The Enemy Within by John Demos

Author:John Demos
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2010-03-31T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER VIII

The Most Famous Witch-hunt of All, 1692-93

Salem. Witchcraft. Two words so closely identified as to seem almost twinned. Say the first, and the other comes immediately to mind.

Go to Salem today, and its witchy past is all around you. Here is a list of places to visit (for a price): the Salem Witch Museum; the Witch History Museum; the Witch Dungeon Museum; the Witch House; the Witch Mansion; the Museum of Myths and Monsters; the Spellbound Museum. Witchery is the lifeblood of local commerce. Thus (another list): the Witch’s Brew Cafe; the Witch’s Kettle (a restaurant); Hocus Pocus Tours; the Haunted Footsteps Ghost Tour; the Magic Parlor (offering “occult supplies, tarot readings, and more”); Crow Haven Corner (“purveyor to witches around the world”); Nu Aeon boutique (“dedicated to the Holy Arts of Magic and the Craft of the Wise”); the Witch City Cleaning Company; the Witch City Repo Services; and so on. Moreover, living, breathing, 21st-century “witches” are widely available, to see and consult—to read palms, tell fortunes, and offer intimate personal advice.

It wasn’t always so. Before 1692 Salem was one among many New England towns—larger than most, more prosperous than most, and more diverse—but very much within the social and cultural mainstream. Its beginnings, in 1629, belonged to the earliest phase of colonial American history. Its fine harbor marked it as a likely hub of maritime trade; merchants would quickly assume a leadership role in its development. However, it also rested on a broad base of farmsteads, which stretched out for many miles into its hilly interior. Its initially large territorial expanse was reduced, during the middle years of the 17th century, as several of its outlying settlements broke off to become independent communities (Wenham, Manchester, Marblehead, Beverly). What remained after 1675 or so was a coastal strip, including the center and known henceforth as Salem Town, and a hinterland section variously called Salem Farms or Salem Village. It had a settled church, a town-meeting form of local governance, and an ostensibly Puritan lifestyle of the sort that prevailed all across its parent colony of Massachusetts Bay.

But beginning in the first months of 1692, and increasingly thereafter, one could not think of Salem as conforming to some larger type. On the contrary, Salem came to seem utterly special and distinctive. And it was, for certain, the witch trials that made all the difference.

Salemwitchcraft: by now virtually one word, whose four syllables roll together in a strangely mellifluent blend.

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