ed the northern colonists to speed up the process of settling into a new home. Paula A. Treckel writes, "In contrast to those who settled the southern colonies, women who voyaged to the New England colonies during the seventeenth century were able to more quickly replicate the world they had left behind in England" (44). In part, this was also the result of numbers: many more women came to New England initially than helped to colonize the more southern regions.
The English immigrants brought numerous English customs with them, including the 17th century practice of the persecution of individuals accused of the practice of witchcraft. Most of those so accused were women, and scholars have argued the significance of such accusations within this particular historical context. Lyle Koehler provides an overview of this especially 17th-century phenomenon:
Witchcraft . . . became a way to explain events which negatively affected an individual's life. It served as a societal purgative, and as a vehicle for the expression of
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