61 pages • 2 hours read
Mary Beth NortonIn the Devil's Snare
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2002A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Introduction-Chapter 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Introduction Summary
The Salem witch crisis began when two girls from the household of Reverend Samuel Parris of Salem Village attributed their mysterious afflictions—which included fits and muscle stiffness—to witchcraft. This happened in January of 1691/2. (Norton uses the Julian calendar that was in effect until 1752. According to that calendar, the year began on March 25, so all dates from January 1 through March 24 are written with reference to both years.) The following months saw an increasing number of accusers who claimed to be affected by witchcraft. In the final count, legal action was taken against at least 144 people, 38 of whom were men. While most were imprisoned for long periods, 14 women and five men were hanged. Another man was crushed to death, while three women died in custody. Most of the accusers were young women, aged 11 to 20, from Salem Village and Andover. The crisis waned in September of 1692, with all legal proceedings ending in May 1693. Norton notes that mainly women were the “instigators and victims” (4), an unusual fact for that time.
While Norton’s work builds on past scholarship, it also challenges previous assumptions. Emphasizing the broader crisis that resulted in the Salem witch trials, Norton draws attention to the tremendous impact of King William’s War on the residents of Essex County in Massachusetts. To understand the witch crisis, she says it is imperative to understand the political and military context of the time. In 1690, colonial forces experienced multiple defeats. Refugees from Maine, who had been raided and lost loved ones and property, resettled in Essex County during King William’s War. A significant number of the accusers and confessors came from Maine and carried fear and trauma of frontier attacks.
Norton seeks to describe the events of 1692 as the colonists experienced them. In that pre-Enlightenment age, most people believed in witchcraft. Additionally, news spread via word of mouth. The accusations grabbed the public’s attention, which in turn impacted the court proceedings. While the initial accusations were not unusual for the time, Salem diverged from precedent in the large numbers of accused and accusers, the geographical spread of the crisis, and the high conviction and execution rates. Given that the accusers were often women—most of whom were girls under 25 and some of whom were servants—the conviction rates are especially baffling; the testimony of young girls and women at this time was typically given “short shrift.” Norton questions why Salem was so different from previous witchcraft cases in New England. She also chastises scholars for ignoring that many confessors were from Andover and also included men.
Norton says that the speed with which public opinion changed course is also noteworthy. Not only did support for the witch trials evaporate in the fall, but one judge and 12 jurors even apologized for their actions within five years of the crisis. The Massachusetts government recognized the unjust nature of the proceedings within two decades. Since many of the players in this drama were later embarrassed about their role in it, important writings have been expunged from their formal records. This makes Norton’s job as a historian more challenging.
Chapter 1 Summary: “Under an Evil Hand: January 15-March 6, 1691/2”
On January 25, 1691/2, a Penobscot band of the Wabanakis raided the colonial settlement of York, Maine, burning homes and brutally killing people. In nearby Wells, Reverend George Burroughs attributed the raid to God’s displeasure. One week before this attack, two girls in the household of Reverend Samuel Parris of Salem Village began to have fits. At the time, there was strife between the residents of Salem Village, which was rural, and Salem Town; the Village wanted their own church and decision-making bodies but instead had to rely on the Town. Parris alienated several residents of Salem Village by stressing the distinctions between church members and others, which included most of those who lived in the Village. In a January sermon, Parris noted that the devil was assisted by evil men, “presumably including [Parris’s] many detractors in Salem Village” (18).
Soon after this sermon, Parris’s daughter Betty and her cousin Abigail Williams became sick with fits that “struck them dumb, choaked their throats, wracked their limbs, and otherwise tormented them” (19). A physician, William Griggs, diagnosed witchcraft in mid-February, declaring the girls to be “under an evil hand” (19). Less than one month after the raid on York and following three years of warfare on the frontier, the two girls accused an Indigenous enslaved woman, Tituba, of tormenting them via witchcraft. Since the accusers were very young, legal proceedings did not commence until Ann Putnam, Jr., and Betty Hubbard, who was 14, made similar complaints; this was because English law deemed those under 14 as incapable of testifying in capital felony cases. Hubbard, who was a member of the physician’s household who had originally diagnosed witchcraft, was likely familiar with the symptoms. Hubbard and Ann, Jr., accused Tituba as well as Sarah Osborne, who was involved in a legal battle with the Putnam family, and Sarah Good, who was previously suspected of witchcraft.
On February 29, Thomas Putnam, his brother, and two other men filed legal complaints with the Salem magistrates, John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin, both of whom had extensive links to the northern frontier. Rather than conducting examinations in private, the magistrates interrogated the accused publicly at the meetinghouse. The interrogations generated strong community interest and attracted a large audience. Assuming guilt, Hathorne and Corwin sought confessions. They first interrogated Good, who denied the charges and implicated Osborne. The accusers, who were in the audience, reacted to her with fits. Tituba confessed to committing “malefice” and accused Osborne and Good. Hubbard experienced a major fit, causing the day to end in disorder. Thus, a dynamic with four elements was established for the crisis: The magistrates assumed guilt, the accused struggled to respond to the charges, the afflicted demonstrated their torments in public, and the audience actively engaged in the interrogations.
In March, Tituba testified that she had “enlisted in the devil’s legion by signing his book with a mark ‘with red bloud,’ and that the devil showed her Good’s and Osborne’s marks in the same book” (29). Ann, Jr., then named others as tormentors: Sarah Good’s young daughter Dorcas and Elizabeth Proctor.
Norton says that events like these were “unusual but not unprecedented in either old or New England” (30). The accepted instruction in such cases at the time came from the writings of religious leaders such as Richard Bernard and the handling of past cases. In his book, Bernard warned people against always assuming witchcraft, but he gave evasive advice about identifying it. Guilt could be presumed, he argued, if evil occurred after a threat or curse, if the accused took a strong interest in the afflicted person, if there was incriminating testimony from another witch, or if the afflicted saw the suspect in their fits. Norton notes the difficulty of interpreting these standards. In earlier cases, such as those in the 1660s and 1670s, ministers, not legal authorities, handled the crises. In these earlier cases, there was a willingness to question the statements of accusers, combined with a healthy dose of skepticism. In Salem Village, authorities expressed no such skepticism and accused people of being agents of the devil. Norton links their ready acceptance of these allegations to their experience in the conflict with the Wabanaki peoples.
An earlier case in 1662, in Bury St. Edmonds, England, established the acceptance of the touch test—the belief that a witch’s touch causes affliction. Touch tests played a major role in the Salem convictions. Hathorne and Corwin accepted Tituba’s confession and therefore felt the need to uncover a “witch conspiracy of unknown extent” (41). In doing so, they ignored the usual practice of questioning the accusers, witnesses, and suspects separately.
Introduction-Chapter 1 Analysis
Norton describes the sequence of events that led up to the Salem witch crisis. In meticulous detail, she describes the allegations of the accusers, including descriptions of their afflictions and spectral visions. She also includes the backgrounds of the accused, their accusers, and the magistrates. Since Norton is seeking to emphasize The Connection Between the Wabanaki Attacks and the Witch Crisis, she highlights the experiences of all the people involved in this crisis, especially noting their connections to the war on the northeastern frontier. For instance, she mentions early on that the magistrates, Hathorne and Corwin, had links to the war being fought on the border. This sets the stage for the argument she will build about how their experiences with that war and the violence they experienced at the hands of the Wabanaki confederacy would have affected their views on Indigenous people. She also notes that among the first accused of witchcraft was Tituba, an Indigenous enslaved woman, proving that the settlers viewed Indigenous people with suspicion. Additionally, Norton explains the relationships between families of the afflicted and accused, highlighting how old spats and misunderstandings might have played a role in the accusations. To gather all these facts, Norton relies on surviving documentation whenever possible. When records are missing, she alerts the reader to that fact and engages in reasoned speculation about the likely course of events. She notes that many who were involved in the witch crisis expunged records that linked them to it, given subsequent denunciations of their official behavior.
Highlighting The Centrality of Puritans’ Beliefs to the Witch Crisis, Norton makes an effort to depict events in chronological order, as they were experienced by the participants in the crisis. The witch crisis took place in 1692—well before the Enlightenment—and most of the settlers in Essex County believed that witches were a real threat and that the devil walked among people. The Puritans believed they were a chosen people who were on an errand for God, and they believed that God controlled all things. Even Satan could not act without allowance from God. Their faith that God willed all events led to them believing that they were being punished from two sources: Indigenous forces on the northeastern frontier and invisible enemies or witches among them. In Maine, Reverend George Burroughs claimed that the Wabanaki attacks occurred because God was displeased with the settlers. Reverend Samuel Parris preached to those in Salem Village about the activities of evil men who assisted the devil. For the Puritans, it was not unusual to attribute illnesses and other calamities to witchcraft. Learned theologians of the time had written treatises on the subject, describing when witchcraft could be suspected and the types of evidence to seek in such cases. Therefore, it was not at all unusual when Parris summoned a physician to his home who diagnosed witchcraft; the Puritans’ belief in witches was unremarkable and genuine. However, Norton notes that what was unusual about the Salem crisis was its scale, which she attributes to the connection with the Wabanaki wars.
The witch crisis began with the complaints of young girls, some of whom were servants. In 1692, such members of the household were not taken seriously—they had neither power nor voice. As a result, Norton stresses how there were shifts in Gender and Power Dynamics During the Witch Crisis. With young girls placed at the center of attention and their every word heeded, there was a reversal of traditional gender and power roles. Indeed, these girls would accuse and bring down powerful men as the crisis continued. Yet Norton explains that male gatekeepers played a central role in facilitating the crisis. For instance, when John Proctor, the male head of his household, refused to believe the affliction of his maid, no legal complaints were filed. Similarly, it was only when Thomas Putnam believed in his daughter’s affliction that he filed the legal complaints accusing witchcraft—his daughter did not have the power to do this herself. Male magistrates conducted the interrogations, and later, it would be male judges and juries who would convict and order the executions of witches. Thus, though there was some disruption in gender dynamics, power continued to be centered in men’s hands.
