This book offers a comprehensive record of legal documents written in 1692 and 1693 in connection with the Salem witch trials. It is the most comprehensive edition of those records ever published, and includes for the first time the records in chronological order, all newly transcribed from the original manuscripts

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The Salem Witch Trials is based on over twenty-five years of archival research--including the author's discovery of previously unknown documents--newly found cases and court records. From January 1692 to January 1697 this history unfolds a nearly day-by-day narrative of the crisis as the citizens of New England experienced it.

The Salem witch trials stand as one of the infamous moments in colonial American history. More than 150 people -- primarily women -- from 24 communities were charged with witchcraft; 19 were hanged and others died in prison. This second edition continues to explore the beliefs, fears, and historical context that fueled the witch panic of 1692. In his revised introduction, Richard Godbeer offers coverage of the convulsive ergotism thesis advanced in the 1970s and a discussion of new scholarship on men who were accused of witchcraft for explicitly gendered reasons. The documents in this volume illuminate how the Puritans' worldview led them to seek a supernatural explanation for the problems vexing their community. Presented as case studies, the carefully chosen records from several specific trials offer a clear picture of the gender norms and social tensions that underlie the witchcraft accusations. New to this edition are records from the trial of Samuel Wardwell, a fortune-teller or "cunning man" whose apparent expertise made him vulnerable to suspicions of witchcraft. The book's final documents cover recantations of confessions, the aftermath of the witch hunt, and statements of regret. A chronology of the witchcraft crisis, questions for consideration, and a selected bibliography round out the book's pedagogical support.

Decades after witch-hunting had begun to die down in Europe, North America was about to witness its bloodiest witch hunt in history. The Massachusetts of 1692 was a very different one to the state we know today. Populated by colonists, many of them a generation or less from life in an England bathed in religious turmoil,

Salem Story engages the story of the Salem witch trials by contrasting an analysis of the surviving primary documentation with the way events of 1692 have been mythologised by our culture. Resisting the temptation to explain the Salem witch trials in the context of an inclusive theoretical framework, the book examines a variety of individual motives that converged to precipitate the witch-hunt. Of the many assumptions about the Salem witch trials, the most persistent is that they were instigated by a circle of hysterical girls. Through an analysis of what actually happened - by perusal of the primary materials with the 'close reading' approach of a literary critic - a different picture emerges, one where 'hysteria' inappropriately describes the logical, rational strategies of accusation and confession followed by the accusers, males and females alike.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Cleopatra, the #1 national bestseller, unpacks the mystery of the Salem Witch Trials. It began in 1692, over an exceptionally raw Massachusetts winter, when a minister's daughter began to scream and convulse. It ended less than a year later, but not before 19 men and women had been hanged and an elderly man crushed to death. The panic spread quickly, involving the most educated men and prominent politicians in the colony. Neighbors accused neighbors, parents and children each other. Aside from suffrage, the Salem Witch Trials represent the only moment when women played the central role in American history. In curious ways, the trials would shape the future republic. As psychologically thrilling as it is historically seminal, The Witches is Stacy Schiff's account of this fantastical story -- the first great American mystery unveiled fully for the first time by one of our most acclaimed historians.

Award-winning historian Mary Beth Norton reexamines the Salem witch trials in this startlingly original, meticulously researched, and utterly riveting study. In 1692 the people of Massachusetts were living in fear, and not solely of satanic afflictions. Horrifyingly violent Indian attacks had all but emptied the northern frontier of settlers, and many traumatized refugees—including the main accusers of witches—had fled to communities like Salem. Meanwhile the colony’s leaders, defensive about their own failure to protect the frontier, pondered how God’s people could be suffering at the hands of savages. Struck by the similarities between what the refugees had witnessed and what the witchcraft “victims” described, many were quick to see a vast conspiracy of the Devil (in league with the French and the Indians) threatening New England on all sides. By providing this essential context to the famous events, and by casting her net well beyond the borders of Salem itself, Norton sheds new light on one of the most perplexing and fascinating periods in our history.

Based on extensive primary source research, In the Shadow of Salem: The Andover Witch Hunt of 1692, by historian and archivist Richard Hite, tells for the first time the fascinating story of this long overlooked phase of the largest witch hunt in American history. Untangling a net of rivalries and ties between families and neighbors, the author explains the actions of the accusers, the reactions of the accused, and their ultimate fates. In the process, he shows how the Andover arrests prompted a large segment of the town's population to openly oppose the entire witch hunt and how their actions played a crucial role in finally bringing the 1692 witchcraft crisis to a close.