Massachusetts was writhing under what seemed Satan’s latest assault. The Salem witch trials of 1692 convulsed the colony as nothing before or after. No man or woman of consequence doubted that witches existed; Satan, according to the consensus, frequently acted through individuals who entered into demonic pacts with him. The only question was whether the nineteen people executed were actually the demonic agents they were alleged to be by their accusers, principally teenage girls given to an unsettling emotionalism. Cotton Mather’s attitude toward the accusations and the accused was typical—for
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