Norton's interpretation is a pretty convincing one, and ties the Salem witch crisis to other episodes, like Bacon's Rebellion, where conflict between British colonists and Indians led to a severe crisis of colonial political authority. And, like all good arguments, it leaves one or two questions unanswered.
The feature of the Salem witch trials that always intrigued this reviewer, and that Norton mentions but doesn't explain, is the accusers' construction of witchcraft as a kind of counter-church, with satanic sacraments and ritual membership-book signing. This suggests that the Puritans saw witchcraft as a religious threat, not just a racial one. In they may have tied it to another religious threat, namely the one posed by Roman Catholicism.
Perhaps, in addition to blaming the Indians and the elite for the Salem witch crisis, future studies might usefully ask whether the French and anti-Catholicism were also contributing factors.
May 23, Milli rated it it was ok Shelves: One of the most detailed accounts of the Salem Witch Trials I have ever read. Norton makes an interesting case, combining the fear of Indian raids from the outside with the internal fear of Satan and witchcraft within Essex County. One could only imagine such an environment; surrounded in fear from the inside and out.
I have to admit, I didn't finish reading this book. Norton includes some great evidence and primary sources from Cotton Mather and other well-known players in the trials. However, the book is very heavy with this evidence. The connections between the residents of Salem, residents of other parts of Essex County, people back in England, etc, is mind-boggling.
The web weaved by who-knows-who among the accused and the afflicted is quite confusing at times. Norton is obviously a great historian, she definitely knows her stuff, but the story is presented in such a way that it can bombard the reader into a kind of "wait, what?
Norton also dispels some of the common assumptions about the witch trials and the mysterious Tituba. In terms of completeness, her work wins a gold star. In terms of entertainment value well, as entertaining as a terrible and scary time can be made out to be not so much. Jun 24, Ben Zornes rated it liked it Shelves: worldview , history.
Well this was a fun, albeit tedious, one to read. Mary Beth Norton, a feminist historian, took a look at all the "interpretations" of the Salem Witch Trials, and finally concluded they all got it wrong. She set about putting all the legal and personal documents into a chronological timeline and you might say she found something many historians who were wearing the feminist tinted glasses had missed when looking at this famous period of early colonial history. In short, most historians had never Well this was a fun, albeit tedious, one to read.
In short, most historians had never made the connection between how all of the "victims" of the witches, and many of the witches themselves, had either been or had relatives affected by the Wabanaki Indian wars on the Maine frontier.
In other words, the Puritan mindset of coming to establish a City on a Hill, and thus coming into spiritual conflict with unseen powers, became a broiling fear of witches who were in league with the Indian tribes which the settlers were locked in gruesome battles with. This was a very thorough history of the Salem Witch crisis, and Norton, to her credit, refuses to put on the "smash the patriarchy" mindset that many of her predecessors have.
She argues that what made the Salem trials different is that very young women were given more legal clout than ever before during this crisis. This was not the Patriarchy trying to suppress and kill "unruly women. On the whole, a really worthwhile book with some fascinating historical details. Jan 02, Katherine Addison rated it it was amazing Shelves: 17th-century , historiography , dystopian-nonfiction , salem-ma-usa , witch-hunts.
Norton's conclusion should have been put at the start, for in it she explains her thesis clearly and concisely--that the witchcraft crisis of was in large part a reaction to King Philip's War and King William's War--and makes explicit the logic by which her argument works.
Both these things would have benefited me greatly if I'd had them up front. She also, in the conclusion, addresses the question of the afflicted girls--sensibly and with attention to nuance. In the Devil's Snare is a treme Norton's conclusion should have been put at the start, for in it she explains her thesis clearly and concisely--that the witchcraft crisis of was in large part a reaction to King Philip's War and King William's War--and makes explicit the logic by which her argument works.
In the Devil's Snare is a tremendously ambitious book, as Norton is trying to lay out connections between the experiences of settlers in Maine, the accusations of the afflicted in Salem, and the actions and decisions of the colony leaders in Boston also in Maine and in Salem.
This is a horrifically tangled web; I spent most of the book wishing desperately for a score card. And she has some of the same problem that Boyer and Nissenbaum do. Where they treat the witchcraft accusations as transparent vehicles for socioeconomic disputes, Norton treats them as transparent vehicles for anxieties about the Wabanakis particularly in regards to John Alden, where--going by Norton's explanation--he was accused of witchcraft because he was known to trade, without any supernatural overtones, with the French and the Indians.
And I don't think it's quite that simple. On the other hand, the parallel Norton argues that the people of Massachusetts saw between the Wabanaki attacks and the Devil's attacks, between the colony's military failures and the afflicted girls suffering, does make very cogent sense of a troubling question: why the magistrates were willing to believe--and more than believe, to invest totally in the truth of--the witchcraft accusations, when in all other witchcraft trials, magistrates were notable for their caution and skepticism: If the devil was operating in their world with impunity--if God for his own inscrutable reasons had "lengthened the chain" that usually limited Satan's active malevolence against mankind, to adopt Lawson's memorable phrase--then the Massachusetts leaders' lack of success in combating the Indians could be explained without reference to their own failings.
If God had providentially caused the wartime disasters and he had also unleashed the devil on Massachusetts, then they bore no responsibility for the current state of affairs. Norton And as she makes very clear, without the hand of Providence to hide behind, their responsibility was very heavy, comprised of both greed and incompetence.
It's not exactly comforting to be given proof that human governments have pretty much always been greedy and incompetent, but on the other hand, it does put the current political sturm und drang in helpful perspective. I was never quite convinced of the transparent one-to-one correspondence Norton wants me to believe the New Englanders saw between the Wabanakis and Indians in general and the Devil, but that may be my own subject-position getting in the way, rather than a fault in her argument.
I don't want to believe they could have believed that, but that doesn't mean they didn't. Jan 23, John rated it really liked it. I really liked this, but I would hesitate to recommend it to people who rarely read history, I think it might seem dense and hard to plow through. But so interesting, and anyone who is curious about the Salem Witch Trials should check this out.
Norton thinks that too much attention has been paid over the years to debating the accusers in the trial why did they do it, were they just purely faking it all, etc. Specifically, the settlements northeast of Salem were engaged in ongoing, bloody warfare with the French and Indians during the trials, and they had been for years. Normally, according to Norton, the middle-aged men in charge of Massachusetts didn't pay much attention to the actions and accusations of teenage girls.
In fact, there were several other cases of witchcraft accusations in other parts of the colonies that died out quickly and didn't explode into trials and executions as the situation did in Salem. Norton contends that this situation was different because the French and Indians were clearly winning the fight, burning villages and taking captives. The people of Massachusetts saw that war as one between themselves and the forces of the devil.
So it was no surprise to discover that the devil was not only attacking them in the form of French and Indians, but also attacking them through witches in their midst. I do think that occasionally Norton draws a dubious parallel between people involved with the witch trials and activity on the frontier. I'm fully with her that the context must matter, to some extent, and probably has a lot to do with the willingness of the judges to convict and execute.
But sometimes she goes a little far, tracing people from Salem back to towns on the Maine coast where they may or may not have lived, and people they may or may not have known very well. But really, this is one of those books where the central thesis makes so much sense, you wonder how it could have taken so long to write a book about it. Aug 06, LibraryCin rated it it was ok Shelves: history , religion , witches , 17th-century , war , new-england , salem , massachusetts.
Specifically, the First and Second Indian Wars happened in the years leading up to the witch accusations and trials. I do find it hard, sometimes, to read books with a lot of quotations from other sources, and this one and other books on this topic has a lot of that.
View 1 comment. Aug 22, Karen rated it liked it. Lots of detail. Lots and lots and lots of detail, which would have been easier to follow had the author used a more entertaining writing style. Still, I'd recommend this to anyone with an interest in pre-modern American history. Sep 24, Alistair Cross rated it liked it. But as one of America's most often produced plays, it casts a spell over our cultural imagination that complicates the historian's task. The factual inaccuracies - composite characters, age changes, the adulterous affair at the center of the play - are, in a sense, the least of it.
Embroiled in the cold-war paranoia of the s, Miller needed a sufficiently distant setting to critique what he called a "perverse manifestation "The Crucible," by Arthur Miller, is an illuminating piece of theater. Embroiled in the cold-war paranoia of the s, Miller needed a sufficiently distant setting to critique what he called a "perverse manifestation of the panic which sets in among all classes when the balance begins to turn toward greater individual freedom.
Cornell history professor Mary Beth Norton doesn't finger him by name, but it's clear that with "In the Devil's Snare" she wants to wrest the witchcraft episode away from Arthur Miller. What happened in Salem, she argues, was not a timeless expression of the battle between conformity and individuality.
Instead, her "new interpretation Her perfectly reasonable thesis, which she characterizes as radical, is that Indian attacks on the northern frontier created a climate of panic at a time when Massachusetts had lost its charter and was being ruled by a shaky interim government.
That tense atmosphere led usually skeptical men to accept the hysterical claims of young girls, which they ordinarily would have dismissed. What's more, she continues, the leaders of Massachusetts, having failed to protect their citizens from Indians - the devil's minions - "quickly became invested in believing in the reputed witches' guilt, in large part because they needed to believe that they themselves were not guilty of causing New England's current woes.
The air over Salem is already crowded with explanations for what happened during those paranoid months. Historians have suggested that revenge or a deadly lust for others' land motivated neighbors to hang 19 people and press one to death. Puritans didn't burn their witches - that was considered a "Popish cruelty. Feminists have illuminated the signs of misogyny in the accusations.
Psychologists have analyzed psychosomatic illnesses caused by the anxieties of young people trapped in repressive Salem households. Pathologists have noticed that smallpox often inspired panic about malevolent forces. Biologists have even speculated that moldy grain may have induced hallucinations in the bewitched girls.
Many critics before Norton have noted that the Puritans were terrified of the Indians, whom they regarded as working in concert with Satan to destroy their "city on the hill.
What's more, she's dismantled the proscenium arch over Salem and demonstrated that what happened there must be seen in the broader context of northern New England fighting for its survival. That effort involves tracing - sometimes with a degree of speculation - the history and family connections of many Salem residents back to the Maine frontier, the site of the First and Second Indian Wars King Philip's War and King William's War.
From there, Norton shows that victims of witchcraft often described their afflictions in specific phrases that echoed the grisly Indian attacks they'd seen or heard about. Norton is also particularly attentive to the flow of gossip, which enables her to reconstruct the drift of certain accusations from town to town until they took deadly root in Salem. Salem investigators made a crucial error when they departed from custom and began questioning suspects in public, thereby creating a forum in which aggrieved parties could interrupt with hysterical outbursts, fits, and curses.
The Puritans lived on the cusp of the Enlightenment. They knew enough already to be skeptical, but they also believed that malevolent forces were at work in the physical world. Despite their attempts to establish scientific and medical tests for witchcraft, the judges clung to the controversial notion that testimony given by spirits and ghosts - "spectral evidence" - was admissible.
To make matters worse, the magistrates began preserving the lives of confessed witches who were willing to expose other witches, a practice that quickly led to the imprisonment of hundreds of "Satan's servants. As an academic historian, Norton tolerates none of the lurid aura that floats around the witchcraft crisis, but in the process she throws out Rosemary's baby with the bath water.
There's no flesh on these characters. Rinaldi is a former newspaper columnist who later became an author. It was one of the first comprehensive books about the Salem Witch Trials.
Since it is an outdated historical text, it has its flaws and sometimes gets a few facts wrong for example, Upham confuses Sarah Bishop with Bridget Bishop and merges them into one person but is otherwise a great read.
If you like historical texts like this I also recommend reading any of the primary sources on the Salem Witch Trials, which were all written by the local ministers involved in the trials. Sources: Morrow, James. It does talk about the Salem trials though so I guess it technically qualifies as a Salem Witch Trials book. The only thing I can really say about it is I noticed a lot of negative reviews from readers suddenly flooding in on Amazon. Critics seem to like it but readers say the complex dialogue and prose make it difficult to read.
The Witches: Salem, is a great book. I saw a CSPAN reading for the book this summmer there are many readings on YouTube and I was disappointed to learn almost nothing new but the phase of the moon for a particular event, though I was impressed with the level of detail of research to have consulted astronomical charts to elucidate a detail. She seemed to have done a lot of close reading at the PEM. It was the most insightful to me.
I cannot recommend it highly enough. I certainly want to thank you for these recommendations. I thought this one was the best at explaining the confusion over the identities of Sarah Bishop and Bridget Bishop. I had sorted this mixup out myself and was happy to see it seconded by a scholarly researcher like Roach. As you know, both Sarah and Edward were accused and jailed on suspicion of being witches. I relied on every source I could find, including some very helpful deeds and town tax records.
The deeds helped the most in sorting out the four men named Edward Bishop in because they each had unique marks or ways of signing these documents. And Edward the third also signed his full name but could be identified by the unique figure used as a mark by his wife, Susan. Thank you again for this article. Both fabulous books—from different angles. Wrote a week or so ago seeking permission to publish the Susannah Martin memorial photo in our local quarterly genealogical journal.
An interview with a descendant of hers. Hope I can use it—with citation and credit, of course. I just visited Salem as a tourist last week and am really looking forward to reading more about the witch trials. I enjoyed it, although it does quote primary source language extensively and that sometimes got a little confusing. Are there any good films or documentaries again, apart from version of The Crucible you would recommend? I myself have also used these books in my research for this website expect for the fiction books and can personally recommend them as some of the best books on the trials: Disclaimer: This article contains Amazon affiliate links.
Roach Published in , this book explains the details and the events of the Salem Witch Trials as they happened. Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft by Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum Published in by Harvard University Press, this book explores the social setting and history of Salem prior to the witch trials to provide a better understanding of how and why they happened.
Death in Salem: The Private Lives Behind the Witch Hunt by Diane Foulds Published in , instead of looking at the big picture or listing the chronology of the events, this book explores the personal lives of the people involved in the trials to form a sort of psychological profile of the colony at the time. Measure ad performance. Select basic ads. Create a personalised ads profile.
Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Share Flipboard Email. Jone Johnson Lewis is a women's history writer who has been involved with the women's movement since the late s. She is a former faculty member of the Humanist Institute. Learn about our Editorial Process. Featured Video. Cite this Article Format. Lewis, Jone Johnson. History of Witches Signing the Devil's Book.
Tituba and The Salem Witch Trials of The Role of Witch's Cake in Salem. Profile of Mary Lacey Sr. George Burroughs and the Salem Witch Trials.
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