Big Piney River as viewed from Devil’s Elbow Bridge Devils Elbow, Missouri
While most of the late seventeenth and eighteenth century was relatively quiet regarding witchcraft, dark magic, and Devil worshiping, accusations of witchcraft would once again appear in the Ozark region of Missouri and Arkansas during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The geography of the Ozark region could best be described as rolling hills, heavily forested, and composed of remote agricultural communities that were largely self-sufficient. The Ozarks were originally colonized by the French but eventually, British squatters, poor farmers, and adventurers would make their way into the region even though it was illegal for British citizens to settle west of the Appalachian Mountains.
