A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience by Emerson W. Baker (review)

In A Storm of Witchcraft, Baker tells the tragic tale of how Puritans in seventeenth-century New England betrayed their core values in a misguided attempt to protect themselves from what they regarded as a ghastly threat. Informed by a detailed knowledge of the political rivalries and social tensions of colonial Massachusetts and its eastern frontier in Maine, Baker demonstrates how economic hardship, Indian warfare, strained ties with England, a new royal charter, festering legal issues, the seeming decline of religious purity, a growing rebelliousness toward the leaders who had allowed such things to happen, and virulent village rivalries all conspired to create an environment in which witchcraft charges ran rampant and spread uncontrollably. In addition, Baker delves into the often-neglected aftermath of the trials. He examines the transition of Salem from history into memory, lingers over the participants’ difficulties reintegrating into a society that appeared to regard them as tainted, and demonstrates what changed as a result of the trials—from the trend toward laxity in church discipline to the ongoing tension between governor and legislature that persisted through the revolutionary era.

Baker argues that although many in New England concluded that innocent people had been put to death at Salem, the leaders refused to admit wrongdoing, fearing that it would diminish the colony in the eyes of English authorities and possibly endanger what little autonomy they still had under a new royal charter that had taken effect just prior to the first signs of witchcraft infestation. Baker points out that William Phips, the colonial governor, placed a ban on publications about the trials almost immediately after they were halted and that his failure to admit responsibility for the deaths of innocents caused Salem to become “witch city,” a symbol of persecution, in popular memory. Massachusetts was painfully show to make amends or come to terms with its own history. In breathtaking detail, Baker traces the various constituencies from the late seventeenth through the twenty-first century who used the image of Salem to discredit opponents as fanatical oppressors. The inhabitants of Salem welcome the tourist dollars that accrue to “witch city” attractions but remain unable collectively to acknowledge the suffering that neighbor inflicted upon neighbor in their distant colonial past.

The interdisciplinary lens is valuable in this study; it allows Baker to make the witchcraft trials relevant to twenty-first century audiences who might otherwise scoff at the preposterousness of a supernatural crime. Baker employs this lens to draw parallels between behaviors seen in the witchcraft trials and various clinical conditions. He argues, for example, that the girls first identified as being “afflicted” in 1692 behaved similarly to a group of cheerleaders from Le Roy, New York, who in 2011/12 were diagnosed with “conversion disorder,” a psychological ailment that usually induces people in the upper social strata to express physically their angst about societal issues and imminent decline. In like manner, he explains how post-traumatic stress disorder may have affected the perceptions of those victims of witchcraft who had witnessed Indian attacks on the frontier, or how “sleep paralysis” could explain the experience of being immobilized and choked by a witch at night in one’s bed, as reported by a number of accusers. He also convincingly discounts various illnesses—ergotism, Lyme disease, encephalitis, and Arctic hysteria—as having played a role at Salem.

Baker’s interdisciplinary methodology sets into bold relief his argument that the tragedy at Salem was not merely the product of premodern superstitions. He invites readers to substitute the word “terrorist” for “witch” to suggest that the gulf separating our post-Enlightenment world from Salem is not as great as we imagine. In attempting to eradicate an elusive but deadly enemy, one that might be hiding in plain sight, societies are tempted to invoke repressive measures that threaten their most cherished values, whether they are associated with the U.S. Constitution’s Bill...