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A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience, by Emerson W. Baker
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Beginning in January 1692, Salem Village in colonial Massachusetts witnessed the largest and most lethal outbreak of witchcraft in early America. Villagers - mainly young women - suffered from unseen torments that caused them to writhe, shriek, and contort their bodies, complaining of pins stuck into their flesh and of being haunted by specters. Believing that they suffered from assaults by an invisible spirit, the community began a hunt to track down those responsible for the demonic work. The resulting Salem Witch Trials, culminating in the execution of 19 villagers, persists as one of the most mysterious and fascinating events in American history.
Historians have speculated on a web of possible causes for the witchcraft that started in Salem and spread across the region - religious crisis, ergot poisoning, an encephalitis outbreak, frontier war hysteria - but most agree that there was no single factor. Rather, as Emerson Baker illustrates in this seminal new work, Salem was "a perfect storm": a unique convergence of conditions and events that produced something extraordinary throughout New England in 1692 and the following years, and which has haunted us ever since.
Baker shows how a range of factors in the Bay colony in the 1690s, including a new charter and government, a lethal frontier war, and religious and political conflicts, set the stage for the dramatic events in Salem. Engaging a range of perspectives, he looks at the key players in the outbreak - the accused witches and the people they allegedly bewitched, as well as the judges and government officials who prosecuted them - and wrestles with questions about why the Salem tragedy unfolded as it did, and why it has become an enduring legacy.
- Sales Rank: #7712 in Audible
- Published on: 2015-01-06
- Format: Unabridged
- Original language: English
- Running time: 750 minutes
Most helpful customer reviews
32 of 33 people found the following review helpful.
The best guide yet to understanding what happened in 1692 Salem!
By Lindsay McCoy
At last! A search for truth in a field flooded with myths, misconceptions and mistakes. In a crowded field with countless books available about the Salem Witch Trials this may well be the most comprehensive and best one yet. The author demonstrates a rich knowledge of documented historical evidence and primary sources.
Emerson Baker, professor of history at Salem State University and former dean of its graduate school, draws upon his other fields of expertise in this outstanding book. Also a historical archaeologist, he is at home in the 17th century having dug deep in dirt in Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire and Virginia to discover and interpret early American material culture. With a colleague, John Reid, he published a biography of Sir William Phips, who served as Royal Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony during the Salem Trials. Readers will learn that Phips was better at building forts and fighting Native Americans and French than at government administration.
In 1692 156 residents of Essex, Middlesex and Suffolk Counties were formally accused of practicing witchcraft, a capital crime. 113 were imprisoned. 20 persons were put to death and at least 5 died in prisons in Boston, Cambridge, Ipswich and Salem.
Previous authors have attempted to analyze how it came about putting forth various points of view. Baker disproves popular ideas such as that the so-called Afflicted Girls were infected with ergotism or rye fungus. Other recent explanations range from lyme disease to "Arctic Hysteria in Salem" having taken place during "a Little Ice Age." In a balanced analysis, this author aptly and convincingly discusses common theories regarding the 1692 Trials and comes to the conclusion there was no single cause but that Salem was caught in "A Perfect Storm."
The book includes 16 valuable illustrations: maps and photographs drawn and taken by the author and his Appendices list those persons accused of practicing witchcraft (a contribution from fellow Salem Trials scholar, Margo Burns). There has been serious recent scholarship resulting in significant and accurate findings in this field, particularly since the Tercentenary. In copious notes the author generously pays tribute to those who have come before.
New England Puritans inherited centuries of belief in witches as a probable cause of things gone wrong due to the malicious mischief they committed as agents of the devil. Nearly everyone feared witches for they could be held responsible for epidemics, crop failure, shipwrecks, and storms. Witches might cause your child to sicken and die or your cow to cease producing milk. Anyone man, woman, or child could be a witch just as a cat, dog, or bird might really be a witch's familiar. And witches don't even have to be seen to strike. Their specters or spirits even had the power to escape from prison to afflict others. Witches not only brought suffering and sometimes death, they could overthrow your government, your religion and your culture. If these outmoded beliefs and fear of witches seems ignorant and downright ridiculous, the author suggests substituting the word "terrorist" for witches to better understand 17th century mindsets.
Baker offers short biographies of the key players, including the judges, some of whom shared family ties and were land-holders in Maine. He explores the significance of extended family networks tracing marriage bonds back to where people involved in the Salem outbreak had emigrated from in Britain.
In chapters devoted to "The Accusers" and "The Accused" Baker describes participants so that we feel we know them personally.
He explores why certain citizens were targeted for arrest.
He presents evidence on how the court function in terms of legal process when putting alleged witches on trial? And he discusses the pressure put on the accused to confess, perhaps because this would help condone the court's actions and attitudes.
Baker notes that of the 28 put on trial before judges and jury, 28 were found guilty.
This "Perfect Storm" included Mass Bay Colony's reactions to the Royal Charter of 1691 which many citizens believed limited freedoms set forth in their original charter and threatened Puritanism in its provision to permit other religious practices. Now, by order of the King and Queen of England, other religions had to be tolerated . Indeed, this author sees religious tension at the close of the 17th century as a major cause of the witch hunt and discusses why so many members of the clergy and their immediate and family members were targeted. Many of the accused had ties to Quakers and Baptists which threatened Puritan orthodoxy. Could the Trials have been designed to bolster Orthodox Puritanism then in decline?
Professor Baker is also a recognized authority on the wars between the English, Wabanaki and the French. Puritans, convinced they were God's Chosen People, could not comprehend why they were losing battles on the frontier. He sees another cause of that "Perfect Storm" in 1692 Salem being the "disastrous and costly war (which) exacerbated existing economic, political and spiritual tensions." A number of the "Afflicted Girls" were survivors and orphans of Native American attacks in Maine and New Hampshire.
The author also notes the growing opposition to the Trials, explaining how Massachusetts Bay residents came to realize that innocent victims had been incarcerated and put to death. He shows readers how the Salem Trials were finally brought to an end. He introduces us to some of the courageous citizens who expressed disapproval of the witch hunt almost from the moment it began. We are told how Governor Phips even suppressed publications detailing the Trials and silenced critics of the Court of Oyer et Terminer.
The final chapter focuses on how Salem became "Witch City" and the Halloween capital. The colony's attempts to suppress the story of the trials and erase them from memory only served to fuel popular imagination. Travelers and authors from England and here were writing about Salem's Witch Trial a century before literary icons Nathaniel Hawthorne, Longfellow, and Louisa May Alcott told their witchy tales and put down Puritans in their fiction. And this was even longer before Arthur Miller wrote "The Crucible," which was never meant as history but only as a metaphor for Senator Joseph McCarthy's persecution of supposed communists during the 1950s. Baker traces public fascination with Salem as "witch city" back to 1699 and a London travel writer named Ned Ward. He uncovered opinions on this topic from the likes of Governor Thomas Hutchinson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin on the subject. He brings public fascination with Salem witches right up to the statue of "Samantha" seated upon her broomstick from the TV series "Bewitched" erected in 2005. Clearly, many folks still prefer hysteria over history, like those who enjoy watching the currently popular television series "Salem," on WGN- America
The author details how the Salem tragedy came about and why it became an enduring legacy in American culture. He concludes that "Salem is a metaphor not for magic but for persecution, paranoia, ignorance, superstition, jealousy, judicial blindness, guilt, shame and bigotry." He believes the "witch trials triggered political, social and religious changes that would transform Massachusetts Bay Colony. Salem in 1692 was a critical moment for the fading Puritan government of Massachusetts.
This landmark investigation into Salem Witchcraft so skillfully weaves its facts throughout that it reads like an absorbing novel. Emerson Baker's book provides welcome clarity to complicated events during a specific time in our colonial past. This book represents a major contribution to understanding the Salem Witch Hunt.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful.
Beautifully written and accurate
By Ann M
A very accurate reporting of what happened during the Witch Trials. In addition, it is extremely readable and well-written, a fascinating book. I have read quite a few books about the trials and this one would be on the top of my list for suggested reads on the topic!
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
Illustrative of an important period of American history; there are many lessons to be learned
By Sharon Hill
Excellent. Highly readable history that views the events of Salem's past and its current state from a unique angle - one of politics, community and sociology. This book is probably not one to start with if you are not familiar with the history of the trials, told many times over, but it's essential to read if you are interested in it at all. The politics, drama, hardships, the state of women, the repressive religious culture - it all comes together to show that there was not one simple reason for this regrettable period of American history. It was complex and convoluted. I was particularly interested in the role of Samuel Parris, there was so much I did not know about his place in the story. Also fascinating is the town/village people struggling with their past. We'd do well to pay attention to such lessons of American history. Baker's writing style is enjoyable. I'll be picking up his other book as well.
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