The Witch of Blackbird Pond Study Guide

Elizabeth George Speare was born in Massachusetts to Harry Allan and Demetria Simmons George. Speare started writing stories in high school and continued to study English at the university level. She received her Bachelor of Arts from Smith College before earning a master’s in English from Boston University. In the 1930s, Speare taught English at several high schools in Massachusetts before marrying her husband, Alden Speare, and moving to Connecticut. They had two children together. Although Speare had always wanted to be a published author, she didn’t find the time to dedicate herself to writing until her children were in junior high. Her first published works—articles about family and motherhood—were published in various magazines. Speare’s first book, Calico Captive, was published in 1957. She gained a reputation as a children’s author as she went on to write three more children’s books, including The Witch of Blackbird Pond, which won the Newbery Medal. Speare died at the age of 85 from an aortic aneurism.

The Witch of Blackbird Pond is set in Connecticut Colony in the 17th century and explores politics and social issues in a Puritan community. In the 1630s, the English colonized Connecticut. In 1662, King Charles II of England granted the leaders of Connecticut Colony a charter that gave the colonists of Connecticut an exceptional degree of self-governance. According to the charter, the colonists could divide up and sell Connecticut’s land as they saw fit, and they could elect their own officials. But King James II, the next King of England, wanted more control over the colonies. So, in 1686, he appointed Sir Edmund Andros as Royal Governor of the colonies. This appointment invalidated all previous charters, including Connecticut’s. The result was that the colonists could no longer govern themselves; they had to answer to the King of England again. This led to tension among colonists, which plays an important role in The Witch of Blackbird Pond. For example, Matthew Wood is passionate about maintaining self-governance, whereas Reverend Bulkeley is a royalist, someone who believes the King should have control over the colonies. In addition to the era’s politics, The Witch of Blackbird Pond also focuses on religion. Many of Connecticut’s English colonists were Puritans, members of a religious group that was persecuted in England. Wanting to practice their religion freely, thousands of Puritans left England for the American colonies. Like many Christians in the 16th and 17th centuries, the Puritans believed that demons existed and could possess people. It was not uncommon at this time to blame unexplained events on witchcraft, like how the Puritan townspeople in the novel blame a plague on Hannah Tupper’s supposed witchcraft. In many instances—such as in the famous Salem witch trials—people killed or otherwise persecuted men and women who were regarded as outsiders or were generally resented.

The Witch of Blackbird Pond is one of many literary works that takes place in Puritan New England. One of the most famous stories about Puritans is The Crucible, a play by Arthur Miller. The Crucible was inspired by the real-life Salem witch trials in the 1690s and explores the effects of mass hysteria and prejudice. Another famous story about witch hunts in New England is I, Tituba: Black Witch of Salem by Maryse Condé, which explores racism and sexism in colonial New England and Barbados. At one point in I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem, Tituba meets Hester Prynne, the main character of Nathanial Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter, which (like The Witch of Blackbird Pond) addresses Puritanism’s hypocrisy. While those three literary works were written for an adult audience, Elizabeth George Speare mainly wrote her historical fiction for children. All but one of her children’s books were set in New England. Her final children’s book, The Sign of the Beaver, takes place in Maine in the 18th century. Although it received numerous awards around the time of its publication, it has been criticized for its problematic misrepresentation of Native Americans.