ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the Pueblo witch hunts of 1854 as a case study that reveals the typical nature of witchcraft and witch hunts among Native Americans in the great age of American expansion, 1783–1900. Official witchcraft accusations had been lodged in 1822 against Juan Inocencio of the Nambe pubelo, who confessed he could bring about madness by crafting a mixture of feathers, cotton, and the hair of the victim. American frontier historiography has little time for witchcraft, more comfortable as it is with questions of race, class, and environment. The connection between witchcraft and self-rule is a recurrent theme on the American frontier, and it deserves further scrutiny and examination. The rise and fall of new political regimes and the establishment of legitimate authority were periennial problems in the American republic and the American frontier, 1776–1861. Witches were part of the violence and power of the American frontier.
