Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

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."

When I saw this book reviewed in a national newspaper, I thought, that's a book for me: the Salem witchcraft affair never ceases to fascinate me and this author has an interesting hypothesis. Clearly, Ms. Norton has a detailed grasp of her subject matter, as well as keen lateral thinking. She has put the accusations, examinations and trials into their social context, drawing compelling parallels between events on the frontier (Indian raids) with those in Salem (bewitched young women). The amount of research apparent in this book is staggering. It is all very interesting stuff.

Alas, this book is so dry (to use another reviewer's word -- and would that I'd read his review before buying the book) it is barely readable. Just a few pages into the first chapter and I realized I'd made a big mistake, but I decided to sweat it out for awhile to see if it got any better. It didn't. Finally on page 100, I gave up and skimmed the rest, reading passages here and there to confirm that it was more (and more) of the same. The summary chapters at the end were a little better -- but not much.

The main problem is that Ms. Norton has taken an interesting idea and flogged it to death. The book could have been half its length and had a greater impact: less, in this case, would have been much more. Second, the constant quotes interrupt the flow of the text, and, to be blunt, Ms. Norton's text needs all the help it can get when it comes to flow. (Ms. Norton also seems to have passive-construction disease. "As was discussed previously" is dull in a doctoral dissertation, in a book intended for mass consumption -- and this one was, I assume -- it's sudden death.)

Third, interspersing 17th Century spelling with 21st Century spelling is jarring and, after about ten pages, REALLY annoying. It is clear that Ms. Norton has read these texts, she doesn't need to dazzle us with that fact; it would have been preferable for her to either paraphrase (with proper notations, of course) or, when a quote was absolutely necessary to illustrate a point, to update the spelling.

Take this example from page 90: The fishermen, too, hurried to leave, "supposinge it not boote to stay here against such a multitude of enemyes." (not boote?) or this one: Frontier dwellers accurately predicted the consequences of Waldron's deceit, anticipating "Suddain Spolye" that would leave them "in a More danger[ous] Condision" than before. WHAT? The first time I read the latter sentence, I thought Suddain Spoyle was a Native American whose introduction I'd missed.

Oddly, on page 92, Ms. Norton quotes one James Roules who uses 20th Century spelling. Was Mr. Roules living in a forward time warp or did Ms. Norton update the spelling in that passage, and, if the latter, why not throughout?

I hope that the "other Americanists and the other women in the Cornell history department", to whom Ms. Norton dedicated this book, enjoyed it. But, Ms. Norton, writing an erudite and detailed study for one's colleagues on the history faculty is quite a different animal from writing for those of us (dare I say it?) in the real world, who, if your book is going to be a financial success, are your audience.

Does that mean the material has to be dumbed-down? No, not in the least. But, neither is it necessary to hide an excellent hypothesis behind pages of adademic balderdash and blather.

Content: A/Form: D-

It is hard to imagine that Prof. Norton's narrative and analysis of the Salem witch crisis will be surpassed anytime soon. This book re-examines an episode in American colonial history that many other historians have tried to tackle. What makes Norton's book special is the care with which she has combed through the primary sources and the skill with which she sifts the data in arriving at what is, for my money, the best explanation of the Massachusetts tragedy.

As Norton points out, the Salem witchcraft episode involved many more people, and was much more intense, than any other such episode in America or England. Her central explanation for Salem's "uniqueness" is that, in Massachusetts in 1692, there was a fatal concurrence of New Englanders' belief in witchery and the supernatural, renewed war against northern New England settlements by the French and the Wabanaki Indians, and a series of military disasters for Massachusetts (including the wiping out of several villages). Although, as Norton readily acknowledges, this theory was advanced by other historians in scholarly articles in the 1980s, no one had previously attempted to flesh out the theory fully and examine the entire, sad series of events in light of it.

Not only does Norton do a fantastic job as a scholar, but she also is (contrary to what some Amazon reviewers have said) quite a good writer. I only wish all scholarly works were written with Norton's careful craftsmanship and scorn for pseudo-intellectual gobbledygook. The book also includes excellent and helpful maps, appendixes, and index. It should be noted as well that Norton is amazingly generous in her acknowledgements (in her notes and elsewhere) to all the researchers and even graduate students who gave her ideas and data. She sets a fine example for other historians.

I wouldn't think that this book would be beyond the capacity of anyone with a college education. Some of the other reviews, unfortunately, show that my estimate of the reading public may be too high. I suppose that, if you just want to be titillated and not have to think too hard, there are other books you should buy. But, if you really want to understand an important and notorious series of events in American history, then this is the book to read.

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.

This book may be the most exhaustive one ever written on the Salem witchcraft trials. I have read other books on the subject, but I found this one to be tough going. It is not a book for beginners. I have always wondered whether the girls were faking their seizure-like behavior, and I finally found the author's belief on the second to the last page. Author Norton believes the younger girls ages thirteen and under exhibited genuine fits for unknown causes. What about the physical causes such as bleeding and teeth marks, and what caused them? Did they injure themself? The author admits to not having an answer. Some of the older girls in their late teens and early twenties appear to have possibly taken part in collusion in their accusations of others. I guess if that is the case, and their victims were hanged for it, the girls could rightfully be accused of murder. I found parts of the book such as the trials of various ones tough going. The author has tied the witchcraft in Essex County, Massachusetts, to the Indian wars (King Philip's War and King William's War) in the area now known as Maine. If you haven't done any reading on this subject I would suggest you find one of several other books on Salem witchcraft that is available. This book would be suitable for those looking for a very detailed treatment of the subject. I based my rating of three stars on my interest level, but I'm sure those with a greater understanding of the subject would rate it higher.

Mary Beth Norton has managed to take an oft-examined event, the Salem Witchraft Crisis of 1692, and added a fresh perspective to it. In the Devil's Snare is a fascinating book. It is not as thrilling and easy to read as some other histories of the event (such as the re-released Francis Hill book) but looking at the conflict on the frontiers of the territories with the Indians and its impact on pushing the witchcraft crisis to greater heights will interest those who have read other accounts. The fit is not always perfect but it does give one much to consider. The book is well researched and of particular interest will be the gossip networks unearthed by the author showing how information was spread from distant counties. It's a small New England world after all. A fresh look at a horrific event and strongly recommended for anyone wishing to understand this event.

The author centers what is indubitably one of the most scholarly accounts I have yet read on the events in Salem on a new premise: That all the events were influenced by the Second Indian War and by the protagonists harrowing experiences during that conflict. Note that this doesn't exclude other causes, such as property disputes, envy, illicit affairs and the like that others have used in the past, and which are also mentioned in this book.

I don't know that I agree completely with what Norton is saying, although she does have several valid points. Either way, the book is a magnificent chronology and analysis (albeight colored by Norton's view) of one of the most puzzling events of our nation's early history. As an added bonus, her theory and her attempt at proof made her do a much better job of fitting in the events at Salem with what was happening in the rest of the New World at that time, as well as in England. It's certainly not casual reading, but it is a must read if you are interested in the subject.

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 gruesome carnage and Puritan families, as a result, lived in a world filled with tales of torture, disembowelings, and crushed skulls. Several of the key accusers in the witchcraft trials were refugees from the Maine frontier and, as Norton suggests, it is easy to imagine why they believed that Satan was near.
The Puritans lived in a pre-Enlightenment, pre-industrial society where, Norton writes, the "visible and invisible world often intersected". "When they encountered harmful events that otherwise seemed inexplicable," she notes, "New Englanders often concluded that a malevolent witch had caused their troubles." In normal circumstances, however, formal legal allegations of witchcraft against specific individuals seldom arose and when they did authorities treated them with caution. But in the "supercharged" atmosphere of 1692, the fits experienced by the young women led many to fear that the colony faced the devil's assaults on the frontier and within Salem itself. When the afflicted girls proceeded to accuse prominent men such as John Alden and George Burroughs of both bewitching them and conspiring with the Indians "the assaults from the visible and invisible worlds became closely intertwined in New Englanders' minds."
Norton is not the first historian, of course, to note that the Indian raids made the Puritan colonists unusually apprehensive. But what Norton has done that other historians have not is carefully assemble a substantial body of evidence that reveals that the residents of Salem explicitly linked the Maine massacres with the witchcraft allegations. Because Salem residents thought that the devil was attacking on two fronts simultaneously, Norton concludes, the judges in the witchcraft trials operated on a wartime footing. Their job, they believed, was to root out and destroy witches at home who were aiding Satan's armies on the frontier. During the witchcraft trials they zealously pursued this goal, ignoring key common law protections for the accused, and treating the defendants as if they were guilty unless proven innocent.
In the process of mustering her evidence, Norton also debunks some of the myths that have surrounded the witchcraft affair. She, for example, fully exonerates Tituba, the Indian slave who some chroniclers have alleged led the young women of Salem in Barbados-influenced witchcraft ceremonies. The girls, so the story goes, slipped into a guilt-driven hysteria after Salem adults learned of their behavior. But Tituba, Norton found, was neither a devotee of voodou or from the Caribbean. Instead, Norton cogently argues, the accusers implicated Tituba first because she was an enslaved Native-American living amidst a population then acutely afraid of Indian attacks.
"In the Devil's Snare" is a compelling, meticulous, and convincing account of one of the most disturbing episodes of the colonial period. Norton's conclusion that a fear of outside threats led Salem's leaders to overzealously pursue supposed domestic enemies is both new and important. And although she cautions that the witchcraft trials can only be fully understood when viewed within the context of their times, many readers will nevertheless find that a cautionary message for the present day resonates throughout the pages of her book.

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.

Make sure you have plenty of water or other beverage at your side when you read this book. It's so dry, you will find yourself thirsty for a better writing style. I read lots of books and I was very eager to read this one; having read the prior reviews, I thought it would be an interesting historical account of the events of that era and topic. I got 70 pages in to the book and finally gave up. I don't know why but the presentation was boring. I found the author's style too clinical and choppy, somehow. If you are determined to read this book, wait 'till it comes out in paperback or buy it used. Don't make the same mistake I did and buy it in HB.