Beginning in January 1692, Salem Village in colonial Massachusetts
witnessed the largest and most lethal outbreak of witchcraft in
early America. Villagers-mainly young women-suffered from unseen
torments that caused them to writhe, shriek, and contort their
bodies, complaining of pins stuck into their flesh and of being
haunted by specters. Believing that they suffered from assaults by
an invisible spirit, the community began a hunt to track down those
responsible for the demonic work. The resulting Salem Witch Trials,
culminating in the execution of 19 villagers, persists as one of
the most mysterious and fascinating events in American history.
Historians have speculated on a web of possible causes for the
witchcraft that stated in Salem and spread across the
region-religious crisis, ergot poisoning, an encephalitis outbreak,
frontier war hysteria-but most agree that there was no single
factor. Rather, as Emerson Baker illustrates in this seminal new
work, Salem was "a perfect storm": a unique convergence of
conditions and events that produced something extraordinary
throughout New England in 1692 and the following years, and which
has haunted us ever since. Baker shows how a range of factors in
the Bay colony in the 1690s, including a new charter and
government, a lethal frontier war, and religious and political
conflicts, set the stage for the dramatic events in Salem. Engaging
a range of perspectives, he looks at the key players in the
outbreak-the accused witches and the people they allegedly
bewitched, as well as the judges and government officials who
prosecuted them-and wrestles with questions about why the Salem
tragedy unfolded as it did, and why it has become an enduring
legacy. Salem in 1692 was a critical moment for the fading Puritan
government of Massachusetts Bay, whose attempts to suppress the
story of the trials and erase them from memory only fueled the
popular imagination. Baker argues that the trials marked a turning
point in colonial history from Puritan communalism to Yankee
independence, from faith in collective conscience to skepticism
toward moral governance. A brilliantly told tale, A Storm of
Witchcraft also puts Salem's storm into its broader context as a
part of the ongoing narrative of American history and the history
of the Atlantic World.
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