As late as 1787, outside of Independence Hall where the framers were drafting the U.S.

In continental Europe, where witch hunts were much more common than in America, thousands of people were executed, often isolated and impoverished older women who were regarded as a drain on community resources. Most people in the early modern world believed in the existence of witches who gained supernatural power by signing a pact with Satan.

Accordingly removing thither in the year 1637, they seated themselves in a pleasant Bay, where they spread themselves along the sea-coast, and one might have been suddenly as it were surprised with the sight of such notable towns, as first New-Haven then Guilford then Milford then Stamford and then Brainford, where our Lord Jesus Christ is worshipped in churches of an evangelical constitution and from thence, if the enquirer make a salley over to Long-Island, he might there also have seen the churches of our Lord beginning to take root in the eastern parts of that island.The Salem witch trials were not a unique event. Eaton, and several eminent persons that came over to the Massachuset-bay among some of the first planters, were strongly urged, that they would have settled in this Bay but hearing of another Bay to the south-west of Connecticut, which might be more capable to entertain those that were to follow them, they desired that their friends at Connecticut would purchase of the native proprietors for them, all the land that lay between themselves and Hudson’s River, which was in part effected. I will sometimes therefore surprise them with an inquiry, 'Child, what is this for? Give me a good account of why you do it?' How comfortably shall I see them walking in the light, if I may bring them wisely to answer this inquiry. I will teach them how even their diversions, and their ornaments, and the tasks of their education, must all be to fit them for the further service of Him to whom I have devoted them and how in these also, His commandments must be the rule of all they do. I will make them able to answer the grand question of why they live and what is the end of the actions that fill their lives? I will teach them that their Creator and Redeemer is to be obeyed in everything, and everything is to be done in obedience to Him. I will show them, that their main end must be, to, acknowledge the great God, and His glorious Christ and bring others to acknowledge Him: and that they are never wise nor well, but when they are doing so. “The Jews have a saying worth remembering: 'Whoever doesn't teach his son some trade or business, teaches him to be a thief.' As soon as ever I can, I will make my children apprehensive of the main end for which they are to live that so they may as soon as may be, begin to live and their youth not be nothing but vanity.

Mather wonders of the invisible world