In studies of American history, women have often been relegated to paragraphs within chapters. Witchcraft implied a contract with the devil. Witchcraft and religion were inextricably linked acts of sorcery were conflated with heresy. She also illustrates how religion was present in every aspect of the colonists’ lives and how this created an environment where accusations of and hysteria about witchcraft could (and did) spread like wildfire. Schiff is also completely aware of her audience, slyly slipping in references to “Harry Potter” and “The Wizard of Oz” in the footnotes.

For example, she observes that becoming an “afflicted” girl often meant not having to milk the cows (or do any of the other chores that plagued Puritan girls from dawn to dusk). The creative retelling of these tales is also where Schiff’s sense of humor glints through the lines. But they flesh out the story that, historically, is too often chalked up to a fluke year of frantic religious fanaticism.

They increase the length of the work as a whole, and sometimes teeter on the edge of being extraneous. For better or for worse, these accounts make the fantastic events of Salem relatable to our own lives. They startle you into realizing the colonists of Massachusetts Bay lived with the same kind of subtle social politics we do now. Schiff includes stories about family feuds, adulterous relationships with servants, jealous spouses and the transparent machinations of petulant teenagers. Ministers and other leaders of the town hung on their every word, tracked the quick, darting movements of their eyes in the courtroom and shrugged helplessly as the girls screamed and contorted their bodies in pews, crying out that they were being pricked by the specters of witches they had named. The “afflicted” girls, as they were known, rapidly became Salem’s darlings. Accused witches either denied the charges - effectively signing their own death warrants - or confessed and named other witches in turn. It began with a group of young girls having fits and accusing neighbors of witchcraft. It chronicles the beginning of the Salem hysteria, follows the escalation of the trials to fever pitch and addresses the eerie silence that followed the 19 executions of the “witches.” Reading these stories feels like watching a play - a serious, sometimes unwittingly and darkly humorous play.

Though it’s a bit long for those not already acquainted with Salem scholarship, “The Witches” is still accessible. Stacy Schiff’s “The Witches: Salem, 1692” is the kind of book you forget isn’t fiction.

The witches salem 1692 review