In the Devil's Snare

“A fundamental part of that understanding must rest on comprehending the worldview of late-seventeenth-century Puritan New Englanders, who lived in a pre-Enlightenment world that had not yet experienced the scientific revolution.”

Norton maintains The Centrality of Puritans’ Beliefs to the Witch Crisis. Puritans believed that God was all powerful and determined life events like natural disasters and wars. They also believed that the devil was real and that he could appear among people—they took his presence as a sign of God’s disfavor. With this worldview, they also believed in the existence of witches and feared their presence.

“In the Devil’s Snare, then, contends that the witchcraft crisis of 1692 can be comprehended only in the context of nearly two decades of armed conflict between English settlers and the New England Indians in both southern and northern portions of the region.”

In this quote, Norton states her main thesis that serves as an anchor for all the other ideas in the book: She argues that the Wabanaki attacks on the northeastern frontier established the conditions for the witch crisis. Many of the accusers and accused had experienced traumatic events in those attacks, like losing family members and being taken captive. Norton shows how it was only after the devil’s invisible assaults on Essex County were linked to the wars in Maine that the crisis exploded.

“Less than a month after the devastating raid on York and following more than three years of unrelenting frontier warfare, in other words, the first person identified as a witch in the Salem crisis of 1692 was someone known to all primarily as an Indian.”

Norton strengthens her claim about The Connection Between the Wabanaki Attacks and the Witch Crisis by pointing out that the first person named as a witch was an Indigenous person. According to Norton, the English settlers were traumatized by Wabanaki attacks, which is why they likened Indigenous people to the devil—and in