Paul B. Moyer

In Detestable and Wicked Arts: New England and Witchcraft in the Early Modern Atlantic World, Dr. Paul B. Moyer argues, “The timing, tempo, and texture of witch prosecutions in New England can only be fully understood when placed in context with witch-hunting across England’s Atlantic empire. Like New England, Britain and Bermuda witnessed a surge in witch trials during the mid-seventeenth century” (pg. 5). Dr. Moyer builds upon the foundation of work like that belonging to John Demos, Richard Weisman, and Carol Karlsen in his analysis while bringing in a new reading of source material that focuses on similarities between England and its colonies across the Atlantic, Bermuda and New England.

Such an Atlantic approach makes sense given the networks of communication linking the mother country with its colonies in the seventeenth century. As Dr. Moyer writes, “In addition to personal correspondence, books and pamphlets coursed through the empire after censorship laws fell into disuse during the [English] Civil War. This stream of printed materials included a number of treatises on witchcraft, including Matthew Hopkins’s The Discovery of Witches (1647) and John Stearne’s A Confirmation and Discovery of Witchcraft (1648), both of which provided information on the East Anglian witch hunt” (pg. 22). Dr. Moyer grounds his analysis in these witch-finding manuals that crossed the Atlantic as well as English legal guides that appeared in both Britain and its Atlantic colonies. As he writes, “The one thing all the colonists agreed on was that it was a crime, a view rooted in English law and culture” (pg. 36). While maleficium and diabolism played key roles in both English and colonial understandings of witchcraft, the fear of witches destroying crops or causing droughts did not cross the Atlantic (pg. 43). Further, while English law included references to diabolism, Puritan colonists gave it greater focus (pg. 175). Punishments similarly varied between mother country and colonies, with England providing various punishments for occult crime where New England prescribed death (pg. 176).

Examining New England witches, Dr. Moyer concludes, “Those suspected of witchcraft tended to be people with unsavory reputations. Moreover, they were women more often than men, from the lower ranks of society rather than its upper echelons, and older married folk rather than young and single. They were also periodically associated with the healing arts or occult practices such as fortune telling” (pg. 66). In all cases, deviance from societal expectations played a key role in raising suspicions. Women who did not fit the Puritans’ roles for women in society were subject to accusations as were men who failed to uphold the sober strength of character their religious and civic leaders expected of them (pgs. 102-105). Dr. Moyer spends a great deal of time uncovering the social context of accusations, examining the physical proximity between accused and their accusers as well as the nature of complaints and what that reveals about breaches in the social contract. He points out that witchcraft accusations helped those who refused to help their neighbors allay their feelings of guilt for failing to provide charity (pg. 132).

Dr. Moyer concludes, “Besides being tied together by a common set of beliefs and doctrines concerning witchcraft, England and its colonies paralleled each other in terms of the ebb and flow of witch-hunting. In particular, a wave of prosecutions that swept over the British Isles in the mid-seventeenth century rippled across the English Atlantic. Bermuda experienced a peak in witch-hunting in the 1650s, when about two-thirds of its witchcraft cases occurred. The New England colonies also saw a significant increase in witch trials and executions at this time” (pg. 201). This work will appeal to anyone interested in colonial North America as well as those studying the connection between England and its colonial interests. Furthermore, Dr. Moyer’s study of witchcraft builds upon over a decade of scholarship and brings an analytical framework that both scholars and historical enthusiasts will appreciate. The work will become essential reading for those studying early American history.… (más)

In Wild Yankees: The Struggle for Independence Along Pennsylvania's Revolutionary Frontier, Paul Moyer examines conflict between Connecticut and Pennsylvanian settlers in the backcountry of Pennsylvania. Moyer argues "the violent struggle over property that beset America's hinterlands, rather than representing the byproduct of the 'real' Revolution made by the Founding Fathers, was the Revolution for large numbers of ordinary folk. The farmer's revolution was not the result of ideas that trickled down from above, but of aspirations and experiences that bubbled up from below" (p. 10). Farmers in the backcountry viewed the acquisition and possession of land as independence made manifest and viciously fought those they believed were a threat to their property claims. Further, "the revolutionary frontiers' struggle for independence was also closely bound to male settlers' efforts to attain and protect a masculine ideal" in which their ownership of land and status as head-of-household represented the most localized form of independence (p. 63). In the end, the settlers' development of the land led to the creation of towns and societies bound by the market to the country around them, putting an end to their desire for a break with Pennsylvania.
Moyer's research relies heavily on letters, court records, and other testimony from the region with occasional segues to provide backgound about concepts or developments in the larger social fabric of revolutionary New England. His greatest contribution is to show that these incidents of frontier violence were not exceptions to the revolutionary spirit of the fledgling nation, but rather expressions of those ideas on the individual level.… (más)

In The Public Universal Friend: Jemima Wilkinson and Religious Enthusiasm in Revolutionary America, Dr. Paul B. Moyer argues, “The story of the Public Universal Friend and those who chose to join his holy mission illuminates how people navigated the currents of change set in motion by the American Revolution. It also shows that common folk, especially those like Jemima Wilkinson who did uncommon things, helped to make the Revolution revolutionary” (p. 10). Dr. Moyer structures his book into three main themes across seven chapters, with the first analyzing the prophet and his place in revolutionary America, chapter 5 focusing on the Universal Friends’ movement to New York and other westward migrations of the period, and the remaining chapters examining the role of gender in the Public Universal Friend’s movement and how it compared to post-revolutionary attitudes in the fledgling nation.
Jemima Wilkinson was born to a Quaker family on 29 November 1752 in Rhode Island. She grew ill during a typhoid plague in 1776 and believed that she died, at which point her spirit ascended into heaven and the spirit of a male angel, possibly the Holy Ghost, assumed control of her earthly body. From that point forward, she called herself by the name Public Universal Friend, used male pronouns, and began the life of an itinerant preacher preparing people for the end times. Dr. Moyer situates her preaching within the larger framework of millennial beliefs in the period between the first and second Great Awakenings, though he argues, “rather than being thought of as an essentially secular epoch sandwiched between two well-known periods of revivalism…the Revolution should be understood as a link in a continuous chain of religious activity” (p. 198). Rather, Dr. Moyer demonstrates how the Public Universal Friend’s challenge to the gender status quo originated in the reevaluation of social hierarchy that began during the Revolution and how the attacks on the Public Universal Friend and his group stemmed from the move toward more rigid gender roles in the early republic.
Dr. Moyer’s most significant contribution to the scholarship on the Public Universal Friend is his application of discourses from women’s and gender studies to better appreciate and contextualize both the revolutionary work of the prophet and the contemporary reactions to him. Regarding the outside world’s reactions to the prophet, Dr. Moyer writes, “A good deal of the attention the Friend drew was not a product of his spiritual message but of the novelty of an attractive female prophet” (p. 94). Though the world viewed the Public Universal Friend as a woman, he no longer saw himself that way. Dr. Moyer continues, “The way the prophet wore his hair not only supported his self-identification as a masculine holy figure, but also aimed to evoke the simple, honest virtues of an Old Testament prophet. In addition, the Friend labored in an era that celebrated austere republican virtue as an antidote to the luxury, excess, and corruption of monarchy; and his simple, unadorned hairstyle also drew legitimacy from this revolutionary discourse” (p. 95). Finally, in owning land, preaching in public, and leading a community in its mundane and spiritual life, the prophet transgressed the normal female boundaries and entered the sphere usually reserved for men.
Though other have researched the Public Universal Friend, Dr. Moyer has eschewed the narrative-driven work of previous historians to explore larger themes of the revolutionary mindset, but his greatest contribution is his focus on the role of gender in the prophet’s world and how the Public Universal Friend challenged these roles. His work compliments other examinations of religion in the early republic, such as Nathan O. Hatch’s The Democratization of American Christianity. His focus on thematic issues allowed Dr. Moyer to avoid the troubles of earlier historians who, in over-relying on contemporary records from those outside of the prophet’s sect, tended to portray the Public Universal Friend in an overwhelmingly negative light. Finally, Dr. Moyer’s writing style will appeal to academics and armchair historians alike.… (más)