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The Devil in Massachusetts: A Modern Inquiry into the Salem Witch Trials
Reviews the history of Salem witchcraft in light of modern studies in psychology and spiritualism
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1949
About the author
Marion L. Starkey
15 books5 followersMarion Lena Starkey was Editor of the Saugus Herald newspaper, and a teacher at the Hampton Institute and the University of Connecticut at New London, having attended the Harvard Graduate school of Education. A descendant of Mayflower passenger Peregrine White, Starkey has published extensively on the Salem Witch Trials and the history of New England.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 122 reviews
January 17, 2021
This may be the perfect book for our times. Why? Because the Salem Witch Trials is the most ridiculous example of a witch hunt, mass hysteria, and mob rule on this continent. We say "oh that's a witch hunt" and we act like we won't let something like this happen again but then there are examples of where we make the same mistakes over and over again. Really, people were put away based on spectral evidence and sent to the gallows just because some lying girls would curl up on the floor and go into convulsions and say that they were afflicted? They made it all up! It strikes of McCarthyism and the new McCarthyism of the left where someone at the university doesn't feel safe because of a thought or an attitude or a banner etc.
We are a nation of laws and precedent and jurisprudence. We should never let the mob rule. Students need to read this book and understand our history. And the true history is ugly. How could this ever of happened here or anywhere?
We are a nation of laws and precedent and jurisprudence. We should never let the mob rule. Students need to read this book and understand our history. And the true history is ugly. How could this ever of happened here or anywhere?
August 11, 2009
In truth, this book is a near-failure.
Historically it sucks, and it reeks of the sense of postmodern superiority often found in books written by social scientists.
Apparently, Ms. Starkey "...applies modern psychiatric knowledge to the witchcraft hysteria," yet that psychiatric element absolutely ruins and undoes any of the actual historical claims from the primary sources which she did cite.
Problem is, she takes an unnecessary and excessive amount of "creative license" and over-characterizes the main players. At times Starkey tends to create links where there are none, and thus the genuine historicism that would otherwise be found in this book is overthrown by flamboyant and novelistic writing styles.
I would recommend this book to people who like to read novels, and who just want a general overview of the Salem Witch Trials as we know them. However I would NOT recommend this as an actual textbook or history book per se.
YMMV.
PMZ
Historically it sucks, and it reeks of the sense of postmodern superiority often found in books written by social scientists.
Apparently, Ms. Starkey "...applies modern psychiatric knowledge to the witchcraft hysteria," yet that psychiatric element absolutely ruins and undoes any of the actual historical claims from the primary sources which she did cite.
Problem is, she takes an unnecessary and excessive amount of "creative license" and over-characterizes the main players. At times Starkey tends to create links where there are none, and thus the genuine historicism that would otherwise be found in this book is overthrown by flamboyant and novelistic writing styles.
I would recommend this book to people who like to read novels, and who just want a general overview of the Salem Witch Trials as we know them. However I would NOT recommend this as an actual textbook or history book per se.
YMMV.
PMZ
April 28, 2009
I started doing some genealogy research recently and that I have ancestors that were from Salem Village in Massachusetts and may, possible be descended from a woman who was hanged as a witch. I still have a fair amount of research to prove that, but the possibility got me interested in learning more about the trials and what happened.
Starkey's book is a pretty quick overview of the events though he doesn't limit himself to pure history and tries to "get inside the people's heads." He also claims he doesn't want to judge the actions of the people but that doesn't seem to stop him from judging the people themselves. Many of his adjectives are laden with judgement. In my opinion, that's the books biggest fault, but leaving that aside, he provides the most detailed descriptions of the events I've read before.
A part of me can't believe that such a thing could happen but it did and, even today, events not all that different continue to happen today. The "witches" may be different but the persecution for imagined sins and actions isn't. The book is worth reading just for that.
I had expected to find that Salem Village was an isolated, superstitious place where actions like this could happen. But, it involved a large chunk of the Massachusetts colony and some of the colony's most prestigious scholars. Many theories have been advanced to explain the "afflictions," but I don't think any physical explanation, like wheat mold, can really explain a phenomenon that lasted for months and covered and such a large area.
Dozens of people were arrested and tried without a shred of physical evidence and many of them were hanged. One spent the remainder of her life in prison because she could not pay her prison debt though she was found not guilty once "spectral evidence" was ruled inadmissible. While some were arguable not particularly nice or good people, their crimes, if any, did not warrant the charges or punishments. Most were wholly innocent and many were pillars of the community.
We've repeated some form of this again and again, whether it was the Japanese interment camps of World War II or the jailing of people with no trials after 9/11. Mass hysteria, particularly for those with power, is a remarkably dangerous thing for those who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Starkey's book is a pretty quick overview of the events though he doesn't limit himself to pure history and tries to "get inside the people's heads." He also claims he doesn't want to judge the actions of the people but that doesn't seem to stop him from judging the people themselves. Many of his adjectives are laden with judgement. In my opinion, that's the books biggest fault, but leaving that aside, he provides the most detailed descriptions of the events I've read before.
A part of me can't believe that such a thing could happen but it did and, even today, events not all that different continue to happen today. The "witches" may be different but the persecution for imagined sins and actions isn't. The book is worth reading just for that.
I had expected to find that Salem Village was an isolated, superstitious place where actions like this could happen. But, it involved a large chunk of the Massachusetts colony and some of the colony's most prestigious scholars. Many theories have been advanced to explain the "afflictions," but I don't think any physical explanation, like wheat mold, can really explain a phenomenon that lasted for months and covered and such a large area.
Dozens of people were arrested and tried without a shred of physical evidence and many of them were hanged. One spent the remainder of her life in prison because she could not pay her prison debt though she was found not guilty once "spectral evidence" was ruled inadmissible. While some were arguable not particularly nice or good people, their crimes, if any, did not warrant the charges or punishments. Most were wholly innocent and many were pillars of the community.
We've repeated some form of this again and again, whether it was the Japanese interment camps of World War II or the jailing of people with no trials after 9/11. Mass hysteria, particularly for those with power, is a remarkably dangerous thing for those who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
December 13, 2012
This book is one of the best bits of evidence I can think of, which shows how people rarely need religion to behave well; but equally, how they can use it to behave poorly. The fanatic persecution of "witches" in the Massachusettes colony is one of the most ominous in early European-American history: it turned family members against one another, and cast an awful suspicion upon one's neighbors and friends.
This historical book reads much like a novel; and presents an interesting interpretation of the Puritanical motivations behind the infamous Witch trials. Many innocent people suffered needlessly because of uncompromising faith; a faith that would go so far as to make reason a sin and logic evidence of witchery.
I think everyone should read this.
This historical book reads much like a novel; and presents an interesting interpretation of the Puritanical motivations behind the infamous Witch trials. Many innocent people suffered needlessly because of uncompromising faith; a faith that would go so far as to make reason a sin and logic evidence of witchery.
I think everyone should read this.
June 10, 2023
Caveats out of the way first: yes, there are some factual inaccuracies in this riveting account of the Salem witchcraft hysteria. Seventy additional years of research will inevitably alter the record. And yes, by virtue of the same seventy years of additional work, certain of Starkey's interpretations (by no means all) are now generally considered to be superseded.
All that admitted, what a gem this book is! I read it as a teenager and it demonstrated the possibilities of historical narrative for me as no other book had. The facts of the story are gripping in themselves, of course, and when presented with Starkey's novelistic and dramatic flair, the result is informative, thought-provoking, and exceptionally moving. Starkey wrote this book in the shadow of the Communist "witch hunts”, then gatheting force, and that lends especial power to her majestic conclusion.
Starkey was a most considerable writer (so reading some of the criticisms of her prose is confounding -- we must not be teaching our young people to read complex sentences very well!). Any budding historian or novelist would do well to study her work here most carefully -- for example, the sheer brilliancy of her chapter endings. The Devil in Massachusetts achieves literary status and should be part of any American reader's basic education.
All that admitted, what a gem this book is! I read it as a teenager and it demonstrated the possibilities of historical narrative for me as no other book had. The facts of the story are gripping in themselves, of course, and when presented with Starkey's novelistic and dramatic flair, the result is informative, thought-provoking, and exceptionally moving. Starkey wrote this book in the shadow of the Communist "witch hunts”, then gatheting force, and that lends especial power to her majestic conclusion.
Starkey was a most considerable writer (so reading some of the criticisms of her prose is confounding -- we must not be teaching our young people to read complex sentences very well!). Any budding historian or novelist would do well to study her work here most carefully -- for example, the sheer brilliancy of her chapter endings. The Devil in Massachusetts achieves literary status and should be part of any American reader's basic education.
October 30, 2023
Like many historical figures and events, I’ve long wanted to learn more about the Salem witch trials of 1692. This book was my first true introduction to the subject, and it probably was not the greatest place to start. Starkey has a fine writing style, but at times she seems more concerned with her prose than her subject matter. It would have worked if she applied an *In Cold Blood* nonfiction novel approach, but she is instead trying to turn the entire tragic saga into a cohesive narrative. This is an ambitious and difficult task, and I truly applaud the effort. However, it doesn’t fully work. There were so many different people involved in the trials that it’s nearly impossible to keep track of every person or to develop emotional connections (this, of course, is not entirely Starkey’s fault). I would have also preferred that she had given more information about how the trials ended and what became of certain people in the aftermath. Despite its shortcomings, the book reminded me why the trials have endured in the American imagination as a testament to injustice, religious fanaticism, and how “witch hunts” have never really disappeared.
March 11, 2011
Religion is dangerous. So are teenage girls. This seems to be the main theme of this book. Starkey has gathered myriad sources on the Salem Witch Trials and managed to put together a cohesive account which is neither dry nor dense. Though written in 1949, it is comprehensible to the modern reader and also fascinating. Starkey has taken great care not to fabricate action or dialogue in order to add drama to her tale; she hardly needs to. She has copied entire sections of dialogue from court reports and detailed diaries of eyewitnesses to the trials.
Starkey also claims in her introduction that she has tried to apply some 'modern psychology' to the major players in the conflict, but I saw little evidence of that. There was definitely some borderline personality disorder among the 'afflicted girls,' most notably Abigail Williams.
Overall, an engaging and informative non-fiction work.
Starkey also claims in her introduction that she has tried to apply some 'modern psychology' to the major players in the conflict, but I saw little evidence of that. There was definitely some borderline personality disorder among the 'afflicted girls,' most notably Abigail Williams.
Overall, an engaging and informative non-fiction work.
January 24, 2017
A bit dated, especially when it comes to the psychology ("hysteria"), but this is the Salem story in very readable journalese. A very fair assessment of what happened and how it was undone (sometimes not in time), with a timely reminder that a great many people did NOT share the hysteria, and worked against it in whatever ways they could find.
One plus of this edition: the cover is terrific, with its spooky illustration of the devil (by Tomi Ungerer).
One negative of this edition: the Time Inc. Reading Program books look and feel is horrible--they have lousy bindings, they smell like dirty playing cards (thank you, Plastic Coating Corporation of Holyoke, Massachusetts), and they crack and fall apart after one reading. If they didn't publish so much good stuff, I wouldn't have them in my house.
One plus of this edition: the cover is terrific, with its spooky illustration of the devil (by Tomi Ungerer).
One negative of this edition: the Time Inc. Reading Program books look and feel is horrible--they have lousy bindings, they smell like dirty playing cards (thank you, Plastic Coating Corporation of Holyoke, Massachusetts), and they crack and fall apart after one reading. If they didn't publish so much good stuff, I wouldn't have them in my house.
September 5, 2017
If you're interested in the Salem Witch Trials and have not read Starkey's book, then I highly recommend it. She takes the events of the trials and weaves them into a narrative, so much so that this is more like reading a novel. If you're researching the trials, she does have a list of the primary and secondary sources she used for reference at the end of the book.
March 21, 2021
When your text is riddled with the phrase "based on tradition rather than on recorded history" maybe don't market your book as nonfiction.
April 24, 2018
An older book with an older writing style that was sometimes hard to get through. There were times I had to read re-read a line because I wasn't sure it was her writing or words from history. Even so, it was a thoroughly researched and credible piece of work. I can't speak to any inaccuracies, but it was interesting to get to the real story behind the legend of the Salem Witch Trials.
July 23, 2016
Though it shows it's age, I still enjoyed this read. It is not without its flaws and the prose was sometimes quite irritating, but still interesting and a good overview. Full review to come
++++++++++++++
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Rating: 3 Stars
It utterly baffles me that these events ever even occurred. And not just in Salem, but across the Massachusetts colony, at the time, and even across Europe as well at various times (James VI/I was kind of obsessed with witches). The text does show its age, particularly through the word choice of the author, but I still enjoyed the read for the most part. It is not without its flaws of course, and the prose could be quite irritating at times, but it was still interesting and provided a solid overview of the events as they occurred,
Reading the events clearly laid out by Starkey will help any reader navigate the supposed complexity of the situation. Myself personally, I don't see it as being terribly complex - these nasty, bored little girls found being the center of attention quite exhilarating and over time were basically addicted to it. But of course, I am applying by own 21st century analysis to a 17th century problem. This is one of the main flaws with the book, as the back cover states the author, "...takes dialogue from actual trial records but applies modern psychiatric knowledge to the witchcraft hysteria." As I mentioned above, the text 'shows its age', as it was published in 1949. So, basically, I am reading a book in 2016, through the lens of a 1949 writer, about events that occurred in 1692. It is easy to see there will be some disconnect. As I said in another recent review of Henry VIII and his supposed Kell Positive/McLeod's diagnosis, it is all but impossible to give a modern diagnosis to a historical person/people/event, and all it fact. While Starkey does not go so far as to actually call it fact, the application is there for the reader to decide if it makes sense. To me, it does not - at least not completely. The author mentions on more than one occasion something to the effect that many of these girls were of marry-able ages, but were not yet married and thus had no real purpose in life yet. The basic connection she seems to be making eventually seems is that these girls accused older women in their village because they were jealous that they themselves were not yet married and having sex. Perhaps I am misreading? Or reading too much into it? But that is how it comes across and to me that is entirely absurd to assume. It is almost impossible to apply modern thinking to historical events as I have said, and yet that seems to happen frequently.
Despite what I perceive as a flaw, the book is not without merit. As for providing a solid foundation for the events that occurred, the book does a wonderful job. One must just keep in mind the publishing date. The author made fantastic use of the sources available to her (there seems to be some confusion from some readers whether the author is male or female - Marion Lena Starkey was female. The back of the book even uses 'her' when referring to the author, so why the confusion?) There is a decent section about notes afterward and a selected biography, which in itself still used a fair number of sources. I always seem to have a problem judging a book by its notes and sources and I am really trying not to do so, but it is important to know where information has come from. I want to know that the author is not just making up random nonsense and trying to pass it off as fact. I especially approve of the use of sources contemporary to to the person or event being discussed, and you can't get much better than verbatim copies of the Salem Witchcraft papers, available at various archives, historical societies and libraries in Boston and NYC.
In reading, time and again it was frustrating to me that the magistrates could not see how absurd this whole debacle was. These girls were the reason so many innocent lives were lost. I say 'innocent' as a reference to the crime of which they are accused - witchcraft. That does not necessarily mean that all of the people found guilty were perfect, wonderful people (though by all accounts most were decent folks), but whatever undesirable characteristics they may have possessed certainly did not qualify them for hanging.
I learned a bit as well that I did not know before. One such example - I did not realize that it took so long for the trials to actually begin, from the time that the first person was accused of being a witch. I suppose it should not seem strange, given the state of the judicial system today, but one would have thought the trials would have moved along more quickly, given the perceived severity of what was going on. I also learned there was a lone 'afflicted boy' who was part of this mess but he rarely testified. It was interesting that "the detection of witches was apparently women's work" (page 195).
Overall I would recommend this one for anyone interested in the trials, but be aware of the age of the book.
++++++++++++++
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Rating: 3 Stars
It utterly baffles me that these events ever even occurred. And not just in Salem, but across the Massachusetts colony, at the time, and even across Europe as well at various times (James VI/I was kind of obsessed with witches). The text does show its age, particularly through the word choice of the author, but I still enjoyed the read for the most part. It is not without its flaws of course, and the prose could be quite irritating at times, but it was still interesting and provided a solid overview of the events as they occurred,
Reading the events clearly laid out by Starkey will help any reader navigate the supposed complexity of the situation. Myself personally, I don't see it as being terribly complex - these nasty, bored little girls found being the center of attention quite exhilarating and over time were basically addicted to it. But of course, I am applying by own 21st century analysis to a 17th century problem. This is one of the main flaws with the book, as the back cover states the author, "...takes dialogue from actual trial records but applies modern psychiatric knowledge to the witchcraft hysteria." As I mentioned above, the text 'shows its age', as it was published in 1949. So, basically, I am reading a book in 2016, through the lens of a 1949 writer, about events that occurred in 1692. It is easy to see there will be some disconnect. As I said in another recent review of Henry VIII and his supposed Kell Positive/McLeod's diagnosis, it is all but impossible to give a modern diagnosis to a historical person/people/event, and all it fact. While Starkey does not go so far as to actually call it fact, the application is there for the reader to decide if it makes sense. To me, it does not - at least not completely. The author mentions on more than one occasion something to the effect that many of these girls were of marry-able ages, but were not yet married and thus had no real purpose in life yet. The basic connection she seems to be making eventually seems is that these girls accused older women in their village because they were jealous that they themselves were not yet married and having sex. Perhaps I am misreading? Or reading too much into it? But that is how it comes across and to me that is entirely absurd to assume. It is almost impossible to apply modern thinking to historical events as I have said, and yet that seems to happen frequently.
Despite what I perceive as a flaw, the book is not without merit. As for providing a solid foundation for the events that occurred, the book does a wonderful job. One must just keep in mind the publishing date. The author made fantastic use of the sources available to her (there seems to be some confusion from some readers whether the author is male or female - Marion Lena Starkey was female. The back of the book even uses 'her' when referring to the author, so why the confusion?) There is a decent section about notes afterward and a selected biography, which in itself still used a fair number of sources. I always seem to have a problem judging a book by its notes and sources and I am really trying not to do so, but it is important to know where information has come from. I want to know that the author is not just making up random nonsense and trying to pass it off as fact. I especially approve of the use of sources contemporary to to the person or event being discussed, and you can't get much better than verbatim copies of the Salem Witchcraft papers, available at various archives, historical societies and libraries in Boston and NYC.
In reading, time and again it was frustrating to me that the magistrates could not see how absurd this whole debacle was. These girls were the reason so many innocent lives were lost. I say 'innocent' as a reference to the crime of which they are accused - witchcraft. That does not necessarily mean that all of the people found guilty were perfect, wonderful people (though by all accounts most were decent folks), but whatever undesirable characteristics they may have possessed certainly did not qualify them for hanging.
I learned a bit as well that I did not know before. One such example - I did not realize that it took so long for the trials to actually begin, from the time that the first person was accused of being a witch. I suppose it should not seem strange, given the state of the judicial system today, but one would have thought the trials would have moved along more quickly, given the perceived severity of what was going on. I also learned there was a lone 'afflicted boy' who was part of this mess but he rarely testified. It was interesting that "the detection of witches was apparently women's work" (page 195).
Overall I would recommend this one for anyone interested in the trials, but be aware of the age of the book.
September 17, 2024
At the outset, I wanted to share one of the best descriptions I've ever read regarding why this subject still matters. It reads as follows:
"Yet although this particular delusion, at least in the form of a large-scale public enterprise, has vanished from the western world, the urge to hunt 'witches' has done nothing of the kind. It has been revived on a colossal scale by replacing the medieval idea of malefic witchcraft by pseudo-scientific concepts like 'race' and 'nationality,' and by substituting for theological dissension, a whole complex of warring ideologies. Accordingly, the story of 1692 is of far more than antiquarian interest: it is an allegory of our times. One would like to believe that leaders of the modern world can in the end deal with delusion as sanely and courageously as the men of old Massachusetts dealt with theirs."
THIS BOOK WAS WRITTEN IN 1949.
The author's prescient statements ring as true today as they did then with regard to race, ethnicity, and certainly, warring ideologies, which have in recent years become just as vicious, intolerant and flammable as the period in which the author was writing, just a few short years after the close of WWII, the most devastating event in human history since, at least, the Black Death, and perhaps even more so. To that end, I hate to say: "witch-hunting" is here to stay, and it has, I fear, yet again become, to quote the author, a "large-scale public enterprise" in a way that I think the persecutors of old Salem would recognize.
Not so much a "modern enquiry" at this point, seventy-five years hence - the spelling of the very word has even changed! - and definitely a product of its time, this very capable analysis addresses this timely and perpetually fascinating topic from the perspective of an experienced scholar and researcher, one who was purportedly a Mayflower descendant. This is one of the earliest comprehensive narrative accounts of the Salem Witch Trials, which has particular value, having been written on the eve of yet another period of overblown hysteria - the McCarthy era, where even suspected Communists were "cancelled," to use today's term, and blacklisted, many for life.
Nearly eight decades of additional research and scholarly discourse have contributed much more to our understanding of what occurred during these tragic days in the late seventeenth century, which many consider to be one of the darkest and most shameful periods in American history, but it seems that we are still incapable of learning from it, as the talented author noted. Indeed, much about the origin of this particular "witchcraze" still remains still unknown, including an explanation for this unusual outbreak of suspicion, accusation, and, ultimately, violence, whatever its origins, whether biological, psychological, economic, or a combination of all of the above.
Many still consider it to have been an episode of little more than "mass hysteria," the roots of which lay in a particularly rabid strain of religious fanaticism, but, in reality, the situation was far more complicated.
What is known is that the tragic events resulted in far-reaching social, religious and political consequences: as noted by historian George Lincoln Burr in 1914, this shameful persecution "was the rock on which the theocracy was shattered." At least some degree of secularization followed in its wake, when at least so-called "spectral evidence" in formal legal proceedings was permanently disallowed.
And, widespread embarrassment for the powers that be, including high-ranking, supposedly well-educated and sophisticated public officials in Boston and elsewhere, who had not only failed to intervene but had even participated in the wrongful prosecution and
deaths of dozens of innocent victims, likewise perhaps played at least some role in laying the foundation for the separation between church and state, a notion which gained ever-greater traction in the wake of the Enlightenment of the next century.
As in Europe, it seems that even those in Massachusetts had finally had their fill of religious zealotry and superstition, due in no small part to this traumatic event which continued to haunt persecutors and survivors alike, often times for life.
The "Salem Witch Trials" is actually something of a misnomer, in fact: although the events which sparked the outbreak seem to have originated in Salem Village, now known as the town of Danvers, among two children of the much-maligned and generally despised Reverend Parris, a quarrelsome man who was seemingly perpetually at odds with the members of his own congregation, the infection rapidly spread to other nearby towns, including in particular Andover, where many more arrests were made. The interrogations and eventual trials were, however, held in nearby Salem Town, which is also where the executions took place.
It has long been argued that the "afflicted" girls, whose theatrics were indeed shocking, if contemporary accounts can be believed, were little more than the pawns of their parents, marionettes whose strings were manipulated by the adults, many of whom had scores to settle. Vindictive villagers with longstanding grievances saw their opportunity, and took it.
This included, most prominently, another despised figure, the litigious Thomas Putnam and his wife Ann. Their daughter, Ann Junior, was one of the most venomous "afflicted" accusers, whose cries and contortions, despite her tender age and ostensible childish innocence, sent more than a dozen people to the gallows. It has long been argued that Putnam and his family were prototypical examples of the greedy, opportunistic townspeople who cried witch to exact retribution on neighbors with whom they had long been at odds, sometimes for generations.
This theory certainly explains some - but not all - of the events at hand. Some individuals were obvious scapegoats. Eventually, however, the accusations piled up and matters spiraled out of control such that the situation reached critical mass, to the degree that no one, man, woman, child... or dog (!) - two dogs were also executed - was safe.
The initial, most obvious targets were the most marginalized members of the struggling community. The first to be accused by the howling girls was Parris's own slave woman, Tituba, a native from Barbados, who reportedly indulged in a form of folk witchcraft involving rather innocent activities such as fortune telling, apparently a popular pastime among the town's children. Because she wasn't considered a "person" in the proper sense, and, because she was valuable property, she was apparently sold off by Parris at the conclusion of the episode, having confessed to witchcraft and therefore spared from the gallows. Her eventual fate after the trials remains unknown.
Then, there were the rebels: Bridget Bishop, innkeeper and sometimes-troublemaker, was the thrice-married wife of a prosperous sawyer who was about fifteen years her junior. She ran two taverns with her husband, and was among the first to be accused, on account of her "sharp tongue" and ostentatious attire. Bridget was apparently given to wearing brightly colored, exotic clothing, including a red bodice, which was considered sinfully flamboyant among the drab-clothed Puritans. She was, of course, found guilty, sentenced to death, and hanged. Bridget Bishop was reportedly the first woman to be hanged in the colony.
There were also the ne'er-do-wells: Sarah Good had been suspect for most of her life, on account of her perpetual poverty and quite possibly some form of mental illness. Her father had committed suicide when she was seventeen, and the division of his estate was disputed by the survivors. As the man had ten children, his progeny's share of the estate would have been modest in any event, but it was actually denied to his daughters by their new stepfather. As a result, Sarah had no recourse, and, more importantly, no dowry, leaving her with few prospects and almost no chance of a good marriage. She did eventually marry, but she and her husband eventually became destitute and homeless, and were forced to turn to begging for survival.
Despite the goodwill of some of Salem's villagers, Sarah gained a reputation for being unpleasant no matter what she received, such that the charitable residents who did take her in soon evicted her. Due to her perpetual misery, possible mental illness, and "spiteful spirit," even her own husband denounced her at her trial, reportedly calling her "an enemy to all good." Sarah was also another woman at least to some degree killed for her clothing: when asked why she never attended church, she replied that she had no proper attire for services. She was hanged on July 19, 1692, with four other women, including an elderly grandmother named Rebecca Nurse.
And, then, there were the inexplicables: these included the aforementioned Rebecca Nurse, the wife of a well-to-do farmer, who was one of the most respected and pious members of the community. Two of her sisters were also accused; one was convicted and executed, but the other survived. Mother to eight children, Rebecca had a reputation for "exemplary piety that was virtually unchallenged in the community." Nevertheless, her unimpeachable reputation did not spare her.
She was initially found by the jury to be innocent, a rarity to be sure - and likely primarily due to the public outcry over the accusations made against her. However, when some of her accusers went into violent fits and spasms in the wake of her acquittal, the jury requested a second chance at deliberation, which was an accepted practice at the time. Reportedly, because Rebecca was nearly deaf and did not properly respond to a question which had been put to her, the jury changed their verdict and convicted her. She was hanged alongside Sarah Good and several other women.
And, if any victim could even more beyond reproach than Rebecca Nurse, it was a man of God himself - lay preacher George Burroughs, the non-ordained former minister of Salem Village. Nor did his vocation save him. As such, Burroughs was the only member of the clergy to be executed during the trials. He was one of those who had run afoul of Thomas Putnam, from whom he had once borrowed money in order to pay for his wife's funeral. When he was subsequently unable to pay the debt, he resigned his post and left the village several years before the trials.
Upon his return to the area, he was accused by enemies who had previously sued him for debt, and was found guilty largely because he had failed to baptize his children or attend communion. As such, he was also suspected of being a secret Baptist on account of these actions, which were contrary to the teachings of the Puritan Congregational Church. As Baptists were considered unrepentant heretics and enemies of the true faith, jurors capitalized on the opportunity to get rid of one. Burroughs was hanged despite perfectly reciting the Lord's Prayer on the gallows, which caused something of an outcry among spectators, as it was well-known that no person who compacted with the devil could recite the Lord's Prayer.
And, as stated above: the hysteria - and, there was certainly at least some - rose to such a fever pitch that even animals were accused, since it was believed at the time that witches had "familiars," which took the form of various beasts, which they dispatched to do their bidding. These could take any form, but cats and birds were especially suspect. Somewhat surprisingly, then, two dogs bore the brunt of the communities' attacks.
In October, 1692, a girl in nearby Andover claimed that a neighbor's dog was trying to bewitch her, so the townspeople hunted down the dog and shot it. In that particular case, the renowned minister Cotton Mather eventually declared the animal innocent of the charges - something he decidedly did NOT do with human victims - including George Burroughs, about whom he said at the latter's execution that Burroughs had been judged to be guilty by a jury, despite his perfect recitation of the Lord's Prayer, and was therefore properly and justly hanged. Burroughs's body was then stripped and dumped in a shallow grave. In contrast, Mather claimed that because the dog had died upon being shot, it was therefore not actually the devil in disguise, since it couldn't have been killed if it were.
This is yet another example of exoneration by death. Anthropologists call this "trial by ordeal," and all manner of tests are invoked as evidence to determine innocent or guilt - but mostly the latter. The shooting of the dog is reminiscent of the traditional practice of "floating" a witch - that particular form of "examination" entailed binding a victim and throwing her into a river. If she sank, and in most cases drowned before she could be pulled out, the water had "accepted" her as pure, and she was exonerated. If, however, air in her skirts or other clothing kept her buoyant for long enough, the water was deemed to have "rejected" her and she was therefore condemned as a witch, probably to be hanged.
Dog victim Number Two was one in Salem Village proper. This hapless creature had reportedly begun behaving strangely around the time the trials were in full-swing. Its behavior could have been due to anything ranging from rabies to distemper to some kind of neurological condition or injury. Some of the afflicted girls claimed that another Andover resident, John Bradstreet, had sent out his invisible familiar spirit to torment the dog, so it, too, was killed, even though it was an ostensible victim. Bradstreet, unlike many of his more unfortunate contemporaries, escaped with his life, fleeing Andover for the Piscataqua colony in present-day New Hampshire.
A conflagration which burned so hot and wrought so much destruction eventually burned itself out, but not without inflicting permanent damage on lives and communities at large. Dozens were dead - in addition to those hanged, many, including children, had died while imprisoned, due to the miserable conditions they had been subjected to while incarcerated and awaiting trial - and hundreds had had their lives destroyed, their property confiscated, and their health permanently affected during their long confinement.
Almost immediately, efforts by family members of the executed victims began in earnest to have them exonerated, which resulted in some contemporary reversals of sentences - too little, too late, for the nineteen innocents who had gone to the gallows and had their property seized, denying their survivors any measure of future financial security. That is a primary reason, it is postulated, that Victim #20, eighty-year-old Giles Corey, refused to enter a plea when he himself was accused. His wife, Martha, had already been convicted and sentenced to hang.
Refusing to take any part in the legal proceedings protected Giles's assets and ensured that his children would inherit his considerable estate upon his death, but it came at great cost. Giles was "pressed" to death instead of being hanged, crushed by large stones piled into an ever-larger heap on his chest, denying him breath until he ultimately succumbed. In the end, his efforts succeeded, however: Giles Corey denied the bailiff his estate and property, which were inherited by his children.
In the wake of these atrocities, numerous petitions were filed from 1700-1703, calling for the Massachusetts government to formally reverse the convictions of the victims. Despite admitting to the tragic mistake, it took more than 300 years for all the victims to be formally exonerated and their judgments reversed. In 1957, an act passed by the Massachusetts legislature absolved six of those executed (Ann Pudeator and five other unnamed persons), and in 2011, on Halloween, no less, five additional figures were exonerated. This latter case suggests that by this time, formal pardon served as little more than a publicity stunt.
Some restitution was paid to the victims, but it paled in comparison to the damage done. For example, the government of the Massachusetts colony eventually acknowledged George Burroughs's innocence and granted the rather paltry sum of fifty pounds in damages to his widow and children. His false accusers/killers were never held accountable, let alone punished. And, it was not until May, 2022, that the last conviction, that of Elizabeth Johnson, was reversed.
The 300th anniversary of the trials, in 1992, was a major event in Salem and Danvers. A memorial park was dedicated which features stone slab benches for each hanged victim, which are fitted into a stone wall. Speakers included Arthur Miller, author of the famous play "The Crucible," a fictionalized account of the trials, and Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel.
This book is a timely read, indeed, as much if not more so than when it was written in 1949. It capably describes in terrible but admirable detail the intrigues and rivalries of the competing interests in the communities at large, and demonstrates how once an idea had taken root, the hysteria it spawned spread like an infectious disease to Salem's neighboring communities.
Some reviewers have taken issue with the application of what is described as "modern psychiatric knowledge" to the hysteria of the period, which is, admittedly, a tall order, but the treatment is brief and at least somewhat insightful. It is important to note that the author also takes some creative license with the subject matter in order to preserve the narrative, which I would have admittedly liked to have seen cited more consistently.
In addition, there are a fair few factual inaccuracies, which I won't recount in detail here, but, as stated at the outset, in all fairness, this book is quite antiquated at this point, so it should be read carefully and with that caveat in mind. That said, it is itself now a primary source, which enhances its value, but the material should not necessarily be taken at face value, especially in its interpretations, which are, of course, the opinions of the author rather than indisputable fact. It is exquisitely well-written, however, in a style of almost poetic prose that doesn't really exist anymore, which is cumbersome for some, but is a delight for me.
En fin, in our present age, where, it seems that ever-more aggressively competing ideologies vie for supremacy, where "cancel culture" is an ever-looming threat, where politically or culturally disagreeing with friends and even family members can end decades-long relationships, and where a single off-color or tone-deaf post on social media can destroy lives, the topic of the Salem Witch Trials is and for some time to come will remain a timely subject indeed.
"Yet although this particular delusion, at least in the form of a large-scale public enterprise, has vanished from the western world, the urge to hunt 'witches' has done nothing of the kind. It has been revived on a colossal scale by replacing the medieval idea of malefic witchcraft by pseudo-scientific concepts like 'race' and 'nationality,' and by substituting for theological dissension, a whole complex of warring ideologies. Accordingly, the story of 1692 is of far more than antiquarian interest: it is an allegory of our times. One would like to believe that leaders of the modern world can in the end deal with delusion as sanely and courageously as the men of old Massachusetts dealt with theirs."
THIS BOOK WAS WRITTEN IN 1949.
The author's prescient statements ring as true today as they did then with regard to race, ethnicity, and certainly, warring ideologies, which have in recent years become just as vicious, intolerant and flammable as the period in which the author was writing, just a few short years after the close of WWII, the most devastating event in human history since, at least, the Black Death, and perhaps even more so. To that end, I hate to say: "witch-hunting" is here to stay, and it has, I fear, yet again become, to quote the author, a "large-scale public enterprise" in a way that I think the persecutors of old Salem would recognize.
Not so much a "modern enquiry" at this point, seventy-five years hence - the spelling of the very word has even changed! - and definitely a product of its time, this very capable analysis addresses this timely and perpetually fascinating topic from the perspective of an experienced scholar and researcher, one who was purportedly a Mayflower descendant. This is one of the earliest comprehensive narrative accounts of the Salem Witch Trials, which has particular value, having been written on the eve of yet another period of overblown hysteria - the McCarthy era, where even suspected Communists were "cancelled," to use today's term, and blacklisted, many for life.
Nearly eight decades of additional research and scholarly discourse have contributed much more to our understanding of what occurred during these tragic days in the late seventeenth century, which many consider to be one of the darkest and most shameful periods in American history, but it seems that we are still incapable of learning from it, as the talented author noted. Indeed, much about the origin of this particular "witchcraze" still remains still unknown, including an explanation for this unusual outbreak of suspicion, accusation, and, ultimately, violence, whatever its origins, whether biological, psychological, economic, or a combination of all of the above.
Many still consider it to have been an episode of little more than "mass hysteria," the roots of which lay in a particularly rabid strain of religious fanaticism, but, in reality, the situation was far more complicated.
What is known is that the tragic events resulted in far-reaching social, religious and political consequences: as noted by historian George Lincoln Burr in 1914, this shameful persecution "was the rock on which the theocracy was shattered." At least some degree of secularization followed in its wake, when at least so-called "spectral evidence" in formal legal proceedings was permanently disallowed.
And, widespread embarrassment for the powers that be, including high-ranking, supposedly well-educated and sophisticated public officials in Boston and elsewhere, who had not only failed to intervene but had even participated in the wrongful prosecution and
deaths of dozens of innocent victims, likewise perhaps played at least some role in laying the foundation for the separation between church and state, a notion which gained ever-greater traction in the wake of the Enlightenment of the next century.
As in Europe, it seems that even those in Massachusetts had finally had their fill of religious zealotry and superstition, due in no small part to this traumatic event which continued to haunt persecutors and survivors alike, often times for life.
The "Salem Witch Trials" is actually something of a misnomer, in fact: although the events which sparked the outbreak seem to have originated in Salem Village, now known as the town of Danvers, among two children of the much-maligned and generally despised Reverend Parris, a quarrelsome man who was seemingly perpetually at odds with the members of his own congregation, the infection rapidly spread to other nearby towns, including in particular Andover, where many more arrests were made. The interrogations and eventual trials were, however, held in nearby Salem Town, which is also where the executions took place.
It has long been argued that the "afflicted" girls, whose theatrics were indeed shocking, if contemporary accounts can be believed, were little more than the pawns of their parents, marionettes whose strings were manipulated by the adults, many of whom had scores to settle. Vindictive villagers with longstanding grievances saw their opportunity, and took it.
This included, most prominently, another despised figure, the litigious Thomas Putnam and his wife Ann. Their daughter, Ann Junior, was one of the most venomous "afflicted" accusers, whose cries and contortions, despite her tender age and ostensible childish innocence, sent more than a dozen people to the gallows. It has long been argued that Putnam and his family were prototypical examples of the greedy, opportunistic townspeople who cried witch to exact retribution on neighbors with whom they had long been at odds, sometimes for generations.
This theory certainly explains some - but not all - of the events at hand. Some individuals were obvious scapegoats. Eventually, however, the accusations piled up and matters spiraled out of control such that the situation reached critical mass, to the degree that no one, man, woman, child... or dog (!) - two dogs were also executed - was safe.
The initial, most obvious targets were the most marginalized members of the struggling community. The first to be accused by the howling girls was Parris's own slave woman, Tituba, a native from Barbados, who reportedly indulged in a form of folk witchcraft involving rather innocent activities such as fortune telling, apparently a popular pastime among the town's children. Because she wasn't considered a "person" in the proper sense, and, because she was valuable property, she was apparently sold off by Parris at the conclusion of the episode, having confessed to witchcraft and therefore spared from the gallows. Her eventual fate after the trials remains unknown.
Then, there were the rebels: Bridget Bishop, innkeeper and sometimes-troublemaker, was the thrice-married wife of a prosperous sawyer who was about fifteen years her junior. She ran two taverns with her husband, and was among the first to be accused, on account of her "sharp tongue" and ostentatious attire. Bridget was apparently given to wearing brightly colored, exotic clothing, including a red bodice, which was considered sinfully flamboyant among the drab-clothed Puritans. She was, of course, found guilty, sentenced to death, and hanged. Bridget Bishop was reportedly the first woman to be hanged in the colony.
There were also the ne'er-do-wells: Sarah Good had been suspect for most of her life, on account of her perpetual poverty and quite possibly some form of mental illness. Her father had committed suicide when she was seventeen, and the division of his estate was disputed by the survivors. As the man had ten children, his progeny's share of the estate would have been modest in any event, but it was actually denied to his daughters by their new stepfather. As a result, Sarah had no recourse, and, more importantly, no dowry, leaving her with few prospects and almost no chance of a good marriage. She did eventually marry, but she and her husband eventually became destitute and homeless, and were forced to turn to begging for survival.
Despite the goodwill of some of Salem's villagers, Sarah gained a reputation for being unpleasant no matter what she received, such that the charitable residents who did take her in soon evicted her. Due to her perpetual misery, possible mental illness, and "spiteful spirit," even her own husband denounced her at her trial, reportedly calling her "an enemy to all good." Sarah was also another woman at least to some degree killed for her clothing: when asked why she never attended church, she replied that she had no proper attire for services. She was hanged on July 19, 1692, with four other women, including an elderly grandmother named Rebecca Nurse.
And, then, there were the inexplicables: these included the aforementioned Rebecca Nurse, the wife of a well-to-do farmer, who was one of the most respected and pious members of the community. Two of her sisters were also accused; one was convicted and executed, but the other survived. Mother to eight children, Rebecca had a reputation for "exemplary piety that was virtually unchallenged in the community." Nevertheless, her unimpeachable reputation did not spare her.
She was initially found by the jury to be innocent, a rarity to be sure - and likely primarily due to the public outcry over the accusations made against her. However, when some of her accusers went into violent fits and spasms in the wake of her acquittal, the jury requested a second chance at deliberation, which was an accepted practice at the time. Reportedly, because Rebecca was nearly deaf and did not properly respond to a question which had been put to her, the jury changed their verdict and convicted her. She was hanged alongside Sarah Good and several other women.
And, if any victim could even more beyond reproach than Rebecca Nurse, it was a man of God himself - lay preacher George Burroughs, the non-ordained former minister of Salem Village. Nor did his vocation save him. As such, Burroughs was the only member of the clergy to be executed during the trials. He was one of those who had run afoul of Thomas Putnam, from whom he had once borrowed money in order to pay for his wife's funeral. When he was subsequently unable to pay the debt, he resigned his post and left the village several years before the trials.
Upon his return to the area, he was accused by enemies who had previously sued him for debt, and was found guilty largely because he had failed to baptize his children or attend communion. As such, he was also suspected of being a secret Baptist on account of these actions, which were contrary to the teachings of the Puritan Congregational Church. As Baptists were considered unrepentant heretics and enemies of the true faith, jurors capitalized on the opportunity to get rid of one. Burroughs was hanged despite perfectly reciting the Lord's Prayer on the gallows, which caused something of an outcry among spectators, as it was well-known that no person who compacted with the devil could recite the Lord's Prayer.
And, as stated above: the hysteria - and, there was certainly at least some - rose to such a fever pitch that even animals were accused, since it was believed at the time that witches had "familiars," which took the form of various beasts, which they dispatched to do their bidding. These could take any form, but cats and birds were especially suspect. Somewhat surprisingly, then, two dogs bore the brunt of the communities' attacks.
In October, 1692, a girl in nearby Andover claimed that a neighbor's dog was trying to bewitch her, so the townspeople hunted down the dog and shot it. In that particular case, the renowned minister Cotton Mather eventually declared the animal innocent of the charges - something he decidedly did NOT do with human victims - including George Burroughs, about whom he said at the latter's execution that Burroughs had been judged to be guilty by a jury, despite his perfect recitation of the Lord's Prayer, and was therefore properly and justly hanged. Burroughs's body was then stripped and dumped in a shallow grave. In contrast, Mather claimed that because the dog had died upon being shot, it was therefore not actually the devil in disguise, since it couldn't have been killed if it were.
This is yet another example of exoneration by death. Anthropologists call this "trial by ordeal," and all manner of tests are invoked as evidence to determine innocent or guilt - but mostly the latter. The shooting of the dog is reminiscent of the traditional practice of "floating" a witch - that particular form of "examination" entailed binding a victim and throwing her into a river. If she sank, and in most cases drowned before she could be pulled out, the water had "accepted" her as pure, and she was exonerated. If, however, air in her skirts or other clothing kept her buoyant for long enough, the water was deemed to have "rejected" her and she was therefore condemned as a witch, probably to be hanged.
Dog victim Number Two was one in Salem Village proper. This hapless creature had reportedly begun behaving strangely around the time the trials were in full-swing. Its behavior could have been due to anything ranging from rabies to distemper to some kind of neurological condition or injury. Some of the afflicted girls claimed that another Andover resident, John Bradstreet, had sent out his invisible familiar spirit to torment the dog, so it, too, was killed, even though it was an ostensible victim. Bradstreet, unlike many of his more unfortunate contemporaries, escaped with his life, fleeing Andover for the Piscataqua colony in present-day New Hampshire.
A conflagration which burned so hot and wrought so much destruction eventually burned itself out, but not without inflicting permanent damage on lives and communities at large. Dozens were dead - in addition to those hanged, many, including children, had died while imprisoned, due to the miserable conditions they had been subjected to while incarcerated and awaiting trial - and hundreds had had their lives destroyed, their property confiscated, and their health permanently affected during their long confinement.
Almost immediately, efforts by family members of the executed victims began in earnest to have them exonerated, which resulted in some contemporary reversals of sentences - too little, too late, for the nineteen innocents who had gone to the gallows and had their property seized, denying their survivors any measure of future financial security. That is a primary reason, it is postulated, that Victim #20, eighty-year-old Giles Corey, refused to enter a plea when he himself was accused. His wife, Martha, had already been convicted and sentenced to hang.
Refusing to take any part in the legal proceedings protected Giles's assets and ensured that his children would inherit his considerable estate upon his death, but it came at great cost. Giles was "pressed" to death instead of being hanged, crushed by large stones piled into an ever-larger heap on his chest, denying him breath until he ultimately succumbed. In the end, his efforts succeeded, however: Giles Corey denied the bailiff his estate and property, which were inherited by his children.
In the wake of these atrocities, numerous petitions were filed from 1700-1703, calling for the Massachusetts government to formally reverse the convictions of the victims. Despite admitting to the tragic mistake, it took more than 300 years for all the victims to be formally exonerated and their judgments reversed. In 1957, an act passed by the Massachusetts legislature absolved six of those executed (Ann Pudeator and five other unnamed persons), and in 2011, on Halloween, no less, five additional figures were exonerated. This latter case suggests that by this time, formal pardon served as little more than a publicity stunt.
Some restitution was paid to the victims, but it paled in comparison to the damage done. For example, the government of the Massachusetts colony eventually acknowledged George Burroughs's innocence and granted the rather paltry sum of fifty pounds in damages to his widow and children. His false accusers/killers were never held accountable, let alone punished. And, it was not until May, 2022, that the last conviction, that of Elizabeth Johnson, was reversed.
The 300th anniversary of the trials, in 1992, was a major event in Salem and Danvers. A memorial park was dedicated which features stone slab benches for each hanged victim, which are fitted into a stone wall. Speakers included Arthur Miller, author of the famous play "The Crucible," a fictionalized account of the trials, and Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel.
This book is a timely read, indeed, as much if not more so than when it was written in 1949. It capably describes in terrible but admirable detail the intrigues and rivalries of the competing interests in the communities at large, and demonstrates how once an idea had taken root, the hysteria it spawned spread like an infectious disease to Salem's neighboring communities.
Some reviewers have taken issue with the application of what is described as "modern psychiatric knowledge" to the hysteria of the period, which is, admittedly, a tall order, but the treatment is brief and at least somewhat insightful. It is important to note that the author also takes some creative license with the subject matter in order to preserve the narrative, which I would have admittedly liked to have seen cited more consistently.
In addition, there are a fair few factual inaccuracies, which I won't recount in detail here, but, as stated at the outset, in all fairness, this book is quite antiquated at this point, so it should be read carefully and with that caveat in mind. That said, it is itself now a primary source, which enhances its value, but the material should not necessarily be taken at face value, especially in its interpretations, which are, of course, the opinions of the author rather than indisputable fact. It is exquisitely well-written, however, in a style of almost poetic prose that doesn't really exist anymore, which is cumbersome for some, but is a delight for me.
En fin, in our present age, where, it seems that ever-more aggressively competing ideologies vie for supremacy, where "cancel culture" is an ever-looming threat, where politically or culturally disagreeing with friends and even family members can end decades-long relationships, and where a single off-color or tone-deaf post on social media can destroy lives, the topic of the Salem Witch Trials is and for some time to come will remain a timely subject indeed.
January 1, 2016
Although I don't agree with Starkey on many points, The Devil in Massachusetts makes a good point at which to begin one's reading about Salem. It is interested in forming a narrative of the witch trials, which means that it is clear and easy to read and compelling in ways that, for instance, Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft is not.
That said, I do disagree with Starkey, and if you begin with The Devil in Massachusetts, you would be ill-advised to end there. Starkey forthrightly blames the afflicted girls, and she does so with a misogyny that I find distinctly repellent. Moreover, making a narrative out of history inevitably warps the history around the narrative and encourages the selection/creation of heroes and villains.
That said, I do disagree with Starkey, and if you begin with The Devil in Massachusetts, you would be ill-advised to end there. Starkey forthrightly blames the afflicted girls, and she does so with a misogyny that I find distinctly repellent. Moreover, making a narrative out of history inevitably warps the history around the narrative and encourages the selection/creation of heroes and villains.
August 10, 2012
Very mixed feelings but mostly horror at the things people can do to each other (in the name of the Bible). It is such a disturbing story. Spectral Evidence. This book predates the modern theory of ergot poisoning, but knowing more of what actually happened, I say the theory of ergot poisoning could only account for a fragment. I mean, spectral evidence (people's fantasies and feelings admitted in court). Neighbors turning on neighbors. Way too much power being given to teenaged girls. Obvious psychological bubble, but that's no excuse. My mixed feelings are for a bit too much fictionalizing of the history - like what people were thinking. I find it offensive - I'm ok with straight non fiction. This is from 1949 though, and apparently Starkey was one of the first historians to have access to the Salem trials documents.
March 13, 2012
A woman I had dated introduced me to her best friend, an adult college student who was particularly involved in a study of the witch craze. As is often the case, her interest got me interested enough to do some reading on the subject, specifically this book and the one by Kai Erikson. Both were, as I recall, good reads.
October 24, 2017
I liked this book a lot, I really enjoyed how the Author separated the people that were involved with The Witch Trials and what they're rolls were in it.
What a sad but fascinating part of our New England history.
What a sad but fascinating part of our New England history.
February 16, 2015
Great historical account of the Salem Witch Trials, but very hard to keep track of all the individual characters. Hard to believe that people could be so naive as to believe everything a group of young girls said.
December 12, 2012
A very detailed book about the Salem witch trails
March 14, 2022
Not to bad.
Not quite what I was looking for. But it did give some insist on the witch trials. It was put together well. Thanks for some help.
Not quite what I was looking for. But it did give some insist on the witch trials. It was put together well. Thanks for some help.
December 31, 2019
An interesting “nonfiction” look at the witch trials that overtook Salem and all of Western Massachusetts. It was a tragic, incomprehensible time, and the author seems to have done quite a bit of research into the topic, but she also has placed a lot of her own suppositions and creative guesses into crafting a compelling story, which makes me wonder what is actual fact from transcripts of the time, and what is her “filling in the gaps,” so to speak.
The author admits that no one can really know what the girls were going through or what really happened... and then proceeds to explain how they thought and felt. There is way too much supposition in this narrative to make it simple fact. “Yet though in their secret hearts they were exhilarated by these exercises...” Really? You somehow know what was going on in the “secret hearts” of these girls 300 years ago? Please, do tell. 🙄
The honest truth is that there is no way to know exactly how or why the witch trials started, but “these girls were tired of being ignored and liked the attention” is fairly dismissive of girls in general, and ignores who was really in power at this time: white men. Yes, it seems like the “fits” originated with the girls, but the people to escalate the situation were the men. Witchcraft was a convenient way to assert your control over women (and men) whom you didn’t like or weren’t doing what you wanted or who happened to be of a different color. Accuse them of witchcraft and then they’re no longer a problem! Who were the first three accused? A Caribbean slave, a homeless and “lazy” beggar woman, and a widow who had lived with a man before they were married and stopped going to church.
It still baffles and saddens me that so many men and women lost all rationality in the face of these accusations of witchcraft, and that it took so long for people in power to make a stand against the ridiculous accusations. Was their religious piety so much that they’d rather kill innocents than risk the guilty walk free? That certainly doesn’t sound Christ-like to me, but not much does in the religion of Puritanism. The fact that there were ministers who discounted the spectral “evidence” and who would have been more merciful was inconsequential. They were not the ones in power, and often times hid their heads in the sand rather than stand up and risk being accused themselves. Because it was clear: those that opposed the girls’ witness were themselves accused. The cyclical connection of these accusations should have called into immediate question their veracity, but it didn’t.
It’s a relief to see that cooler heads eventually prevailed, and the majority of the accused were eventually released, but regret and excuses couldn’t bring back the innocents who had gone bravely to their deaths, like Rebecca Nurse, Mary Esty, and John Proctor, or reverse the physical, psychological, and material affects those months of imprisonment had on those who survived. What a tragic time in our history.
The author admits that no one can really know what the girls were going through or what really happened... and then proceeds to explain how they thought and felt. There is way too much supposition in this narrative to make it simple fact. “Yet though in their secret hearts they were exhilarated by these exercises...” Really? You somehow know what was going on in the “secret hearts” of these girls 300 years ago? Please, do tell. 🙄
The honest truth is that there is no way to know exactly how or why the witch trials started, but “these girls were tired of being ignored and liked the attention” is fairly dismissive of girls in general, and ignores who was really in power at this time: white men. Yes, it seems like the “fits” originated with the girls, but the people to escalate the situation were the men. Witchcraft was a convenient way to assert your control over women (and men) whom you didn’t like or weren’t doing what you wanted or who happened to be of a different color. Accuse them of witchcraft and then they’re no longer a problem! Who were the first three accused? A Caribbean slave, a homeless and “lazy” beggar woman, and a widow who had lived with a man before they were married and stopped going to church.
It still baffles and saddens me that so many men and women lost all rationality in the face of these accusations of witchcraft, and that it took so long for people in power to make a stand against the ridiculous accusations. Was their religious piety so much that they’d rather kill innocents than risk the guilty walk free? That certainly doesn’t sound Christ-like to me, but not much does in the religion of Puritanism. The fact that there were ministers who discounted the spectral “evidence” and who would have been more merciful was inconsequential. They were not the ones in power, and often times hid their heads in the sand rather than stand up and risk being accused themselves. Because it was clear: those that opposed the girls’ witness were themselves accused. The cyclical connection of these accusations should have called into immediate question their veracity, but it didn’t.
It’s a relief to see that cooler heads eventually prevailed, and the majority of the accused were eventually released, but regret and excuses couldn’t bring back the innocents who had gone bravely to their deaths, like Rebecca Nurse, Mary Esty, and John Proctor, or reverse the physical, psychological, and material affects those months of imprisonment had on those who survived. What a tragic time in our history.
April 17, 2026
I find myself impelled to report that the very hour I began my formal research... a small hurricane came through my open window, wrecked the room, brought every tree in the yard crashing against the house, and toppled the steeple of the East Saugus Community Church, visible in the lightning beyond my window... My excuse for setting down these observations is that Cotton Mather, my colleague in the field of New England history, would value them and know exactly what to make of them-- Prologue
So I reread a book that I first read when I was too young too fully understand it.
Marion L. Starkey's The Devil in Massachusetts is groundbreaking, well-written, and difficult to assess now.
While others had written about the Salem witch-hunts before her, and better books have been written since, she was probably the first person to construct a coherent narrative of the events using a combination of primary sources, secondary sources, and legend. She acknowledges the problems her approach creates, occasionally in the text, and certainly in her notes. Her own notes undercut some of her account of the interactions between Tituba and the "possessed" girls. She also proffers a number of psychological reasons beyond generic "hysteria" for what occurred. Of course, the book came out in 1949, so those psychological insights become mired in the Freudian thinking of the day. Nevertheless, her own moderate handling results in a book that remains compelling, more than seventy-five years later.
She writes well, and her narrative, for the most part, moves along smoothly. Yes, she takes liberties, using acknowledged legend and speculation where facts are unknown or uncertain. And being a writer of her time and place, she occasionally uses phrases and expresses attitudes that we rightly decry. Scratch even an enlightened writer of the past and expect to find something offensive. Her style may also confound contemporary readers in other ways. We were also okay then with writing shaped by classical education and oft-ponderous classics.
I gave it four out of five, and I know that rating may surprise people. I genuinely enjoyed this book, despite its flaws. Starkey's work remains a viable starting point for exploring Salem's notorious outbreak of madness, and all of the subsequent-- and current-- insanity with which we are confronted. Cultish thinking remains both ludicrously easy to debunk, and extremely dangerous to confront. Emotion and devotion trump evidence and logical conclusions. The sleep of reason does indeed produce monsters.
Read The Devil in Massachusetts as a factual account written by an earnest but unreliable narrator. As I've said, better books have since been written about the subject-- but even more has been produced that is far worse.
January 1, 2025
A lot of criticism surrounding The Devil In Massachusetts states the obvious that it is an incomplete history of the Salem Witch Trials. Given the context in which Starkey conducted her study, nearly 80 years ago just after the end of WWII, and given the biased incomplete and misleading pieces of the puzzle she had to work with, the Devil in Massachusetts is a limited part of a larger canon of Salem history. As Salem historian Stacey Schiff pointed out in her own history nearly seven decades later, no reliable transcript from even a single session of the trials exists, everyone has been working off of preparatory court filings, warrants, and post facto reporting and re-reporting of varying quality and veracity ever since. The "courts" themselves were almost immediately criticized for the gross lack of procedural and evidentiary safeguards that clearly included their failure to maintain reliable trial records.
Starkey's book isn't exhaustive or the final word by any stretch. If you intend to read only one book on Salem ever, this is not the book. However, if the subject is something you find yourself returning to over and over, then Starkey's book is one of shoulders that later historians stood on and is required reading.
Starkey's book isn't exhaustive or the final word by any stretch. If you intend to read only one book on Salem ever, this is not the book. However, if the subject is something you find yourself returning to over and over, then Starkey's book is one of shoulders that later historians stood on and is required reading.
August 29, 2023
While this is certainly an entertaining read, I do wonder about the creative licence used as there is a lot of description and prose that I doubt was recorded at the time of the trials, or even in personal recordings after the events. Accuracy aside, this is a colourful account of the Salem trials which shows how seemingly simple and naive behaviour escalated into a full scale and literal witch hunt resulting in the deaths of 20 innocent people. It still isn't clear how an entire village and areas beyond got pulled into the believing such things but believe them they did, it's less of a mystery why the girls themselves got sucked into the story as such group think is as common now as it was then, as Starkey puts it 'a rousing religious revival will bring out something like what the Salem Village was experiencing; so will a lynching, a Hitler, so will a dead motion picture star or a live crooner. Some of the girls were no more seriously possessed than a pack of bobby-soxers on the loose' (this latter I will be using to describe a pack of frantic youths in future). Worth reading just for this description alone.
July 20, 2025
As a Historian I have a split opinion. While I have read heavily on Salem and its events and know that technically this book is fine, it has the issue of overreaching itself. The author applies a lot of psychological cataloguing to the individuals of Salem without citing or at least directing the reader towards materials that justify it. While I don’t inherently have a problem with it, I can’t rightly defend it as something to read unless you are already familiar with the history or individuals involved in the trials. There is a large gap between taking liberties and giving opinions or speculations of historical figure’s and presenting them as characters in a novel. It isn’t a novel and you can’t just refer to individuals as “slow minded”, “dim”, or “sultry” without having some form of referenced precedent to do so. At that point you’re misrepresenting real people.
So ultimately it’s fine. It does give a good overview but if you’re reading it without prior knowledge just be aware that literally any details about the people involved needs looked into further before you trust it.
So ultimately it’s fine. It does give a good overview but if you’re reading it without prior knowledge just be aware that literally any details about the people involved needs looked into further before you trust it.
August 13, 2024
Read this book after visiting Salem in July, 2024.
It gave me a better idea as to what happened in 1692 to the small, religious settlement. Strict Puritan religion had parents teach their children 'godliness' yet dare not spoil them with affection. Bored, unattached, teenaged girls found distraction in the stories of a Caribbean slave. 'To make sport' by falling into fits and trances, hooting and moaning during church sermons, pointing fingers of witchcraft at some of the more unpopular citizens of Salem. Then you have weak magistrates. Remember, this was before the rule of law in 1690s New England. Theocracy ruled the day. What Would God Do? Church doctrine was twisted. More fits and drama from the 'victims'.
Twenty-one citizens were hanged, most of them women. Some were ostracized, some were long-standing church members. It didn't matter when the religious hysterics started.
It gave me a better idea as to what happened in 1692 to the small, religious settlement. Strict Puritan religion had parents teach their children 'godliness' yet dare not spoil them with affection. Bored, unattached, teenaged girls found distraction in the stories of a Caribbean slave. 'To make sport' by falling into fits and trances, hooting and moaning during church sermons, pointing fingers of witchcraft at some of the more unpopular citizens of Salem. Then you have weak magistrates. Remember, this was before the rule of law in 1690s New England. Theocracy ruled the day. What Would God Do? Church doctrine was twisted. More fits and drama from the 'victims'.
Twenty-one citizens were hanged, most of them women. Some were ostracized, some were long-standing church members. It didn't matter when the religious hysterics started.
Read
October 4, 2020The first, best treatment of the Witch Trials era in Salem. After so many investigations trying to tease and decide whether there was a real "Devil" at work then, Starkey gave the first realistic account as a human hysteria based on the strange willingness to lie on the part of young girls angry and suppressed by their Puritan surroundings, giving them an awesome power over their adult community. I was privileged to meet Ms. Starkey in her Saugus home in 1987, a time of late-in-life illness for her, and to thank the author for her 1949 account that changed the tenor of such narratives. I doubt if Baker's or Trask's works could have been possible without hers--let alone Arthur Miller's "Crucible" that came short years after her publication.
October 15, 2017
I selected this book because it has been a popular subject for many years and I wanted to know more about it.
The "Salem Witch Trials" has been portrayed on the stage, in books, movies and TV. It is a compelling story. Early in the book I was sorry I chose it because of the horror, but was compelled to finish.
When religion/ideology meet ignorance, bad things happen. When combined with hysteria, terrible things happen. We have recorded and witnessed many like events before and since this time, late in the 17th century. Example are the French Revolution, PolPot in Cambodia, Communism, Nazism and never more than we are witnessing in the world today.
The "Devil in Mass..." is very interesting but extremely worrisome.
The "Salem Witch Trials" has been portrayed on the stage, in books, movies and TV. It is a compelling story. Early in the book I was sorry I chose it because of the horror, but was compelled to finish.
When religion/ideology meet ignorance, bad things happen. When combined with hysteria, terrible things happen. We have recorded and witnessed many like events before and since this time, late in the 17th century. Example are the French Revolution, PolPot in Cambodia, Communism, Nazism and never more than we are witnessing in the world today.
The "Devil in Mass..." is very interesting but extremely worrisome.
January 1, 2026
i've been a practicing witch since i was about twelve years old, and was gifted this book because i wanted an in-depth history of the witch trials. i really enjoyed the story-telling elements of it, and a lot of the information was really riveting. however, i would have wanted more scholarly content that was explicitly supported; the dialogue and events within the book were not backed with research or evidence that it actually happened. i also believe pictures (images of woodcuts, paintings, documents, etc) would have made for a fantastic addition. it was an interesting read, just not completely what i wanted.
September 24, 2024
The “modern enquiry” part isnt really there. If we say obvious and minimal commentary equates to “modern psychiatric knowledge” then sure. But i dont think saying that witchcraft hysteria was baseless and dramatized is enough to justify saying this. Also, the LAST PAGE is the only one that mentions modern day hysteria (1949 modern), which i thought was also a bigger part of it,and it is so unspecific. She could be talking about anything! Shes overall right about the hysteria, there is just a lot of history dumping and minimal analysis. I feel hella learned tho so
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