At its head sat a barely literate man, rude and reckless, a rascally treasure hunter installed by a beleaguered group of purists eager to safeguard their privileges and padlock their ranks.

Together they had recently sent a royal governor packing, in a political coup they had a fledgling administration to support. The political élite had reason to embrace the trials. Over several days, a twentieth would be crushed under stones, for contempt of court.īehind those witchcraft prosecutions-not Massachusetts’s first, but forever its most infamous-stood the colony’s best-educated men. A special court prosecuted the cases according to the law of the land. By some counts as many as seven hundred witches flew about Massachusetts.

Fingers pointed in every direction as friends and families accused one another. Beginning with three more or less usual suspects, they ended in a colony-wide epidemic. Strictly speaking, the Salem witch trials were less a hunt than a free-for-all. It’s worth revisiting, as it happens to offer a few lessons about name-calling, special prosecutors, and abuses of power. The greatest witch hunt in American history, of course, occurred in 1692, not 2017. Even the ancients complained of ignorance about the past and inaccuracies on the page. It didn’t take long for our President to declare the appointment of a special counsel for the Russia inquiry “the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history.” Historical literacy has never been for everyone.

Witch hunt