61 pages • 2 hours read
Mary Beth NortonIn the Devil's Snare
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2002A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 6-7Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 6 Summary: “Endeavors of the Judges: May 27-July 20, 1692”
With the court established, grand and petty (trial) juries would review the evidence and decide on the fates of those accused. In preparation for the trials, jurors were assembled and judges selected. William Stoughton, a man who could be “rigid and imperious” and unwilling to tolerate opposition (197), was named the chief judge. The other judges knew one another and familiarized themselves with the applicable treatises on witchcraft and the 1604 English law on the subject that “defined as a capital offense occult practices that employed” witchcraft or sorcery with people killed or “pined or lamed” in body (200).
The first person who was tried and convicted was Bridget Bishop, with the jury hearing evidence of her spectral torment of the afflicted, her past malefic practices, and a mark on her body. She was sentenced to be hanged. After her conviction, there was a decline in allegations of witchcraft, but they did not cease completely. Minor disputes and differences of opinion continued to be interpreted as motives for murder, with people feeling the potential for evil everywhere. On June 10, Bishop was hanged. The following day, a large band of Wabanakis and French attacked Wells, Maine, with the town and livestock destroyed. Norton wonders if the settlers viewed this attack as the devil’s revenge for Bishop’s execution.
In the brief hiatus between June 10 and June 24, when there were minimal accusations, three sources of criticism emerged. Clergymen raised questions about the spectral evidence, noting that a demon might appear in the shape of an innocent person. They were especially concerned about the accused with good reputations. However, their messages were too ambiguous to have much effect. Secondly, Reverend William Milborne gathered signatures on a petition in support of those with good reputations, such as Nurse and Alden. When authorities got word of this petition, they fined Milborne. This punishment silenced him and most likely other critics. Thirdly, the family of Rebecca Nurse challenged the findings, questioning if the accusers were innocent and obtaining statements from the employers of Mercy Lewis and Susannah Sheldon questioning their characters.
The second session of the court commenced on June 28, with Prosecutor Thomas Newton keeping his focus on the typical suspects. He obtained convictions for Sarah Good and Susannah Martin. When Nurse, an unusual suspect of good reputation, was tried, she mounted a defense. She argued that the mark on her body was natural and not the devil’s mark, and 39 people signed a petition attesting to her good character. During her trial, when the witnesses were challenged, several had fits. The jury found Nurse not guilty, but Stoughton, the lead judge, questioned an innocuous statement made by Nurse and sent the jury back to deliberate. When asked about the statement, Nurse, who was hard of hearing, was silent; this was enough to convict her. Her family then got the governor to issue a reprieve, but he withdrew it under pressure. Norton maintains that the conviction of Nurse demonstrates how deeply the Puritans believed in the devil, as her status would have ordinarily protected her from such charges. Unable to defeat evil on the frontier, authorities set to defeating it in Salem.
After Nurse’s case, the court convicted two others, and the grand jury heard additional cases. The “brief surge of skepticism” was gone (229). On July 12, Stoughton signed death warrants for the five women convicted in the second session, and they were hanged on Gallows Hill on July 19.
Chapter 7 Summary: “Burroughs Their Ringleader: July 15-September 8, 1692”
In mid-July, the witch crisis broadened when Joseph Ballard of Salem Town linked his wife’s illness to witchcraft and had witch finders, most likely Mercy Lewis and Betty Hubbard, come to identify her tormentors. The witch finders named three people: a grandmother, mother, and teenaged daughter. The latter not only confessed but also provided details of her activities, including riding on a pole and identifying Burroughs and the “‘black man’ with a ‘high-crowned hat’” (234). The authorities were particularly interested in the cases of Burroughs and Martha Carrier. More arrests ensued, including that of Mary Allen Toothaker, who claimed that the devil in the shape of an Indigenous person promised her protection if she became a witch.
The court’s third session convened on August 2, with Martha Carrier tried first. Her trial followed the standard pattern, with spectral evidence and confessors’ testimony, and she was convicted. Following her, John Willard, George Jacobs, and John and Elizabeth Proctor were all convicted, but Elizabeth was given a temporary reprieve due to her pregnancy. The grand jury began its inquiry into George Burroughs on August 3, with Mercy Lewis, Ann, Jr., and Mary Warren offering testimony about his spectral tortures. After his indictment, he was tried on August 5. The authorities needed to prove his guilt to defend the trials, as he was the alleged leader of the witches. Thirty people testified against him, claiming affliction. Confessed witches depicted his leadership role in their gatherings. It was rumored that Burroughs had enormous strength, so this attribute was turned against him and deemed a sign of the devil. When Burroughs contended that witches did not exist, he was not believed. Unsurprisingly, he was convicted.
The day before Burroughs’s trial, a prominent minister named Cotton Mather delivered a sermon on the “Wonders of the Invisible World” (252). He claimed that only those under the influence of the devil would deny the devil’s existence, and he linked devils to Indigenous peoples. Although he acknowledged the questionability of spectral evidence, he was confident in the accuracy of the witches’ confessions.
For the remainder of the court’s third session, the accusations continued. In Andover, there were a great many accused, with nearly all confessing. On August 19, four men and one woman convicted at the third session were hanged. Burroughs was dignified until the very end, maintaining his innocence and extending forgiveness to his accusers. When the crowd was brought to tears by this, Mather reminded them that Burroughs was a devil, and the executions continued.
In Andover, young children accused of witchcraft were especially cooperative, and they readily named others. Most often, those in Andover named others in their family, something that did not occur in Salem. Beginning on September 2, the frenzy of accusations in Andover spread to Gloucester, Reading, and Marblehead, with many of the accused and accusers having ties to Maine. An extraordinary event in Andover precipitated the end of the active phase of the crisis: On September 7, a touch test was administered to blindfolded women with the hands of accusers placed on them. The women then claimed to be well. Labeled witches, the women were transported and subjected to harsh treatment. Terrified, they confessed. Following this, Andover magistrates stopped issuing arrest warrants for witchcraft. Then, a gentleman in Boston filed a suit against the afflicted of Andover for £1,000, demanding proof of their allegations; soon after, the accusations ceased. Norton attributes the readiness to confess in Andover to the town’s tradition of consensus government. Women and children, especially, were supposed to do as they were told by authorities.
Chapters 6-7 Analysis
The trials exposed The Centrality of the Puritans’ Beliefs to the Witch Crisis. Typically, defendants were convicted on the basis of some combination of spectral testimony, witness statements about the torture of the afflicted, witch’s marks found on bodily inspection, touch tests, and the testimony of other witches. None of these would be considered hard evidence in contemporary times, but they were sufficient for the Puritans who believed so firmly in the existence of devils and witches. Prominent ministers, such as Cotton Mather, defended all these forms of evidence. Overwhelmingly, it was agreed that the testimony of other witches was damning evidence. The most controversial form of evidence was the spectral visions. While Mather admitted the possibility that the devil could appear in a vision in the form of an innocent person, he nevertheless claimed that instances of that were exceedingly rare. He maintained that spectral evidence was not the sole basis upon which people were convicted. Even in the summer of 1692, this assumption about innocent people being highly unlikely to appear in demonic visions was questioned. The claims of ministers like Mather were enough to convince lawmakers of the admissibility of this evidence, showing how tied up the legal system of the time was with religious beliefs. However, the indictment of respectable people began to cause some to criticize the forms of evidence—but even these criticisms came from within the Puritans’ worldview.
The early critics were silenced when Reverend Milborne was taken in for questioning and fined for his petition. There was surely an implicit threat that critics of the proceedings would themselves be vulnerable to accusations of witchcraft. In such an atmosphere of fear and distrust, no one was safe. The judges were convinced of the guilt of the accused even before they were tried. Ordinarily, there was skepticism toward charges of witchcraft. Yet The Connection Between the Wabanaki Attacks and the Witch Crisis in Essex County ensured that most of the colonists believed that they were surrounded by evil. Norton notes that someone such as Rebecca Nurse would never have been convicted in ordinary times. Yet, when the jury acquitted her, the head judge did not accept the verdict and persisted until he obtained a guilty one. Thus, the judges were comfortable using whatever strategies they could to ensure verdicts of guilt, and they ignored any motions from the defense, such as one for a change of venue. Instead, the authorities took the afflicted at their word when they said that the imprisoned witches continued to torture them. The governor even ordered the prisoners to be chained, which shows how deeply the authorities believed in the accusations.
The events in Andover demonstrated that the Gender and Power Dynamics During the Witch Crisis largely remained the same, even though young women were briefly allowed some power. Unlike those accused in Salem Village, the accused in Andover confessed in large numbers, with the children being particularly cooperative. Norton explains that women and children were socialized to do as they were told and simply followed directives when told to confess. The harsh treatment of the Andover defendants provided a breaking point in the crisis. The Andover magistrates stopped making arrests, and public opinion began to swing against the trials.
