Witches & Puritans
Why was an argumentative brickmaker in Puritan Massachusetts accused of being a vengeful witch and what does his story tell us about the social anxieties of the New World in 1651?

Why was an argumentative brickmaker in Puritan Massachusetts accused of being a vengeful witch and what does his story tell us about the social anxieties of the New World in 1651?
On a remote Massachusetts plantation in 1651, an unpopular local brickmaker was blamed for a wave of animal ailments, children dying and vanishing property. The argumentative Hugh Parsons was accused of being a vengeful witch.
In this edition of Not Just the Tudors, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb talks to Professor Malcolm Gaskill about his research into this dark, real-life folktale of family tragedy, supernatural obsessions and social anxiety in the New World of the Puritans.