"The Devil Hath Been Raised Amongst Us"
An introduction to the infamous Salem Witch Trials, which took New England by storm in 1692.
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In the center of Lappin Park, a small oasis in Salem’s bustling downtown, visitors will find a witch.
There are lots of witches in Salem, you might be thinking. But this witch is a bronze statue: a coifed 1960s housewife riding a broom. A crescent moon stands in the background.
She can only be Samantha Stevens, played by Elizabeth Montgomery—the protagonist of the hit television sitcom Bewitched. The statue was erected in 2005 to commemorate eight special episodes of the show that were filmed in Salem in 1970. The statue divided residents of the city, with some feeling that Salem’s “Witch City” branding trivialized the brutal history of its witch trials.1
Witch trials were a ubiquitous scourge in early modern Europe, so perhaps it’s not surprising that the phenomenon would reach the New World via British colonizers. The Salem Witch Trials are not the largest, nor the deadliest trials in history. But when we conjure images of monstrous judges and conniving accusers, many of us don’t think of Trier in 1581, or Edinburgh in 1590, or Cologne in 1626. First, we think of Salem. It’s a history that the people of Massachusetts spent centuries trying to forget.
Despite efforts by the victims’ families to properly memorialize their ancestors, local leaders wrung their hands about what to do—should there be some kind of memorial? Couldn’t they just pretend it never happened?
The shift came in the mid-20th century, thanks to the publication of Marion Starkey’s The Devil in Massachusetts (1949), a bestselling nonfiction account of the trials, followed by Arthur Miller’s hit play, The Crucible (1953), which served as an allegory for the Red Scare and the McCarthy Trials. In 1966, the Parker Brothers board game company (of Monopoly fame) bought the rights to make Ouija boards. At the time, their factory was based in Salem, and their location provided powerful marketing for the spooky game.2

When Bewitched premiered its Salem episodes four years later, the moniker of “Witch City” became permanent, and Salem saw a massive increase in tourism. Once a struggling post-industrial city, Salem has been buoyed by “witch tourism,” complete with occult shops, ghost tours, psychic parlors, and of course, Haunted Happenings—the month-long extravaganza that takes flight every autumn. Last year, Salem received a record 1.2 million visitors during the month of October alone.3
I don’t blame the city for using its history, however morbid, to bring in revenue. I myself have always wanted to visit Salem during October, and if any of you have had the chance, just know that I am jealous. Today, the city does have a proper memorial at Proctor’s Ledge, the site beneath Gallows Hill where the actual executions took place. But it is important to remember the very real pain and human loss—not just in Salem, but all of the witch trials that tore communities apart during this turbulent period of history.
Over the next few weeks, we will get to know the judges, accusers, and victims who populate this tale. But first, let’s go back to 1692 and explore the events that launched the trials.
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