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In the Devil's Snare
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Themes
The Connection Between the Wabanaki Attacks and the Witch Crisis
Norton argues that the wars with the Wabanakis along the northeastern frontier in Maine established the conditions for the Salem witch crisis. To support her argument, she documents the connections that the people involved in this crisis—the accusers, accused, and authorities—had to the wars in Maine. For instance, Mercy Lewis, the leader of the accusers, lost her family in one of the Wabanaki attacks in Maine. As a result, she was a maidservant in the Putnam household in Salem Village, where she undoubtedly influenced Ann Putnam, Jr., to join her in making the accusations. Other accusers—like Mercy Short, who had been captured by the Wabanakis and had witnessed them killing and torturing other settlers—also had connections to the Maine war, and Norton deduces that their fear and trauma from those experiences led them to accuse people of witchcraft, perhaps as a way of making sense of such violence. Many settlers had fled to Essex County when the wars raged, and they spread tales throughout the region about the nature of the Wabanaki attacks, which struck fear in most people. The authorities involved in the crisis also had connections to the war, like the magistrates Hathorne and Corwin. Norton says their willingness to believe the accusers and their lax enforcement of legal procedures stemmed from their willingness to blame the devil and witchcraft for English authorities’ weakness in their fight against the Wabanaki confederacy, rather than holding the colonial authorities responsible for their lack of planning and martial prowess.
Norton additionally highlights the timing of the spikes in accusations, as they coincide with references to Maine and the wars. Abigail Hobbs, who lived near Mercy Lewis in Maine, confessed to being a witch and claimed her conversion to witchcraft had happened four years before, in the woods of Maine. That confession linked the events in Salem to the frontier wars, and it led to an explosion in accusations. George Burroughs, who had been a preacher in Maine and managed to escape the attacks from the Wabanakis on three occasions, was accused of leading the witches. While Ann Putnam, Jr., first claimed she saw his specter confessing to witchcraft, several joined her in accusing him after that initial claim. Burroughs was alleged to have bewitched the colonial troops, therefore aiding the Wabanakis in service of the devil.
During the crisis, the accusers and authorities often invoked language that linked the devil with the Wabanakis; their language conjured up terrifying images of the Wabanakis and was reminiscent of the experiences described by those who had been in the war. The settlers’ fear and distrust of the Wabanakis manifested in their accusations. This is why the very first person accused of witchcraft in Salem Village was Tituba, an Indigenous enslaved woman in the Parris household. Additionally, the afflicted frequently described images of a “black man” whispering in the ears of accused witches; at the time, the settlers described Indigenous peoples and people of color as “black.” The Wabanaki attacks on the colonial settlements in Maine, such as Falmouth, were brutal, and settlers were killed in gruesome ways. Accordingly, the specters of the accused were said to threaten to tear their victims into pieces and were observed in the invisible world roasting people over spits. These threats and the imagery they invoke came from the Wabanaki attacks on the Maine settlements, where some victims were torn apart and burned. Ministers who held positions of authority and respect in Puritan Massachusetts also emphasized the connections between the witches and Wabanakis, giving credence to the accusers. The accusers described the witches as operating in bands or groups and attacking Essex County. Ministers, such as Parris and Mather, similarly described the County as under attack in both the visible and invisible worlds. In the minds of colonists, the devil was directing the actions of the Wabanakis and witches.
Norton distinguishes the witch crisis in Salem from previous ones by its link to the Wabanaki wars. Initially, the accused were typical suspects or those previously suspected of witchcraft. However, the fear and distrust created by the crisis’s link to the war caused many more individuals to face accusations. Norton argues that Rebecca Nurse and other respectable women would have been shielded from accusations in normal times. Similarly, Philip English, a wealthy merchant, would never have been accused if not for the wars; he was targeted because he was a native French speaker, and the French and Wabanakis were allied. Due to the war, the accusers ended up targeting unusual suspects, and those with ties to the war in Maine were especially at risk.
The Centrality of Puritans’ Beliefs to the Witch Crisis
The Salem witch crisis took place before the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment. The Puritans believed themselves to be a people chosen by God to settle in an inhospitable land and set an example of Godly living for others to follow. They believed fervently in the existence of God and assumed that God directed all events, including the actions of the devil. Additionally, beliefs in the devil and witchcraft were universal among the Puritans. Calamities were routinely blamed on witchcraft or God’s punishment. Norton describes the events of the witch crisis in Salem as they would have been experienced by the Puritans, chronologically and within their worldview, to show that they would have accepted the events leading up to the crisis without criticism or suspicion, even though this might seem outlandish to contemporary readers. At the time, even when criticism of the trials emerged, it was grounded in this worldview. Given their beliefs, Norton shows that the early stages of the crisis were not remarkable; it was only when the crisis became linked with the attacks in Maine that it became unprecedented.
Norton shows that the Puritans’ religion governed every aspect of their life, including fields like medicine and law. When the two girls in the Parris household began having afflictions, a physician was summoned. That physician diagnosed witchcraft—a strange diagnosis to contemporary readers but one that was not uncommon in those times and for people with the Puritans’ worldview. Typically, such afflictions were treated with prayers and fasting and never entered the legal realm. Yet there were precedents for legal cases. The crisis shifted to the legal arena when Betty Hubbard, who was 14, had afflictions and all the afflicted girls were accusing individuals of bewitching them. Since the Puritans believed in witchcraft, the legal authorities took the girls’ accusations seriously and called for people to have sympathy for the afflicted. Indeed, those who were not sympathetic, such as John Proctor, came under suspicion themselves. Ministers gave the girls’ allegations credence, as they, too, insisted that the devil was operating in Salem Village and, later, Essex County.
Faced with the task of holding the accused witches criminally responsible, the magistrates and judges consulted previous treatises on witchcraft by past scholars. Norton describes the advice in these writings: It was said to be best to win a confession from a witch; failing that, the testimony of other witches was considered the second-best form of evidence. There was vague guidance about the use of spectral evidence and witches’ marks. The magistrates and judges had an absolute belief in the guilt of the accused, so their goal during the examinations and trials was to win confessions. The magistrates rewarded the accused who confessed to witchcraft by sparing their lives, and they prosecuted those who persisted in claims of innocence. The accused who confessed also offered evidence about other witches. When upstanding citizens or unusual suspects began to be accused, some began to question the reliance on spectral evidence. In particular, there was dispute about whether the devil could appear to the afflicted in the apparition of an innocent person. Cotton Mather claimed that this was possible but exceedingly rare. In the fall, critics, such as Samuel Willard and Increase Mather, insisted on this possibility. It is at that point that public opinion turned against the trials. No one, however, questioned the existence of the devil or witches or whether spectral evidence was valid enough to be dissected and discussed in this way. Thus, even criticism against the crisis grew from within the Puritan worldview rather than from questioning it.
Gender and Power Dynamics During the Witch Crisis
Ordinarily, young girls and women were powerless in Puritan society. They performed household responsibilities and did as they were told by the men, who were always the heads of households and who held all positions of authority and power. However, during the witch crisis, young girls and women took center stage, and this affected the gender and power dynamics of the time. Their afflictions, accusations, and visions were considered serious matters by the authorities (who were all men), and they won the attention of the most powerful people in Puritan society, including the governor of Boston and respected lawyers and judges. Indeed, the female accusers often dictated the course of public proceedings. However, though it may seem like these women were all-powerful—and they did certainly hold power over the accused’s freedom and lives—Norton points out that even amid this disruption in gender dynamics, men were the ones who truly held power, just as they previously had. Men made the decisions about the filing of legal complaints and oversaw the examinations and trials.
During the with crisis, even children under 14 years of age, such as Ann, Jr., were taken at their word. At this time, English law deemed the testimony of those under 14 unreliable in capital cases, but this didn’t stop the authorities from taking Ann, Jr.’s accusations seriously. Even maidservants such as Mercy Lewis—who usually had neither money nor respect in society—assumed leadership roles as witch finders. Given the afflictions, with fits and torments, experienced by these young women, household routines were undoubtedly disrupted, which might have inconvenienced the men who were used to their households running smoothly and the women and girls working silently. However, this crisis made the girls and women who claimed to be afflicted by witchcraft objects of sympathy. Those who did not sympathize with them came under suspicion, and this included men like John Proctor who refused to believe his servant’s claims that she was afflicted. The accusers’ word could put almost anyone on trial, with everyone immediately assuming that the accused were guilty. It was an enormous power.
At the public examinations of the accused, the mainly female accusers reacted with fits in their presence and screamed out visions. For example, they might have claimed that an animal familiar was sucking on the accused’s finger or that a “black man” was whispering in the accused’s ear. At times, there was absolute chaos during both the examinations and trials, with the magistrates deferring to the accusers’ claims and their physical spasms when they were supposedly overcome by the witches’ evil powers. They claimed that the specters of the accused confessed to them, and what is more, that ghosts appeared to them charging the accused witches of murdering them. For example, they claimed that Burroughs’s two dead wives appeared in such a vision, claiming that he had killed them. Norton highlights the irony of the magistrates failing to win many confessions while the mainly female accusers were reporting on confessions obtained from specters in the invisible world. The accusers were also able to get Governor Phips to reverse his decision to grant Rebecca Nurse a reprieve, showing that their reach and power was impressive. Also, Mercy Lewis single-handedly got Mary Easty rearrested after she was freed; Easty was hanged on September 22. While there were a few older accusers, such as Ann Putnam, Sr., most were young women.
Yet, despite all this disruption to gender dynamics, Norton reminds readers that the men of the time wielded true power, even over these accusers. For instance, Mary Warren’s early afflictions were not reported to the authorities, and no legal case was pursued because the male head of household, John Proctor, was skeptical and did not take her complaints seriously. In contrast, Thomas Putnam believed his daughter and initiated the legal process against witchcraft. If the male heads of household had declined to pursue legal complaints, there would have been no crisis. Once the legal process was initiated, male magistrates, judges, and juries conducted the proceedings. All these men accepted the words of the accusers and expressed no skepticism. Norton claims that they had a vested interest in believing that the devil had caused the security failures on the Maine frontier, as it spared them accountability for their poor political and military decisions. It is also noteworthy that George Burroughs, a minister and male, was named the leader of the witches. Though this was a terrible accusation and cost him his life, he was nevertheless declared a “leader” by virtue of being male.
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