![]() Her questions about the Salem settlers resonate today: How do women express themselves when they are meant to be silent? How are their words interpreted or mangled? How does a society handle female self-expression and empowerment? In her new book, The Witches: Salem, 1692 (Little, Brown), Pulitzer Prize-winning author Stacy Schiff paints a portrait of a dark, unsettled time when the colony braced itself daily against Indian attack and English oversight, and when anxiety rippled just under the surface.Īside from suffrage, for Schiff the Salem witch trials represent the only other moment when women played a central role in American history. Suspicions flew as neighbors accused neighbors, children accused their parents, and siblings each other. The panic spread quickly, involving the most educated men and prominent politicians in the fledgling colony. It ended less than a year later, after 19 men and women-and two dogs-had been executed for witchcraft. ![]() It began in 1692, over an exceptionally cold Massachusetts winter, when a minister’s daughter began to scream and convulse. ![]()
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