Emerson W. Baker - The Salem Trials and the American Experience

Few events in American history have been the subject of so much writing through so many generations, and in such a multitude of ways, as has the Salem witchcraft crisis of 169293. It has inspired some of the most enduring works of American literature, drama, and film, and also much of the best scholarship in American history. Interest continues to grow, and at an exponential rate. The pace of publication has doubled in the past three decades, with new fields of inquiry, and old fields renewed. Womens studies have generated much productive research. Not so productive, but highly expansive, has been the growth of popular interest in the occult. When a colleague offered a new research course on Salem witchcraft, many students registered. After the first class, a few withdrew. Some explained that they had thought it was a course in witchcraft.

In a crowded field, Emerson Bakers new book builds on the strength of much serious research, and it makes a major contribution. The author has an intimate knowledge of the place and time and culture in which the Salem witchcraft crisis occurred. He has published many books and essays on related subjects and has a firm command of primary sources, which survive in extraordinary abundance. On witchcraft in Salem alone, documents filled Charles Uphams two volumes in 1864, Archie Frosts WPA report in 1938, Boyer and Nissenbaums three large tomes in 1977, and the larger project of Bernard Rosenthal and eleven associate editors in 2009. Baker knows this evidence well. He also has an unrivalled mastery of unpublished manuscripts in even greater quantity, and makes much use of material artifacts and historical archaeology.

A special strength of this book is Bakers way of working with secondary writings. Important studies of the events in Salem and of witchcraft more generally have appeared in medicine, psychology, ecology, demography, economics, law, literature, philosophy, and in many fields of social science. These materials are not merely cited here. They are to put to work, and very creatively.

This subject has always been bitterly contested, and the level of engagement today is stronger than ever. Baker has his own impassioned views, but he discusses the literature with a rare combination of balance, empathy, and maturity. He also has a willingness and even an eagerness to learn from others. Baker thinks of the storm of witchcraft in Salem as a perfect storm. That approach becomes a frame for integrating other scholarship in a constructive way. Every major work on the subject is discussed here, always in a large-minded, generous, and yet critical spirit.

Another strength of this book appears in its architecture, which is highly original, and very creative in another way. It may become a model for writings on other subjects. The first substantive chapter is a short narrative that spans the entire witchcraft crisis. It is a lively and fast-moving story of stories, from the first strange events in January 1692, through the executions of September 1692, to the last legal proceedings on May 9, 1693, when a grand jury refused to indict Tituba, the Indian slave whose confession had triggered it all. This chapter draws the reader into the book and gives a clear and coherent overview. It opens the way for five explanatory chapters, which constitute about 60 percent of the book. Each has its own narrative line and addresses an analytic question.