I purchased The Witches while I was in Salem, MA from a bookstore called Wicked Good Books, which has a special section reserved for books about the Salem witch trials. A cute historical town overrun by tourists, it is sad how modern Salem has monetized a tragic piece of American history where twenty innocent people were executed on suspicion of witchcraft and hundreds more languished in prison. I have always been fascinated by the Salem witch trials. What caused a group of girls to writhe and contort their bodies and claim that they were being attacked by witches? Why did the group of men who presided over the trials give in to the hysteria and essentially murder a bunch of innocent people? The Witches is a fascinating and detailed nonfiction account of the Salem witch trials that does its best to answer both questions with the limited resources passed down from history.

As fascinating as The Witches is, it is also an infuriating read, because how can people be so stupid? I put aside my twenty-first century lenses and looked at the events from the perspective of Massachusetts colonists in 1692: they were Puritans, so they took their bible seriously and literally. They actually believed in witchcraft. However, the men presiding over the witch trials also did not seem to want to listen to logic when bystanders, and even the accused themselves, pointed out obvious inconsistencies or offered alternative suggestions for what was happening to the accusers. When Chief Justice William Stoughton – who later became the Governor of Massachusetts (!) – convened a court and began putting the accused on trial by jury, it seemed as though he had a personal vendetta against the accused and wanted to execute as many people as possible. When one of the accused, Rebecca Nurse, was found innocent of witchcraft by the jury, he actually had the jury deliberate two more times before they finally gave him the verdict he wanted.

Nineteen of the twenty who were executed (nineteen were hanged and one was pressed to death – no one was burned at the stake in Salem in 1692) refused to admit to witchcraft. Ironically, those who did admit to being witches were not immediately sentenced to death, which is why it got to the point that when a person was accused of witchcraft, they just ended up admitting to being a witch, because they knew it was their best chance of surviving the gallows.

It was not just women and girls who were accused of witchcraft. Men and boys were accused too. Young children were accused, and very old people were accused. And it was not just Salem residents either. If a person lived in Massachusetts, and even Maine, they were fair game to be accused. Most of the accused were imprisoned in horrible conditions; some of them died in prison (including an infant). This was not solely a misogynistic, anti-women movement. It was about power and control over others, it was about politics, it was about petty grievances and revenge, it was about opportunity to enrich oneself at the expense of another. We will never really know what afflicted the accusers, although The Witches offers a very strong hypothesis for what did. Some of them probably were “hysterical” and really did believe they were being attacked by witches. Others probably liked the attention that they got with being an accuser. There is evidence that the accusers were coached by others and faked their afflictions.

The thing that really strikes me about the Salem witch trials after reading The Witches is that you only have to look to this time in American history to understand why America is the way it is today. Things have not changed much in 330 years. If you have any interest at all in the Salem witch trials, I highly recommend this book.