![]() ![]() ![]() Combine that with the prevailing Puritanical religious attitudes of the time–which considered the Indian Wars to be the work of the devil and the result of God’s unhappiness with the settlers–add a bit of political and economic turmoil, the age-old tendency of those in power to cover up their mistakes, and the effects of post-traumatic stress syndrome, and you have most of the ingredients in historian Mary Beth Norton’s new book, In the Devil’s Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692. Surrounded by a vast, unknown wilderness occupied by Indian tribes that frequently emerged like painted demons from that wilderness to raid settlements in sometimes brutal fashion, hacking men, women, and children to death, burning homes, and destroying livestock, it’s no wonder these early settlers grew somewhat hysterical. ![]() Considering the enormous fear and paranoia that a sniper caused the general public in and around Washington, D.C., and that the war on terrorism has apparently caused the whole world, it is not hard to imagine how seventeenth-century settlers in New England must have felt during the two Indian Wars. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |