Book Review
Title: Killing the Witches: The Horror of Salem, Massachusetts by Bill O’Reilly & Martin Dugard
Genre: Non-Fiction, History
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Killing the Witches definitely starts off with a bang as it introduced Fame Euphame MacCalzean one of the women to be tried as a witch in England but it goes much deeper than that. We learn of John Alden Amy the Mayflower’s voyage to America to create a settlement there but it wasn’t an easy journey due to severe weather. While they manage to survive they had been blown off course meaning they didn’t land where they were supposed to and had to create a test with the Native Americans known as the Mayflower Compact.
The Mayflower Compact allows the travellers from England to create settlements in exchange for the Indians showing them not to live of the lands and what things around them were useful. One such settlement was Plymouth which was run in a strict Puritan fashion by William Branford. Another settlement was created later and eventually renamed Salem to be run by John Winthorp, an equally religious man. Some weren’t content with this way of life like Roger Williams who only petitioned for a separation of church and state only to be banished for his ideas. He later founded Providence which would be a place of freedom, the opposite of Salem and Plymouth.
It didn’t take long for the idea of witches being responsible for things like a bad harvest to come about. The first woman accused was Bridget Bishop and she was followed by a host of other women shortly after especially as the hysteria increased. All throughout Salem symptoms of witchcraft like convulsions were seen especially in children and young women. One notable story we get is that of a slave woman, Tituba accused by the children she cared for. In order to survive she confessed to being a witch, it was believed that this drove the devil our and claimed there were more witches in Salem and Boston. At this point the witch hunt is in full swing and it would only get worse as time wore on.
Bridget Bishop ended up being the first woman killed for being a witch and many came after her but things were quickly getting out of hand. Soon it was not just undesirable women being targeted but upstanding citizens too. Some people were even accusing people they simply disliked of witchcraft in a twisted form of revenge. It was taken a step further again when men were started to be accused of making deals with the devil. At the point greed was a motivator in many cases since the judges would get control of the land, protest and other assets of the accused. It was also a very political movement used by Puritan leaders in order to retain and grow their influence over the community but people were fighting back. Some remained defiant until the very end while some sought to prove their innocence but reciting the Lord’s prayer since it was believed that Witches couldn’t do this. When it nakedness for the first time it was written off as the devil reciting the words but people were beginning to notice what was happening and concern was mounting.
By the time the trials were brought to an end in 1692, hundreds were affected if not thousands. Families were torn apart, many people were hanged and some were looking to those who were responsible. We get to see where most of the accusers ended up after the witch hunt was ended but the men in power are beginning to worry. The Governor who had been away doing his job had no idea the witch trials were happening until his own wife was accused. He turned on the judges and religious men involved granting pardons to those in prison before he was thrown out of office. The Mathers, Incense and Cotton had different ideals on the trials, the father, Incense felt that they were necessary but they needed to be more than spectral evidence to pass the death sentence while his son, Cotton drove the trials to the height they reached. Most of these men were marked by the trials for the rest of their lives and it had profound impacts in other areas too.
The trials ended up shaking the ideology and perspectives of one notable person, one of the founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin. The young Franklin grew up Puritan but moved away from these beliefs as he grew older looking for a more scientific explanation to things around him. That being said he did have some professional relationship with Incense Mathers but denounced the works and trains of Cotton Mathers. This shoals a movement of religious dissent with particular focus of the Monarchs of England controlling the colonies even though they had no say in British Parliament. This was furthered by acts of violence in response to the Stamp Act and the Boston Tea Party.
At this point rebellion is in the air with the American Revolution on the horizon but the final state for Franklin is when he is humiliated in front of men he considered peers and friends because of what is happening in his country despite all he had done to support the Crown. We get to see the impact of the revolution, the finding of America and the signing of the Declaration of Independence, cementing the dawn of a new age but so verging that was disagreed upon even after the signing was the topic of religion. After this we move forward into modern times (1949) setting another case of so called demonic possession but it seems now real since the boot had nothing to gain from the acts of he is the one committing them.
This exorcism was over a month long and was well documented by the priests seeming to show that things hairbrush to this boy that he couldn’t have done himself especially under so much supervision. This very exorcism would be the inspiration for William Peter Blatty’s, The Exorcist. During filming many strange things began happening on set and even members of the cast and crew that weren’t religious or didn’t believe in the occult began to believe that something sinister was happening in set. The film, in addition, to being plagued by strange occurrences was also surrounded by a lot of deaths.
This was the end of the horrors faced by Ronald Hunkeler. While he was a young teenager when he underwent an exorcism, it comes back to gaunt him in 1973. This was the year The Exorcist was released and Ribald who had kept his identity secret for decades fears it will be made public now especially as interest and fear surrounding the film grows. It didn’t but the fear remains and even to this day, the fear and fascination of the paranormal has continued to grow but it does present itself in diverse ways. Overall, I though Killing the Witches had some interesting points and stories but I was expecting to focus more heavily on the witch trials and what actually happening to the accused but it glosses over this in favour of looking at the politics of the situation and the ramifications they had later on. The title I would say is a little misleading since almost half of the book look at the American Revolution, the Founding of America and things that happened long after the witch trials rather than the trials themselves.
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Comments