that witchcraft cases worked to reinforce patriarchal authority, not undermine it, and defined who could legitimately hold power. Through figures like Cotton Mathers, these narratives framed ministers as the only reliable interpreters of spiritual disorder, while people who were skeptical were cast out and seen as dangerous. It seemed every case shown would come back to reinforce male authority rather than challenge it. (Callie McAleese)
 Gasser emphasizes how witchcraft operated as a culturally understood explanation for misfortune, bodily affliction, and spiritual disorder within Puritan communities. Accusations relied on shared beliefs about spectral evidence, the devil's book, and visible signs of bewitchment, allowing witchcraft to function as a socially legible narrative for fear and instability. By framing witchcraft as both a spiritual and physical threat, communities justified religious and legal intervention while reinforcing existing structures of authority. (Caitlyn Edwards)
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 George Burroughs had been an unordained minister in Salem, but, at the time of his arrest in 1692 was living in Maine. Accused of leading a group of witches in worshiping and attempting to take over New England for the Devil, he was brought back to Salem for trial. The evidence brought against him consisted both of accounts of witchcraft from the possessed or from confessed witches as well as accounts of his behavior that challenged his position as a patriarchal authority figure as a member of the clergy. (Cameron Spivy)
+During Burroughs’ trial, two main groups of accusers formed who were (mostly) divided by gender. The first group was the afflicted female accusers who performed possession symptoms in order to prove Burroughs’ influence over them while maintaining their status as innocent victims. These inflicted women likely used their “possession” as an outlet to admit to spiritual weakness while also blaming their sinful behavior on someone else. The second group of accusers mainly consisted of nonafflicted men, though sometimes also women, who testified as witnesses to Burroughs’ cruel behavior towards people like his wives Hannah and Sarah. Both groups of accusers wielded Burroughs’ masculine power as a minister and husband against him, unmaking him from a respectable religious authority into a demonic witch. (Noah Rutkowski)
 ==== Witchcraft ====
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 ===== Post-Trial Responses to and Debate over Burroughs Case =====
+Many initial published accounts of Burroughs’ case were very convinced of his guilt, relying on the narrative of his unmaking as a man and minister to portray him as a dangerous, perverted authority figure. When describing the five witches who testified against Burroughs, author Cotton Mather used gendered insults like “hag” and maintained the notion of Martha Carrier being promised the role of the “queen of Hell.” Still, despite his obvious distaste for the female witches, Mather was so convinced of Burroughs’ ultimate guilt and power over the witches that he shortened his name to simply G.B., implying that the use of his full name could wield the Devil’s power. However, later writers like Robert Calef depicted earlier writers like Mather as deluded witch hunters, with some writers even defending some of the men executed as witches on the same day as Burroughs. (Noah Rutkowski)