Norton’s theory reminds us that the Puritans who settled New England were not simply religious zealots but were also actively, constantly engaged in territorial warfare—with the French, with the Wabanaki and other indigenous groups, and with one another. The ghosts haunting Salem must include the casualties of those land wars alongside those falsely accused of witchcraft. As Hawthorne puts it, this curse goes to the very bedrock of the town’s foundations: “The pavements of the Main-street,” he writes in one sketch, “must be laid over the red man’s grave.”
