In the Devil's Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692

Professor Norton has done us a great service by refusing the prevailing myopia with which most of us analyze the witchcraft accusations of Essex County, Massachusetts in 1692. One cannot simply look at the events themselves, but must allow the gaze to expand to the social, historical, religious and military realities around those events. In the case of Essex County, they combined in a way that could be considered a ticking bomb of sorts. If you are like me, then the French and Indian Wars exist only on the periphery of your social memory. We all heard about these wars in our school history classes as a prelude to the American Revolution. Militarily, they were a bloody mess and even George Washington is said to have performed in a way that is less than satisfactory. That's about all I remembered. In the hands of Professor Norton, however, those wars became real to me because they became the context for the suffering of many who were intricately involved in the Essex County witch hysteria. As I read IN THE DEVIL'S SNARE, I heard of settlers on the "Maine frontier" who lost loved ones to savage brutality of the First French and Indian War and who fled from it in the hope of preserving their lives. As soon as hostilities ended these survivors returned. When war broke out for the second time they either fled again or were killed in a brutal manner. As the author demonstrates, these pious souls believed themselves a shining example of true Christian living. Yet they came to understand themselves to be under siege by the devil. The language they used to describe him and to explain their own terror is starkly synonymous with their descriptions of the enraged native warriors who attacked their settlements, often in retaliation for being cheated and mistreated. This is not a beginner's book. It is full of exact details, including legal, historical and social analysis. One would do well to begin elsewhere to understand the witch hysteria of 1692. But once you have the general story, turn to Norton's terrific volume for the details. It is insightful and engrossing.

Many authors have studied the Witch Trials that occurred in Salem, Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1692, but none has analyzed contemporary events that shaped the lives of the trials' participants seeking to explain how such hysteria could have gripped the population. 'In The Devil's Snare; The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692' does just that, and is a fantastically detailed account of the Trials and events surrounding them. Mary Beth Norton, who holds the position of Mary Donlon Alger Professor of American History at Cornell and is one of America's most respected historians, has here presented the most complete analysis of the Trials to date. Norton's highly detailed account relies on exhaustive research of surviving texts, both public and private, relating not only to the trials' proceedings but also historical information regarding life in the Bay Colony and on the frontier. She chronicles the wars between the colonists and the Wabanaki Indians, showing how the many battles and massacres preyed upon the minds of the colonists, causing them to be suspicious and fearful, and demonstrating many cross references between events in the Trials and the Indian war. Norton also delves into the social status of women and men at the time of the Trials, illustrating how the Trials gave a group of young women power and prestige in their male-dominated society. Professor Norton completes the book with an impressive series of appendices, including lists of Cases Heard by the Court of Oyer and Terminer, Participants in the Crisis with Ties to the Frontier, etc., etc. 'In the Devil's Snare' should appeal to any with an interest in history in general and especially to those interested in early Colonial history, and is the most complete treatment available of the Salem Witch Trials.

This week, as Halloween approaches, thousands of tourists will descend upon Salem, Massachusetts, a town that has become synonymous with witches, broomsticks and all things spooky. For obvious commercial reasons, Salem officials have embraced this image despite the fact that few people today actually believe that any of the nineteen alleged witches who were hanged in Salem in 1692 actually practiced witchcraft. Instead, thanks to Arthur Miller's play The Crucible, as well as movies and countless books, the hysteria that swept through late seventeenth-century Salem and the trials and executions that followed have become a metaphor for all legal prosecutions run amok. Salem's witchcraft crisis is viewed by many as an instance when fear, ignorance, and intolerance led normally sober-minded Puritans to turn on one another in an accusatory delirium. Although historians uniformly agree that the Salem witchcraft trials were a tragic miscarriage of justice, there are still sharp disputes over what actually happened in Salem in 1692. The devil, as it were, is in the details. What, for example, caused the fits and seizures that afflicted Salem's young women and led the village's doctor to conclude that Satan had possessed them? Some scholars have suggested that the girls suffered from encephalitis, or from hallucinations caused by ergot fungus that poisoned the town's wheat. Others have asserted that the accusers were attention starved delinquents who simply faked most, if not all, of their ailments. Scholars also have asked why it was that Salem's leaders were so willing to believe the accusations of witchcraft leveled by a group comprised mostly of teenage girls. Salem was, after all, a rigidly patriarchal society in which young women had minimal status. Why were the girls' increasingly outrageous allegations, including those made against some of Salem's most reputable citizens, treated with such credulity? Because, many historians have concluded, Salem was a town that had long been divided by bitter religious, political and property disputes. Salem's citizens were eager to accept charges of witchcraft, these scholars conclude, because they had long suspected the worst of their neighbors. With "In The Devil's Snare," Cornell historian Mary Beth Norton, steps into the fray. Norton believes that many previous accounts of the Salem crisis have focused too closely on Salem itself. To truly understand what happened there, she argues, one has to recognize that Puritans throughout New England during this time were living in a state of fear. Between 1688 and 1692, Norton writes, the Puritan colonies had suffered a series of bloody military setbacks at the hands of the French and their Native-American allies. Indian raids had destroyed a number of prosperous Puritan villages along the Maine coast and the attackers had shown little mercy towards women, children, and non-combatants. Stories circulated quickly throughout Massachusetts that described the

Every historian dealing with the Salem witchcraft episode has attempted to explain "why Salem?" in terms of their own times. Reasons why have ranged from sheer fakery to mass hysteria to land greed or medical causes. Noted historian Mary Beth Norton has throughly combed through the surviving original records to arrive at a new and convincing explanation of the infamous 1692 witch crisis: the very real fear of Indian attacks on settlements in Massachusetts and Maine. Norton explores the news and letters of the times before and during 1692 to discover that Essex County MA residents were primarily concerned with the hit and run attacks on homes and settlements by Native Americans(some with French support). She bases her thesis on what she has found in original documents, rather than use the records to support her thesis. Puritans and others had very real reasons to be obsessed with the Devil in Massachusetts as they considered Native Americans Satan's agents.... Norton's narrative is most absorbing in relating the cause and effect of Native American attacks on colonial settlements. Two factors in Norton's work are most striking: 1)Just about everyone involved in the Salem witch episode had or knew of someone who had suffered losses in the eras now called King Philip's and King William's Wars, and 2)Nearly everyone involved was related to everyone else in some degree.Norton rights many historical fallicies concerning the Salem witch episode(which she accurately terms Essex County witchcraft), focusing on the Andover area which had the highest concentration of witchcraft accusations and confessions, as well as Salem Town and Salem Village. Norton brings to light some "lost" information on accusers and accused as well, however noting that many documents may be forever lost due to deliberate destruction by either the originators and/or decendents of both accused and accusers, all wanting to preserve their families good names.This fascinating and informationally dense book kept me up late two nights running to finish it. Norton also provides nearly 100 pages of notes and source materials, mostly of interest to serious amateur and professional historians, but full of interesting facts and further explanations.The only real flaw in this best book I've encountered of the 1692 Witch Crisis(and I've read all of them, I believe) is that Norton uses the "they must have thought such and such" language of many of today's historians, rather than write "may" or "might", instead of "must"or "should". Norton does back up these "must" conclusions with evidence, however the reader may silently disagree upon rare occasion.Altogether, this is a must-have book for those interested in "Salem 1692."