The Salem Witch Trials - Part I: Satanic Panic | Ep. 29

In the winter of 1692, two young girls in Salem Village, Massachusetts, began suffering from a mysterious affliction. Before long, their suffering would be attributed to something far more frightening than illness. In Part I of The Salem Witch Trials, we return to seventeenth-century Puritan New England, where belief in the Devil and witchcraft shaped everyday life. As religious divisions, frontier warfare, and growing tensions unsettled the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the community of Salem struggled with conflicts of its own. When the daughter and niece of Reverend Samuel Parris began exhibiting strange symptoms, the fears that had long troubled this community were about to take a devastating turn. Related Reading: The Salem Witch Hunt: A Brief History with Documents — Richard Godbeer Memorable Providences, Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions (1689) — Cotton Mather The Wonders of the Invisible World (1693) — Cotton Mather An Essay for the Recording of Illustrious Providences (1684) — Increase Mather Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits (1692) — Increase Mather A Modest Enquiry into the Nature of Witchcraft (1702)- John Hale The Crucible (1953) — Arthur Miller The Devil in Massachusetts: A Modern Enquiry into the Salem Witch Trials (1949) - Marion L. StarkeyA Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience — Emerson W. Baker The Salem Witch Trials: A Day-by-Day Chronicle of a Community Under Siege — Marilynne K. Roach In the Devil's Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692 — Mary Beth Norton Giles Corey of the Salem Farms (1868) — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow