THE DEVIL WAS HER DEITY: WITCHRAFT AND FOLK RELIGION IN YORK COUNTY, SOUTH CAROLINA, IN THE 18TH - 19TH CENTURIES

The notions of sorcery and witchcraft exist, in some way, in most human societies, and are often intrinsically connected with religion, or at least with the complex of ideas, concepts and practices usually referred to as folk religion. The specifics of folk religiosity in Southern colonies and later Southern states of the US, are under-researched in some aspects – while contemporary syncretic religions are explored in great detail, folk religion of the colonial period remains somewhat underexplored, mostly due to insufficient sources. However, it can be reconstructed, at least to some degree, using materials collected by members of local elites interested in local history and ethnography. This article examines the ideas of witchcraft in York County, South Carolina, in the 18th – 19th centuries. The key questions touch upon are the local specifics in comparison to wider colonial culture, the evolution of the ideas of witchcraft in the late colonial and early independence period, and the influence of folk religion on the emergence of specific southern religiosity.