In the Devil's Snare

Norton argues that the wars with the Wabanakis along the northeastern frontier in Maine established the conditions for the Salem witch crisis. To support her argument, she documents the connections that the people involved in this crisis—the accusers, accused, and authorities—had to the wars in Maine. For instance, Mercy Lewis, the leader of the accusers, lost her family in one of the Wabanaki attacks in Maine. As a result, she was a maidservant in the Putnam household in Salem Village, where she undoubtedly influenced Ann Putnam, Jr., to join her in making the accusations. Other accusers—like Mercy Short, who had been captured by the Wabanakis and had witnessed them killing and torturing other settlers—also had connections to the Maine war, and Norton deduces that their fear and trauma from those experiences led them to accuse people of witchcraft, perhaps as a way of making sense of such violence. Many settlers had fled to Essex County when the wars raged, and they spread tales throughout the region about the nature of the Wabanaki attacks, which struck fear in most people. The authorities involved in the crisis also had connections to the war, like the magistrates Hathorne and Corwin.